West Ham United v Everton Sunday, November 8, 3pm Upton Park EVERTON must be considered something of a bogey team for West Ham. They have managed only one draw against the Toffees in their last five league and cup games, and that includes the Merseysiders

West Ham United v Everton

Sunday, November 8, 3pm

Upton Park

EVERTON must be considered something of a bogey team for West Ham.

They have managed only one draw against the Toffees in their last five league and cup games, and that includes the Merseysiders scoring a double over them last season with two 3-1 victories.

Louis Saha scored twice in both games last term and he will be looking to force his way into the starting line-up to try and repeat the feat on Sunday and add to his six-goal tally in the Premier League already this term.

Saha will be joined by either Yakubu or Marouane Fellaini up front, but it is at the other end of the field where the real interest will lie for West Ham supporters.

Sunday should see the return of last season's Hammers' captain Lucas Neill, and he is likely to receive something of a hostile reception when he runs out at Upton Park.

He has made a useful start to his time at Goodison Park - just as he did when he arrived at West Ham - and he will certainly want to prove to the Hammers' board that they should have done more to keep him at the club.

On the face if it, this could be a good time to play David Moyes' side.

They have lost three of their four Premier League games away from Goodison, and their one win was only a 1-0 victory at Portsmouth.

Defeats at Burnley (1-0), Fulham (2-1) and Bolton (3-2) have seen them struggling a little in the league and they have 12 points from 10 games, to sit in a lowly 13th place.

Couple that with the fact that they must take on Benfica in the Europa League on Thursday night, the team who thrashed them 5-0 last week in Portugal, and the odds are beginning to stack towards the Hammers, though they do play a day earlier.

Everton were fairly quiet in the transfer market during the summer, with the biggest news being the departure of Joleon Lescott to Manchester City for �22million.

Lars Jacobsen also departed to Blackburn, but Moyes moved to bring in Sylvain Distin to bolster the defence, as well as Dutch international Johnny Heitinga, Diniyar Bilyaletdinov, who will miss Sunday's game through suspension, and, of course, Neill.

The last time West Ham beat Everton was back in 2007 when Bobby Zamora scored the only goal of the game at Upton Park, but there is just a feeling that now may be the time to add to that winning tally.

It won't be easy, Everton are always a difficult team to play against, and with the likes of Tim Cahill and Saha they will certainly be a handful.

But West Ham need to start winning and hopefully buoyed by a good result against Aston Villa they should just sneak all three points.

POSSIBLE TEAM: Howard, Neill, Yobo, Distin, Baines, Pienaar, Cahill, Heitinga, Rodwell, Fellaini, Saha.

Prediction:

West Ham 2 Everton 1