This run against West Ham cannot go on forever, can it?
Brighton did not always used to beat West Ham, you know. Before 2004, the Albion had never won a Football League game away against the Hammers.
Then Mark McGhee came along. He stuck the bus, a fleet of cars, a Boeing 747, one of those cool double decker trains they have in Germany and a cruise ship in front of the Seagulls goal.
Guy Butters scored with a header, the Albion won 1-0 and it has been happy days against the happy Hammers pretty much ever since. Bar the odd 6-0 disaster or Kerry Mayo having to mark Carlos Tevez.
Logic dictates that at some point, runs like these have to come to an end. Brighton cannot keep avoiding defeat against West Ham, especially when in four of the five seasons we have been together in the Premier League the Hammers have finished above the Albion in the table.
Football though does not always do logic. How, for example do Brighton have such an outstanding record against Wolves when the Old Gold have ended 108 of the 121 seasons the Albion have existed higher in the football pyramid?
Conversely, why can Brighton never beat a side managed by Smug Eddie Howe? No wonder he looks so bloody smug. How have Brighton managed only two wins over Southampton at home since 1957? The beautiful game is full of beautiful quirks that make little sense.
And so to Sunday lunchtime at the London Stadium. Ask most football fans and they will tell you how much they hate the home of the 2012 Olympics as a football ground.
West Ham supporters are still yet to truly warm to it, although funnily enough the protests against their owners have died down since David Moyes started delivering European football on a regular basis.
Brighton followers however love the place. Five percent of the reason is because it is a Withdean throwback, an athletics track separating fans and pitch. It is like watching a game again at a Theatre of Trees pumped full of steroids.
The remaining 85 percent is because of results in this corner of Stratford. Not since Phil and Grant Mitchell were in the heyday has the East End seen such domination.
Chris Hughton set the ball rolling with that stunning 3-0 win on a Friday night in October 2017. It was the Albion’s first away victory in the Premier League and it featured two Glenn Murray goals. It felt like we had arrived.
Following that was a 2-2 draw in 2018-19. 2019-20 saw the Albion produce a remarkable recovery from 3-1 down with 15 minutes remaining to draw 3-3.
Murray was again the hero, scoring his 111th and final Brighton goal before taking in the deserved adulation of the away end as he celebrated.
Blowing a two-goal lead in a quarter of an hour would have led some West Ham fans to wonder if they were in fact cursed when playing the Albion.
Those suspicions gained a lot more credence last December when the Irons led for 85 minutes and finished the game playing against 10 men, only to be denied all three points once again.
This time, it was Neal Maupay with an utterly outrageous bicycle kick as the Albion made light of a succession of injuries causing them to end the evening shorthanded.
What though of this visit? West Ham are yet to score a goal in the Premier League so far in 2022-23, suffering two defeats from two.
One of those was against Manchester City. Which is fair enough. Liverpool dropping four points already means that the title race is effectively over, so the Hammers can justifiably say they have lost to the champions.
The other was away at Nottingham Forest. Not great on the face of it. But it was the first top flight game the City Ground had hosted in 23 years.
There is something about both playoff winners and clubs who have not experienced Premier League football for a long time that gives them something a little extra in the battle for survival.
Forest tick both boxes. Unless they were playing one of the top four, they were always likely to win their opening home match of the campaign after such a long wait.
Thursday night saw West Ham get their Europa Conference campaign up and running. They played Viborg, which according to Wikipedia is an ancient Viking city in the north of Denmark.
Hammers fans are lucky enough to visit on Thursday night. Imagine. A Thursday night in Denmark watching the Albion. The definition of living the dream – and a dream that is not beyond the realms of possibility.
A seventh place finish or a cheeky League Cup win would make it a reality. No pressure on the latter Graham, but you have a sold out away end coming to Forest Green Rovers on Wednesday…
Facing Viborg proved to be a little too easy for West Ham, as you might expect against opponents whose only major trophy is a Danish Cup in 2000.
All three of Moyes’ strikers were on the scoresheet, Gianluca Scamacca, Jarrod Bowen and Michail Antonio finding the net in a 3-1 win. The Hammers may well be hitting their stride just in time for Brighton’s visit.
And that makes this an impossible game to call. The Albion’s irresistible record against West Ham, going up against the fact it has to end at some point, going up against Brighton starting the season well, going up against West Ham starting the Premier League season badly (but not that badly) but then scoring three times in midweek.
The only thing we can say with any certainty is that you will need to re-mortgage if you want to buy a pint of Moretti inside the London Stadium.
We won’t criticise a £3.20 bag of Starburst for at least a week after filing for bankruptcy for a half time beer at West Ham. Fingers crossed we will not need too many.
