West Ham v Tottenham: Spurs to edge Hammers in London derby

Tottenham Hotspur travel to West Ham United in the Premier League’s Monday night fixture at Upton Park.

The Hammers have lost their early season momentum and currently lie in 13th place, priced as the 23/10 underdogs for victory.

While Spurs are not exactly flying at the moment they remain in that crucial fourth spot just a point ahead of local rivals Arsenal, and look worth backing at 6/5 to beat struggling West Ham.

The draw is also a 23/10 bet, but has only occurred once in the two club’s last eight meetings.

Andre Villas-Boas’ side are proving a hard team to beat, with the North London outfit having lost just one game from their last 14 fixtures in all competitions.

Punters wary of Spurs travelling to East London – where they lost 1-0 last season – maybe more confident by supporting the visitors in the draw no bet market at 8/15.

Given Tottenham’s resolute recent performances it appears a banker that they won’t lose to Sam Allardyce’s team, who have won just two of their last 11 league matches.

The Upton Park fans will be in loud voice for the visit of their London rivals, and in Andy Carroll they retain a goalscoring threat, but Spurs avoided defeat in Lyon to progress in the Europa League and will be confident of returning to White Hart Lane with a point at the very least.

Carroll scored during the Hammers’ recent victory over Swansea, while he also found the net against Tottenham in the reverse fixture in North London back in November, which the home side won 3-1.

Given the superior Spurs side backing Carroll to score first at 7/1 is good value but ambitious, while his price of 11/5 to strike anytime is still worth considering. Meanwhile, if Carroll scores the first or last goal, punters will receive their money back as a free bet on losing first scorer bets.

For the away side, it’s hard to look past Gareth Bale who is a short 11/8 to score anytime and 5/1 punt to break the deadlock.

Given the Welshman has scored seven goals in his last six games for club and country taking his tally to 21 for the season, either of those bets are tempting and he also fired in this fixture earlier in the season.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.