West Ham didn’t overlook Brighton, they just got outplayed

The point streak comes to an end for West Ham as the Hammers dropped all three points to the Southcoast Gulls of Brighton and Hove Albion. Despite what people think West Ham didn’t overlook their bottom table competition, they just got outplayed.

It was an uneventful evening at Brighton, and it went absolutely to plan for the home side and totally against what we believed would happen. West Ham were riding high after forcing dropped points against Chelsea and taking all three from Manchester United, and despite aspirations for a higher table position I seriously don’t think Manuel Pellegrini or any player on the pitch overlooked their opposition in this match after the loss.

Brighton had a clear gameplan heading into the match. They ceded possession to West Ham, who carried the ball for 65% of the match, but kept the attack to the outside and away from Matt Ryan in net. When West Ham would carry possession into the middle of the pitch the midfield would collapse in and fullbacks would fall back to help provide coverage in the penalty area.

The front three of Marko Arnautovic, Felipe Anderson, and Andriy Yarmolenko were constantly frustrated by his tactic. The Brighton defenders smothered the forwards immediately upon possession and forced turnovers throughout the match. As well, if the easy option wasn’t available to outlet the ball upfield, Brighton was content putting the ball out for a throw-in or corner kick, or to lump it upfield to Balbuena, Diop, or Fabianski.

Brighton also lined up in a 4-3-3 with two committed forward wingers, Alireza Jahanbakhsh and
Anthony Knockaert, to attack West Ham at the fullback position. Zabaleta is solid defensively but Jahanbakhsh has unreal speed and when Zabaleta was committed forward Brighton exposed the poor defensive coverage on his side and scored their opener.

Arthur Masuaku is West Ham’s worst defender in their starting XI and Brighton preyed on this. Knockaert is their trickiest winger and exposed Masuaku consistently throughout the night. If Rice didn’t commit fully to doubling coverage on Masuaku’s side this match would have been much worse.

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A brief discussion on Arnuatovic’s game will sufficiently summarize the match for the Irons and close out this review. As mentioned, Brighton crowded his as much as possible with Louis Dunk and Shane Duffy, their big centre-backs. He was clearly frustrated and this inevitably affected his ability to finish chances. With the game on his foot in extra time, Arnautovic shot a ball over the net from within the six-yard box on an opportunity he rarely misses.

It was just one of those matches, the Irons had the ball, the majority of the chances, and looked threatening, but they couldn’t close out the opportunities presented to them. The Hammers have some time off to prepare for Tottenham on October 20th where I believe they’ll be back in form and ready to dominate a derby.

Look at it this way, us Hammers fans were all so infuriated when the storyline ‘West Ham beats Manchester United’ was overshadowed and overlooked for ‘Manchester United lose to West Ham’ because it discredited West Ham for winning. Don’t discredit Brighton, they executed their game plan and took all three points in a strong showing.