West Ham United v Wigan Athletic
Barclays Premier League
Boleyn Ground
Saturday 23 April 2010
3pm
Referee: Alan Wiley
• West Ham United welcome Wigan Athletic for their penultimate home match of the 2009/10 season knowing that a victory would put them firmly in the driving seat for top-flight survival.
• Gianfranco Zola's head into the weekend three points clear of the drop zone and four behind their opponents who will be confident of their own safety with three matches to play. Hull City are the Hammers closest rivals from the drop zone, although with a far inferior goal difference of -40 compared to -19.
• Wigan are the only club that West Ham have faced in each of the last six seasons, as they were also in the Championship in 2003/04 and 2004/05 before gaining promotion to the top-flight in May 2005.
• This is the 14th league meeting between the two sides. West Ham have won six, Wigan have won five and there have been two draws.
• There has never been a goalless draw between the clubs.
• The Hammers are looking to secure back to back wins at the Boleyn after a 1-0 success against Sunderland a fortnight ago.
• Zola will welcome back Scott Parker after the Hammer of the Year - and the SBOBET Player of the Month for March - was suspended for the matches against Sunderland and Liverpool. It remains to be seen if Luis Boa Morte will get a first outing this season since recovering from a serious knee injury suffered back in July.
• Boa Morte's only goal for West Ham came against Wigan Athletic almost exactly three years ago - on 28 April 2007 - when the Hammers won 3-0 as part of a run of seven wins out of their final nine games that meant survival was assured on the last day of the season.
• Wigan go into the match on the back of a tremendous fightback last weekend against Arsenal. They went into the last ten minutes two down, only to battle back and score three late goals for a 3-2 win.
• The last meeting at the Boleyn Ground came on 16 August 2008, when two quickfire goals from Dean Ashton put the Hammers in front on the opening day of the season before Amr Zaki set nerves jangling just after half-time. The home side hung on for a 2-1 win.
West Ham United: Green, Behrami, Davenport, Upson, Neill, Faubert (Boa Morte 86), Parker (Mullins 72), Noble, Etherington, Ashton (Sears 73), Cole
Subs not used: Lastuvka, Reid, Bowyer, Spence
Goals: Ashton 3, 10
Wigan Athletic: Kirkland, Melchiot (De Ridder 83), Scharner (Koumas 83), Boyce, Figueroa, Valencia, Cattermole (Sibierski 85), Palacios, Kapo, Heskey, Zaki
Subs not used: Pollitt, Kilbane, Brown, Bramble
Goal: Zaki 47
Last time out
Monday 19 April 2010
Barclays Premier League
Liverpool 3-0 West Ham United
West Ham United: Green, Upson, Spector (Daprela 80), Da Costa, Kovac, Noble, Behrami, Faubert, Stanislas (Franco 45), Cole (McCarthy 72), Ilan
Subs not used: Kurucz, Gabbidon, Diamanti, Mido
Sunday 18 April 2010
Barclays Premier League
Wigan Athletic 3-2 Arsenal
Wigan: Kirkland, Bramble, Gohouri, Melchiot, Figueroa, Watson (Scharner 89), 'Zogbia, Diame, McCarthy, Rodallega, Moreno (Moses 62)
Subs not used: Stojkovic, Scotland, Sinclair, Boyce, Gomez
Goals: Watson 80, Bramble 89, 'Zogbia 90
Last meeting
The teams last met on Saturday 12 September 2009, when a solitary Hugo Rodallega strike settled the contest in Wigan's favour.
Wigan Athletic: Kirkland, Bramble, Melchiot, Boyce, Figueroa, Koumas (Scharner 66), 'Zogbia, Diame, Gomez (Sinclair 89), Thomas, Rodallega (Scotland 73)
Subs not used: Pollitt, Edman, King, Cho
Goal: Rodallega 55
West Ham United: Green, Gabbidon, Upson, Tomkins, Parker, Kovac (Behrami 63), Noble (Nouble 86), Faubert, Stanislas (Diamanti 63), Cole, Hines
Subs not used: Kurucz, Jimenez, Da Costa, Collison
Last six meetings (Premier League unless stated)
12 September 2009 - Wigan Athletic 1-0 West Ham United
4 March 2009 - Wigan Athletic 0-1 West Ham United
16 August 2008 - West Ham United 2-1 Wigan Athletic
2 February 2008 - Wigan Athletic 1-0 West Ham United
25 August 2007 - West Ham United 1-1 Wigan Athletic
28 April 2007 - Wigan Athletic 0-3 West Ham United
Overall record v Wigan Athletic (all competitions) W 8 D 2 L 5
Next up
• West Ham United will travel to Fulham on Sunday week for their penultimate fixture of the season, a day before Wigan take on the Hammers' relegation rivals Hull on Bank Holiday Monday. West Ham finish the season on 9 May at home to Manchester City, when Hull will be at home to Liverpool and Wigan travel to Chelsea.
Referee
• Saturday's referee is Alan Wiley, who took charge of the reverse fixture at the DW Stadium back in September.
• Aged 49, Wiley has been a Premier League referee since 1999.
• Wiley has taken charge of the 2002 FA Community Shield, the 2006 League Cup final and, famously, the 2006 FA Cup final between West Ham United and Liverpool.
• Wiley, who also refereed the 2008 Championship play-off final between Hull City and Bristol City, has taken control of three West Ham matches so far this season - the 1-0 defeat at Wigan Athletic on 12 September, the 2-1 home loss to Everton on 8 November and the 3-0 reverse at Manchester United on 23 February.
West Ham United
• Carlton Cole, with nine goals to date this campaign, has still never scored two goals in a game for West Ham.
• Robert Green is on a run of 123 consecutive starts in the Barclays Premier League.
• Alessandro Diamanti's eight goals in all competitions put him just one behind top scorer Carlton Cole.
• In terms of attacking ambition, Diamanti leads the Hammers statistics in terms of shots (81), shots on target (44), shots off target (37) and assists (4).
• Behrami celebrated his 25th birthday on Monday, the day after Matthew Upson turned 31.
• Mark Noble made his 100th Barclays Premier League appearance on Monday.
• West Ham have scored 41 goals this season in the league with 15 different players on target. Carlton Cole leads the way (nine), with Alessandro Diamanti (seven), Guille Franco (four), Matthew Upson and Ilan (both three) next in line. Jack Collison, Mark Noble, Junior Stanislas and Manuel da Costa have each scored twice. Finally, the departed Luis Jimenez, Zavon Hines, Radoslav Kovac, Valon Behrami, Julien Faubert and Scott Parker have also registered. An own-goal from Everton's Tony Hibbert completes the tally.
• No team has been awarded more penalties than West Ham in the top flight this season, with nine awarded to the Hammers and seven converted.
Wigan Athletic
• Wigan have Hugo Rodallega leading the way this season in terms of shots (122), shots on target (77), shots off target (45) and assists (7). He has also been caught offside (17) more times than any other Latics player.
• Rodallega is the only Wigan player to have started every one of their 35 league matches this season.
• Rodallega has scored nine goals this season, making him the club's top scorer.
• Wigan have not scored inside the first ten minutes of any Barclays Premier League match this season.
• Wigan have lost their last four away matches, and scored just one goal in the process.
Team news
• Scott Parker, after suspension, and Luis Boa Morte, after missing the whole season to date with an anterior cruciate ligament injury suffered on 24 July, are both back in contention for places in the midfield. Boa Morte played 90 minutes in a reserve-team friendly at Tottenham Hotspur on Tuesday.
• Herita Ilunga (tendon injury), James Tomkins (ankle), Kieron Dyer (hamstring) are all unable to return to the squad. It remains to be seen if they will figure again this season.
• Zavon Hines will not play again this season with a knee injury, while Jack Collison is also not expected to feature with his own knee problem.
• Wigan have central defender Gary Caldwell back from suspension and their only absentee is Hendry Thomas.
Old boys
• Among the players who have represented both clubs are Roy Carroll, Henri Camara and Bill Wade.
General information
• For ticket information, click here. For details on getting to the Boleyn Ground, click here
• Saturday's weather forecast is for a sunny day with temperatures peaking at 19C.