West Ham aiming for first win against traditional ‘big six’ clubs this season

By Andy Sims, PA

David Moyes has one last chance to avoid a damning statistic when West Ham host Manchester United on Sunday.

The Hammers, battling to stay in the Premier League, have yet to beat one of the traditional ‘big six’ clubs this season.

Home draws with Tottenham, Chelsea and Arsenal are the only points they have taken from 11 fixtures, with Wednesday’s 3-0 defeat at Manchester City completing a miserable set of six away losses.

Last season West Ham beat Liverpool, Tottenham and Chelsea on their way to finishing seventh, but this term has been a grim battle against relegation.

“I actually thought last year, we were due to beat some of the big teams and we did,” said Moyes.

“Some of the games we gave them really good games and of course, there were some games that we couldn’t really compete. I remember beating Liverpool and a couple of others last season.

“This year, we don’t feel as if we’ve been quite at that level, I am not saying we have been far off, but we’ve been trying to get back to it.

“I just think we are in a little bit better form than we were earlier on in the season. We played well at Old Trafford, we were a little bit unlucky at Chelsea away, even against Arsenal we were 1-0 up at half-time and we’ve just come back from Manchester City being 0-0 at half-time.

“So a lot of these games we have been in them and even Arsenal we got back to 2-2 after being 2-0 down. I think we’ve been close in a lot of the games, whether we’ve just been tipped over the edge to win them like we were last year, we’ve not shown it as much this season.”

Declan Rice, Tomas Soucek and Nayef Aguerd are expected to return after missing the City match due to being laid low by a sickness bug in the camp.