Mark Lawrenson has decided to celebrate his Christmas by predicting a Hammers defeat at the hands of a team who have previously been unable to beat them in several outings.

His bizarre suggestion is that the sticky patch we are currently experiencing will continue with a 2-1 defeat despite the Hammers only having been beaten twice at home in the Premier League this season.

Never mind, he has his reasons I suppose and many see it as the kiss of death when he tips us to win anyway.

I suppose it’s part of his job to be as controversial as possible and the prediction business obviously  lends itself to such stuff.

The injuries we have suffered are indeed a problem with Aaron Cresswell’s being notable along with Kurt Zouma and Angelo Ogbonna’s.

It gives him a reason to make sure that he tips Saints although our view this is where we bounce back with a 2-0 win.

Writing in his BBC column he declares: “West Ham have hit a bit of a sticky patch and it’s no surprise it has coincided with them suffering a few injuries to key players at a time they have had a lot of games.

It will help the Hammers if Michail Antonio is back to lead the line after a period isolating with Covid, but I can see their bad run continuing.

Southampton are a difficult team to predict and they haven’t won for a while either – six games to be exact – but if West Ham don’t play well again and this gets scrappy, then I can see Saints nicking it.”

Lawro’s prediction: 1-2