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Declan Rice of Arsenal. Photo by Robbie Jay Barratt - AMA/Getty Images

Premier League Game of the Week: Declan Rice returns to West Ham with a title race on the line

By Alyssa Clang | Last updated 2/8/24

West Ham and Arsenal’s 2023-24 seasons are inextricably linked, thanks to the big-money transfer of Declan Rice from one to the other last summer. If Arsenal wins the Premier League this season, many will speculate that Rice was the deciding factor; if West Ham falter, many will say the same thing. Rice’s presence in the league is so big, so blinding, so transformational that he’s causing headlines and predictions even in his absence from clubs.

For two teams drawn so closely together, West Ham and Arsenal are on very different journeys this year. West Ham entered 2023-24 on the back of a terrible 2022-23 Premier League campaign that was largely forgotten thanks to its shock Europa Conference League victory that summer. But it hit the ground running this season, racking up win after win thanks to stellar attacking gameplay from Lucas Paqueta, Edson Alvares and Mohammed Kudus.

West Ham’s gorgeous start to the season came to a head when it faced Arsenal in December and beat it 2-0; since then, however, it has yet to win, playing out three draws in a row before getting walloped 3-0 by Manchester United. West Ham enters this weekend on the back of some confidence-dashing results and with little momentum.

Arsenal ended last season frustrated by its final-day capitulation of the Premier League title to Manchester City. Its signing of Rice over the summer showed that it wasn’t ready to back down, and the Arsenal of this season has looked sleeker, hungrier and more incisive than the Arsenal that folded in 2022/3. While it hit a rough patch over the winter, culminating with that 2-0 loss to West Ham, it’s been all smiles since, pulling off season-defining victories over Crystal Palace (5-0) and Liverpool (3-1) to get its title charge back on track. Arsenal enters this week full of vim and vigor.

Two teams, then, on opposite trajectories, tied together by the season-defining move of one talented English player. How will it all shake out? Here’s what we’re keeping an eye on:

Result. Arsenal may be favored here, but it was West Ham who triumphed when these two met back in December: it won 2-0 thanks to goals from Tomas Soucek and Konstantinos Mavropanos. While West Ham has proven itself capable of cutting through Arsenal’s defense, it’s going to have to make up for a lot of missing momentum to grab a win this time around. We think an Arsenal victory is the safest bet at -188, while a draw offers a cheeky potential payout at +333.

Goalscorer and Goal Type. All eyes will be on ex-West Ham midfielder Declan Rice in this one: can he score against his former club to help solidify Arsenal’s title challenge? It’s a long shot at +600 but one worth considering for fans of Rice’s iconoclastic gameplay. (He’s the most attacking defensive midfielder we’ve seen in a long while.) While the rest of the world frets over Rice, though, we’ll have our eyes on Czech midfielder Tomas Soucek. He’s known for coming up in big games for the Hammers and found the back of the net against Arsenal last time around. He's at +750 to score and +2200 to score with a header — both are intriguing long-shot options.

Halftime Result. Arsenal has made something of a habit out of scoring early: it’s found the back of the net before the halftime mark in four of its last six Premier League games. West Ham, meanwhile, is slightly more likely to score late (though not as likely as Liverpool, who remains the absolute undisputed king of Premier League late goals.) With these tendencies in mind, betting on Arsenal to be ahead at halftime feels like a decent shout at +105.

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