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West Ham: Areola, Wan-Bissaka, Diouf, Kilman, Todibo, Potts, Fernandes, Paqueta, Bowen (C), Summerville, Wilson
Subs: Hermansen, Walker-Peters, Igor, Guilherme, Rodriguez, Golambeckis, Magassa, Soucek, Irving

Burnley: Dubravka, Walker, Tuanzebe, Esteve, Hartman, Florentino, Cullen (C), Anthony, Ugochukwu, Flemming, Tchaouna
Subs: Weib, Bruun Larson, Foster, Edwards, Eldal, Pires, Broja, Hannibal, Laurent

The classic Christmas Premier League theory entails that if you’re in or lurking near the bottom three come Christmas time, you tend to be a goner.

If you take the previous two seasons and look at the table by Christmas, five of the six teams in the drop zone would get relegated, the only outlier being Wolves last season, who were on 12 points with 17 games played, Leicester who were two points above them, would fall victim to the drop.

As the Hammers defeated Newcastle 3-1 in a rather defensive style of fashion, you have to raise the question of what’s been different in comparison to the past few matches?

The defensive pairing didn’t change, and we were still forced to use Jean-Mare as well as Max Killjoy, yet still managed to get a result whilst also embarrassing Newcastle’s record signing of £68,500,000, keeping him the quietest anyone managed this season. Nick Wolte-Made in China must’ve turned up on the day!