West Ham vs. Viborg Betting Tips: Back The Hammers & Under 4 goals in the capital

West Ham face Viborg live on BT Sport in the first leg of their Europa Conference League playoff tie on Thursday night. Here at BettingOdds, we’ve previewed the action and provided you with our best bets for the game from the London Stadium. 

Cast your minds back to the end of the 2021/2022 Premier League season and West Ham were beaten by Brighton on the final day, meaning the Hammers missed out on a second consecutive year in the Europa League. After reaching the semi-final of a European competition last term, David Moyes and his men should be motivated to become only the second winners of the Europa Conference League after Jose Mourinho and Roma lifted the trophy in May. 

It’s been two disappointing results so far in the League for West Ham, with back-to-back defeats against Manchester City and Nottingham Forest without scoring a goal. They now have a chance to give playing time to some of their new signings against Danish opposition Viborg who have already come through two qualifying rounds in this competition.

Viborg have beaten Lithuanian side Suduva and B36 Torshavn of the Faroe Islands so far on their way to setting up this play-off tie with West Ham, although they have lost twice in their opening five matches in the Danish top-flight this season. 

David Moyes is expected to make plenty of changes here with Manuel Lanzini, Gianluca Scamacca and Flynn Downes all expected to come into the starting line-up. Maxwel Cornet may have to settle for a place on the bench. 

Taking a look at the match result market, West Ham are priced odds-on at 2/9 to take a lead into the second leg back in Denmark in seven days time. Those odds imply an 81.8% chance that the hosts will come away victorious, although the selection we like the look of here is for West Ham to win and under 3.5 goals in the match at even money with BetVictor. 

Despite changes to the side that lost at Nottingham Forest last weekend West Ham should have more than any enough quality to see off Viborg. Said Benrahma, Gianluca Scamacca, Manuel Lanzini and possibly even Jarrod Bowen are expected to start in attack. I’m predicting that the club will take this tournament seriously this season and want to make up for the disappointments in their two league fixtures so far. Looking back at West Ham’s European run last term and all five of their games at the London Stadium featured under 3.5 goals, and with Viborg expected to sit deep and to try to keep themselves in the tie for the second leg, this looks the appropriate play here at even money. 

We’ll also be having a bit of loose change on new summer signing Gianluca Scamacca to open the scoring on Thursday evening, available at 4/1 with several firms. The Italian forward bagged on 16 occasions in Serie A last season at an impressive rate of 0.67 goals per 90 minutes. The 23-year-old has arrived with a big price tag from Sassuolo and will be chomping at the bit to get off the mark and impress the Hammers crowd in his first taste of European football. The 6ft 4 striker averaged an impressive 1.51 shots on target per 90 minutes in the league last season and can open his West Ham account with the opener against Viborg.