Mark Lawrenson believes that West Ham and Aston Villa will play out a 1-1 draw this weekend when the two sides meet in the Premier League.
The Hammers go into the game well aware that they need a win to keep their hat firmly in the top-four ring.
Villa have been in very good form in recent weeks and have won all of their last three games, beating Brighton, Southampton, and Leeds by scorelines of 2-0, 4-0, and 3-0 respectively.
By comparison, the Irons have been beaten by Sevilla in the Europa League, Southampton in the FA Cup, and Liverpool in the league.
Lawro believes that the two sides are likely to somewhat cancel each other out and believes that they will share the points.
As it stands, Villa are ninth in the league with 36 points, nine points behind the Irons.
Writing in his BBC Sport column, Lawro backed a 1-1 draw in the game, saying: “Not many teams play with two strikers anymore but using Ollie Watkins and Danny Ings together is working for Aston Villa.
“It helps that they put a real shift in off the ball but it is all about getting the balance right in midfield and attack, and giving Philippe Coutinho a more central role is another good move by Villa boss Steven Gerrard.
“If Coutinho is playing on the left and cutting in then that is absolutely fine, but if you put him in the middle then he is going to see more of the ball and have even more influence on games. He was brilliant against Southampton last week.
“West Ham’s top-four hopes have been dented by their recent results – they have only won one of their past four league games – but they actually played well at Anfield last weekend and were very unlucky to lose.
“The Hammers’ squad isn’t strong enough to rotate properly so they really miss certain players when they are out, but they will have Declan Rice back in their side on Sunday, which is a boost.
“This should be a really good contest, because both teams will think they can win it.”
