West Ham United and Brighton face off on Sunday in an English Premier League showdown at London Stadium. When these two teams faced off on May 22nd, it was Brighton that secured the 3-1 victory.
Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. have to be very happy with having already picked up four points already this season. In the first game of the season, Brighton was able to beat Manchester United 2-1, before playing to a 0-0 draw against Newcastle. In the last game against Newcastle, Brighton had 55 percent of the possession and seven shots on target, but they couldn’t find the back of the net, and that led to only picking up the point instead of three. Pervis Estupinan came in earlier this week from Villarreal, and it sounds like he could be in the lineup this weekend. Outside of that one change, I would expect the lineup to look the same from the first two games.
On the other side of this matchup is West Ham United, who really needs a point right now. West Ham United lost the first game of the season against Manchester City 2-0, and in the last game against Nottingham Forest, they lost 1-0. West Ham United did play a midweek game against Viborg, and they were able to win 3-1. That should have been a confidence-building game for West Ham. Against Nottingham Forest, West Ham had 57 percent of the possession and five shots on target, but they couldn’t find the back of the net. Goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski is expected to be the starting goalkeeper in this game. I would also expect Kurt Zouma and Aaron Cresswell to be included in the lineup, and they are going to need both players to be strong in this game.
West Ham is getting a lot of key players back in this game, including Fabianski, and that is going to really help this squad. I expect Brighton’s offense to struggle as they did in the last game. West Ham is going to score at least a goal and that will be enough for them to pick up their first three points of the season. Back West Ham on the money line.