Brighton and Hove Albion Match Preview

The victory over Aston Villa back on 28 August was West Ham United’s only success on the road so far this season. They will try and achieve a first ever Premier League win over Brighton and Hove Albion when the Hammers travel to The American Express Community Stadium this afternoon.

Although the club’s Emirates FA Cup journey ended at the fifth-round stage once again with defeat at Manchester United on Wednesday night, the East Londoners will look to follow up last weekend’s impressive home victory over newly-promoted Nottingham Forest. The three points against the Tricky Trees took David Moyes’ side back up to sixteenth in the table and a win over the Seagulls would see them climb further into a much safer position.

The hosts may have suffered a last-minute defeat to newly-promoted Fulham here in their last league game a fortnight ago but having only played a fifth-round FA Cup tie at Sky Bet Championship side Stoke City since, due to Newcastle United’s involvement in last weekend’s Carabao Cup Final at Wembley, they will want to bounce back from the missed opportunity against the Cottagers.

Having said that, they did book a quarter-final place at The bet 365 Stadium on Tuesday night and have had one extra day’s preparation ahead of this game, so it may well be a tight affair.

Since the reverse fixture back on August 21, there has been a change of management for the Seagulls with Ukrainian Roberto De Zerbi having replaced Graham Potter back in September. Moyes couldn’t get the better of Potter during the former Swansea City boss’ tenure in Sussex. However, the question now is how will he fare against De Zerbi?

Alphonse Areola came off the bench to replace Łukasz Fabiański a week ago and the Frenchman may start ahead of the Pole again here, just as he did against the Red Devils three days earlier.

If Fabiański doesn’t make the matchday squad, then Joseph Anang or Krisztián Hegyi will be on the bench as cover.

It remains to be seen whether Vladimír Coufal will return from a heel problem suffered against Steve Cooper’s men, while it’s a straight fight between Michail Antonio, Gianluca Scamacca and Danny Ings to see who will start upfront.

The match is a 3pm kick-off and the referee is Stuart Attwell.