Premier League
KO:16:30
31/10/2021
Villa Park
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Sunday 11th May 2025
KO - 14:15
At Away
Old Trafford
Manchester United
Match Centre

West Ham United hit the road again on Sunday, when David Moyes' men take on Aston Villa at Villa Park in the Premier League.

The 4.30pm will see the Hammers seek to extend their winning run to five matches in all competitions following Premier League victories over Everton and Tottenham Hotspur, a UEFA Europa League win over KRC Genk and a thrilling penalty shootout success against Manchester City in the Carabao Cup.

The Irons also head to the Midlands with an unbeaten away record to protect. West Ham have not lost any of their six away matches this season, including four in the Premier League, and have not lost on their travels anywhere, in competitive or friendly matches, since being edged out at Newcastle United on 17 April, over six months ago.

West Ham did the double over Dean Smith's side last season, winning 2-1 at home and 3-1 at Villa Park.

Kick-off is at 4.30pm and the game will be broadcast live in the UK by Sky Sports, so you can cheer on Moyes' men from home if you're not one of the fortunate 3,012 Hammers heading to Villa Park this weekend.

 

Ticket News

All 3,012 standard tickets have been sold to Season Ticket Holders.

Fans travelling to Villa Park should read Aston Villa's matchday protocols and COVID guidance, which can be found by clicking here.

For both Wheelchair Viewing Spaces and Accessible (AEA), tickets are charged at the relevant price band. Please call our Ticket Office Team on 0333 030 0174 or email [email protected].

However, if you want to watch David Moyes' high-flying Hammers in action, tickets are on General Sale for our home games with Liverpool and Dinamo Zagreb, while Claret Members can secure seats for the Premier League visit of Brighton & Hove Albion. Click here to buy your tickets now!

 

How to follow the game

Sunday's game will be screened live in the UK by Sky Sports, but will be broadcast live in dozens of countries across the world. Overseas fans should click here to find out where to catch the match.

We will be covering the game live with a blog and audio commentary on whufc.com and our Official App and across our social media channels, with exclusive reaction to follow after the final whistle.

We will have goals and highlights for you on whufc.com from 8.30pm and 12midnight on Sunday respectively.

 

Team news

David Moyes is set to recall a number of regular Premier League starters to his team for Sunday's game.

Declan Rice, Michail Antonio, Kurt Zouma, Angelo Ogbonna and Lukasz Fabianski were all rested for Wednesday's Carabao Cup win over Manchester City.

However, the likes of Alphonse Areola, Craig Dawson, Issa Diop, Mark Noble, Manuel Lanzini, Arthur Masuaku, Andriy Yarmolenko and Nikola Vlašić all impressed and will hope to feature, while Vladimír Coufal returned from injury as a substitute and could return to the team.

Alex Král and Ryan Fredericks are both getting closer to a return to action.

Dean Smith will hope to have Burkina Faso forward Bertrand Traore available after a thigh injury, but Egypt winger Trezeguet is still on the sidelines with a knee problem.

 

The Opposition

Aston Villa are still seemingly coming to terms with the loss of lifelong fan, talismanic captain and England international attacking midfielder Jack Grealish, who joined Manchester City in a £100m deal in the summer.

Manager Dean Smith invested plenty of that money in a succession of new  and impressive signings, including England striker Danny Ings, Jamaica winger Leon Bailey, Spanish playmaker Emi Buendia and former England and Villa favourite Ashley Young.

Villa made a strong start, winning three of their opening six Premier League games, but have lost their last three, and they were also knocked out of the Carabao Cup on penalties at Chelsea in September.

Dean Smith

Those recent results have seen Smith's future called into question for the first time by some less patient Villa supporters, who feel the club should be kicking on after finishing eleventh last season.

That impatience seems very harsh, seeing as Smith - himself a lifelong Villa supporter - led the club to promotion in 2019 and the Carabao Cup final in 2020, and has seemingly established them as a Premier League club after three years in the relative wilderness of the Championship.

Expectations remain high at Villa, which is unarguably one of the best-supported clubs in the country and the biggest in England's second-largest city, but as West Ham fans know, it takes time to build a squad capable of challenging the top six.

The likeable Smith will surely be given time to arrest the recent slide and quieten those who claim he has 'taken the club as far as he can'.

 

Previous meetings

West Ham United are unbeaten in six Premier League meetings with Aston Villa, winning three, including both fixtures last season.

Angelo Ogbonna and Jarrod Bowen headed the Hammers to a 2-1 win at London Stadium in November 2020, before two goals from debutant Jesse Lingard and one from Tomáš Souček saw David Moyes' men score an impressive 3-1 victory at Villa Park in February this year.

Our biggest Premier League win over Villa was a 4-0 thrashing handed out at the Boleyn Ground on 12 September 2005, when future Villa striker Marlon Harewood helped himself to a hat-trick.

Marlon Harewood

When it comes to wins at Villa Park, we thumped our hosts 5-1 on 2 April 1927 in Division One, with Vic Watson netting twice.

Overall, our biggest victory over Villa was a 7-2 Division One success on 30 August 1958, when Vic Keeble, John Dick and Malcolm Musgrove each scored two goals.

 

Match Officials

Referee: Chris Kavanagh
Assistant Referees: Dan Cook & Nick Hopton
Fourth Official: David Coote
VAR: Stuart Attwell
Assistant VAR: Harry Lennard

Chris Kavanagh takes charge of a West Ham United fixture for the first time this season on Sunday.

A member of the Manchester Football Association, Kavanagh is in his fourth season as a Select Group referee.

Born in Manchester in 1985, Kavanagh was 13 when he began his refereeing career, moving up through the non-league pyramid to the National League in 2012, aged 27.

Kavanagh was promoted to the Football League in 2014 before refereeing his first Premier League fixture between West Bromwich Albion and Southampton in April 2017.

In all, Kavanagh has refereed nearly 300 senior matches, including 91 Premier League games, UEFA Champions League and Europa League ties, friendly internationals, UEFA Euro 2020 qualifiers and UEFA Nations League ties.

Kavanagh’s first West Ham United appointment was the FA Cup fourth-round defeat at Wigan Athletic in January 2018. Since then, he has taken charge of 12 Premier League fixtures featuring the Hammers, with the most recent being the 1-0 home defeat by Chelsea in April this year

 


Aston Villa 1-4 West Ham United
Premier League

West Ham United maintained their unbeaten away record in 2021/22 with a dismantling of ten-man Aston Villa on Sunday afternoon.

David Moyes’ side notched twice either side of the break to record a 4-1 win and move level on points with third-placed Manchester City. Never before in our Premier League history have we had 20 points from the first ten games of a campaign.

After Ben Johnson fired the Hammers into an early lead, the home side flickered with Ollie Watkins’ leveller, only for Declan Rice to quickly restore the advantage.

Ezri Konsa’s red card early in the second half hampered his team’s efforts, although they did keep pushing until the Hammers took the contest away from them in the closing stages through goals from Pablo Fornals and Jarrod Bowen.

After making eight changes to his side for the midweek Carabao Cup win over Manchester City, Hammers boss Moyes reverted to the eleven who had triumphed in their past two Premier League outings, and they immediately set about trying to exploit any early Villa nerves.

The hosts had lost their previous three games and were passive in their defending in the early exchanges, allowing Rice to sweep a ball out to Johnson far too easily in the seventh minute.

Left-back Matt Targett stood off the Hammers defender, and he too advantage by stepping inside and shooting across home goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez and into the bottom left-hand corner.

West Ham kept their foot on the gas in those opening exchanges, and Bowen was only denied a second by a vital headed block by Matty Cash from close range. The No20’s 16th minute strike was surely destined for the net had Cash’s touch not taken it over the bar.

With Moyes’ men working hard off the ball and limiting Villa’s space effectively, they hadn’t really come under threat before Watkins levelled somewhat out of the blue with 34 minutes played.

John McGinn’s clever reverse ball allowed Emiliano Buendia to get the wrong side of Fornals and advance to the by-line, where he cut back for Watkins to finish low and hard from 12 yards.

The Hammers responded in perfect fashion, though, retaking the lead a mere four minutes later. Again, the home side were guilty of allowing the Hammers to play their football in front of them, giving Saïd Benrahma the room he needed to lay-off to Rice 25 yards out, and the visitors’ skipper was able to take a touch before drilling home via the foot of the left-hand post.

 

 

The Hammers celebrate Declan Rice's goal

 

If Villa were in trouble at the break, their task was made all the harder two minutes into the second half when Konsa was dismissed by referee Chris Kavanagh.

The home defender looked to have initially have escaped with a booking for his foul on Bowen just outside the box, but Kavanagh was called to his pitchside monitor by VAR Stuart Attwell and decided that he had, in fact, denied a clear goalscoring opportunity.

Despite that, Villa were a whisker away from levelling again on 57 minutes when Watkins got up to head goalwards from eight yards, but Łukasz Fabiański reacted superbly to touch his effort onto the crossbar.

To the home side’s credit, the kept the Hammers honest and had spells of momentum until Moyes’ side made the game safe in the final ten minutes.

Fornals scored their third, following in with impeccable timing to knock into the net after Martínez had denied Bowen with a strong hand down low to his right.

There would be no denying Bowen just four minutes later though, as Michail Antonio and Manuel Lanzini combined, with the latter unselfishly squaring for Bowen to convert with Villa hopelessly stretched.

The jubilant away end broke into the olés as the Hammers were able to enjoy the closing stages knowing they had registered yet another away performance to make the league take notice.

Aston Villa: Martínez, Cash, Hause, Konsa, Targett, Nakamba, McGinn, J.Ramsey (Young 15), Buendia (Mings 52), Bailey (El Ghazi 72), Watkins
Subs: Steer (GK), Tuanzebe, Chukwuemeka, Archer, Davis, A.Ramsey

Goal: Watkins 34

Booked: McGinn

Sent-off: Konsa

West Ham United: Fabiański, Johnson, Zouma, Ogbonna, Cresswell, Rice, Souček, Bowen (Coufal 90), Benrahma (Lanzini 64), Fornals (Vlašić 90), Antonio
Subs: Areola (GK), Dawson, Diop, Masuaku, Noble, Yarmolenko

Goals: Johnson 7, Rice 38, Fornals 80, Bowen 84

Booked: Fornals, Bowen

Referee: Chris Kavanagh

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