Match Preview: Brighton v West Ham United
After a nightmare run of facing all of last season’s top four in their first seven games of the season, Brighton and Hove Albion now embark on an “easier” run of games which could define their second Premier League campaign.
The Albion don’t face one of the big six again until just before Santa starts readying his sleigh, when Chelsea visit the Amex in December. First up on this winnable run is a West Ham United side who, although they started slowly, our now hitting some form under new manager Manuel Pellegrini.
Brighton did the double over the Hammers last season, but you suspect it will be a very different case against this new and improved one on our first Friday night game of the season.
Who are West Ham United?
West Ham are one of only eight Football League teams to never fallen below the second tier of English football since their formation in 1895 as Thames Ironworks. Their major honours include three FA Cups in 1964, 1975 and 1980 and they’ve also tasted success in continental competition, lifting the European Cup Winners Cup in 1965. They supplied three of the starting line up for England’s winning 1966 World Cup Final side, leading many Hammers fans to claim that it was West Ham that won the World Cup. This isn’t the only spurious bollocks that they have in their armoury, with another popular phrase being “the West Ham way” and how other clubs should aspire to be more like them. If that involves selling the soul of your club by moving to an athletics stadium and invading the pitch to fight with our own players, then we’ll probably just stick with the Brighton way, thanks.
What are they like now?
David Moyes went some of the way towards restoring his battered reputation last season by guiding the Hammers away from relegation after a pretty poor start under Slavan Bilic. Moyes was rewarded for his efforts with the sack in the summer, with West Ham bringing in former Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini. Plenty of people asked whether Pellegrini would be the right man to fight another potential relegation battle and the start that West Ham made to the season added fuel to the flames, especially after some heavy investment. They’ve turned the corner in recent weeks however and arrive at the Amex bang in form having just defeated Manchester United 3-1, hit eight past Macclesfield Town in the Carabao a up and scored a highly impressive victory away at Everton.
Which players should we be worried about?
Marko Arnautovic has four goals in six games so far this season and given how ropey the Albion have looked at the back, he should fancy filling his boots at the Amex. Picking up a goalkeeper of Lukasz Fabianski for just £7m was a brilliant piece of business and the performances of defender Issa Diop, a £22m capture from Toulouse have been earning rave reviews.
What’s the Albion’s record against West Ham United like?
Pretty terrible. We might have done the double over the Hammers last season, but that was very much against the norm. The Albion’s best away performance coincided with what must have been West Ham’s worst home performance when we met at the London Stadium and the game at the Amex was decided by a couple of moments of brilliance from Jose Izquierdo and Pascal Gross. In 63 previous meetings, the Albion have only tasted victory on 16 occasions which should give Irons fans more cause for optimism than the previous two games suggest.
What’s the best WeAreBrighton.com memory of West Ham United at home ?
Give our aforementioned record with West Ham, last season’s victory at the Amex was very much welcome. It came at an important time as well, given that we’d only won one of our previous 13 league games and Chris Hughton was coming in for a bit of criticism over his negative tactics following the 1-1 draw at Southampton three days previously.
What’s the worst WeAreBrighton.com memory of West Ham at home?
We weren’t even born when it happened, but when West Ham visited the Goldstone in 1978 their supporters went on the rampage, invading home areas and causing the death of one elderly Brighton fan on the East Terrace. That sounds like a pretty dark occasion.
Who has played for both sides?
Bobby Zamora had successful spells with both clubs, firing the Albion to back-to-back promotions between 2000 and 2002 and scoring the winner for West Ham in the 2005 Championship play off final against Preston North End. A less successful striker was Paul Kitson who arrived at Withdean from West Ham in August 2002 and spent most of his time picking up a very good pay packet for sitting around in Malcolm Stuart’s physio room.
Other than football, what is West Ham famous for?
The London Stadium obviously hosted the Olympics during that glorious summer of 2012. EastEnders is set in West Ham’s area and as a result many of the principle characters such as Mick Carter, Phil Mitchell and Billy Mitchell are Hammers fans. Despite this, West Ham supporters seem to think they are characters out of Peaky Blinders or something judging by the number of idiots who rocked up to the Amex in February wearing flat caps.
Where’s the betting value for Brighton v West Ham United?
Brighton’s last four games have involved 13 goals and West Ham’s 16, so anybody providing football acca tips for both teams to score bets will be looking at this one very closely. Both teams to score is available at 13/5, but we like the look of over 3.5 goals more at a best priced 14/5. The draw is 23.10.
Prediction
Given Brighton’s defensive woes of late, its hard to see an Albion win today. We’ll score goals, but we’re also going to let them in and for that reason, we’re expecting another 2-2 draw.
