Freiburg vs West Ham Prediction: Hosts to frustrate Hammers in third encounter this season

West Ham United head to familiar territory on Thursday night (20:00) as they take on Freiburg at Europa-Park Stadion in the first leg of their Europa League round of 16 tie.

The two sides were rivals in the group stage of this year's competition and the Hammers prevailed both home and away, but we're expecting more fight from the hosts on this occasion. Here are our Freiburg vs West Ham predictions, including the generic match odds and team news.

Match Odds

Freiburg are 6/4 to get the win here. West Ham are 9/5 to pick up their second victory in Freiburg im Breisgau this season, while the draw can be backed at 12/5.

Both teams to score is valued at 4/6 and over 2.5 goals is 5/6.

Vincenzo Grifo (four), Mohammed Kudus and Lucas Paqueta (both three) are the top scorers for Freiburg and West Ham respectively in the Europa League this season. Grifo is 5/2 to score anytime, while Kudus and Paqueta can be backed at 12/5 and 9/2 respectively in the same market.

Team News

Daniel Kofi-Kyereh, Max Rosenfelder, Lukas Kubler and Kenneth Schmidt remain sidelined through injury for Freiburg.

For the Hammers, only Maxwel Cornet is unavailable for this fixture due to injury. Lukasz Fabianski could return in between the sticks in place of first-choice goalkeeper Alphonse Areola.

Draw and both teams to score Yes @ 16/5

After losing to West Ham home and away in the group stage, Freiburg will be eager for some revenge in this crunch round of 16 tie. They head into this home leg in a confident mood after holding Bayern Munich to a draw last Friday in the Bundesliga.

West Ham will head to Germany in high spirits themselves after beating Everton 3-1 on Saturday, and after taking care of Freiburg twice already in this campaign, they may not foresee too many problems in their third meeting.

This may lead to some naivety from the Hammers as Freiburg will be desperate to take the advantage in this tie with their home leg coming first. West Ham will face a fight in Freiburg im Breisgau and while they will look to be competitive, they may look ahead to the second leg on home soil to secure their qualification into the quarter-finals.

Lucas Paqueta to score anytime @ 9/2

Paqueta is an influential player for West Ham and the team are so much more successful when he is involved. The Brazilian has netted three times in Europe this season and one of them has already come against Thursday's opponents, so he will fancy himself to get on the scoresheet in round three against them.

He is dangerous from open play and set-pieces and when he is on-song, he is almost unplayable, and that is when we tend to see David Moyes' side at their best. We think Paqueta could be a shrewd selection to score in this one.