Simon Dalton presents his prediction for the Europa League match.
West Ham
West Ham can’t boast of solid defence. However, on their pitch they play carefully and the result is the main thing for them. This is why the Hammers have lost only twice at their stadium this season, including their match versus Manchester City (1:3). West Ham try to be even more careful and solid in the Europa League. Their opponents have managed to create over 1 xG only once out of the 5 games of the group stage.
Freiburg
The side had some problems at the beginning of the season, but now they play in a pragmatic way as it used to be. Freiburg have won their last 3 consecutive games, keeping the clean sheet. They’ve climbed higher in the German Bundesliga and have all chances to advance directly to the Round of 16 of the Europa League.
West Ham – Freiburg prediction
Freiburg are surprisingly the best scoring team of the Europa League group stage with 17 goals. Even Liverpool (16) and Bayer (14) have been more merciful to their opponents. It seems that we can expect to see many goals in this game, but I doubt it. The point is that most of these goals were scored against Olympiacos (5:0) and TSC (5:0).
I expect the teams to be very careful in their defensive actions.
