Right, that’s it from me. Thanks for your emails and tweets. Cheerio!
Here’s Ed’s match report from the Amex:
So, still no 0-0 draw between these sides in 39 years. And three wins on the bounce for the Albion over the Hammers.
Shane Duffy speaks! “It was a tough night and we dug in well.”
Lewis Dunk speaks! “It was massive. These are the games we have to win at home, we have to make it a fortress here.”
Peep! PEEEP! PEEEEEEEP! All over. The corner was cleared and as the ball came back in Ryan claimed under pressure from Arnautovic. An important win for Brighton, a frustrating night for an out-of-sorts West Ham.
90+5 min: One last chance for West Ham: Arnautovic’s shot deflected wide for a corner …
90+3 min: Antonio wastes a few valuable seconds and smashes a cross into the fans behind the Brighton goal.
90+1 min: There’ll be a minimum of five minutes of added time.
90 min: Oof! At the other end, perhaps West Ham’s best chance of the game goes begging. Lucas cuts the ball back and Arnautovic stabs over from close range.
89 min: The ball is in the West Ham net but the flag is up! Izquierdo’s shot comes back off Fabianski – Locadia taps home the rebound but he was just off.
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87 min: Snodgrass goes into the book for a foul on Bong.
86 min: A final Brighton change: Locadia replaces March.
85 min: … the Austrian picks himself up and curls his effort well over the bar. Interestingly Kayal was behind the wall on one knee, presumably to allow the wall to jump while guarding against the low shot.
84 min: Arnautovic, playing a lovely one-two with Antonio, wins a free-kick right on the edge of the area …
83 min: A final change for West Ham: Noble off, Snodgrass on.
82 min: Brighton are camped in their own half now.
80 min: … cleared by the Seagulls, who make another change: the stricken Propper off, Bissouma on.
79 min: A vital touch from Dunk concedes a corner …
77 min: Super-scramble! Anderson’s cross causes havoc in the Brighton box and only the referee’s whistle – after an injury to Ptopper – ends the chaos. Arnautovic and Lucas Perez both had half-chances.
76 min: Our man at the Amex …
Fantastic to watch Glenn Murray in the flesh. Unbelievable energy and spring for someone his age
— Ed Aarons (@ed_aarons) October 5, 2018
74 min: Fantastic stuff from Brighton, starting with Knockaert outmuscling Masuaku on the right and ending with Murray heading over from March’s cross.
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73 min: … Murray climbs highest but nods over the bar from six yards out.
72 min: Izquierdo almost wriggles his way through with West Ham scrambling but can’t quite bring the ball under his spell. Brighton force a corner though …
70 min: Another West Ham change: Yarmolenko off, Lucas on. And a first Brighton substitution too: Izquierdo on for Jahanbakhsh.
69 min: Have Brighton survived the storm? A West Ham goal looked inevitable in the 15 minutes after half-time but in the last 10 or so, the home side have come right back into it and the Hammers look a little short of ideas again.
67 min: Rice has been more influential this half and he gets his head on the end of a Knockaert free-kick.
64 min: Bong swings in a beautiful cross from the left as Brighton mount a rare attack. Murray is ready to head home but Jahanbakhsh gets there first and can only flick the ball away. Both might have been offside anyway.
62 min: … which Anderson bloots yards over the bar.
61 min: Kayal goes into the book for bringing down Anderson after Knockaert gives away possession. Dangerous free-kick this …
60 min: Antonio replaces Obiang for West Ham, who are all over Brighton now.
59 min: Fair to say a West Ham goal is coming here. Balbuena wins his team a corner … which is swung in and nodded wide from close range by the Paraguayan.
58 min: Zabaleta gets to Ryan’s clearance first and Jahanbakhsh brings him down clumsily. He joins Arnautovic and Duffy in the book.
56 min: Arnautoiv dives in on Kayal in an attempt to reclaim the ball and picks up a booking, slightly unfairly really as Kayal was equally guilty of putting his studs into the Austrian’s boots.
55 min: Anderson’s cross is deflected and loops dangerously across goal. Corner to West Ham … but Brighton clear.
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53 min: Arnautovic surges into space down the left channel but can only shoot straight at Ryan. The Hammers have certainly picked things up in the last couple of minutes.
52 min: West Ham get their collective foot on the ball and show commendable patience with some neat controlled passing. Yarmolenko almost gets through on the edge of the box. That was better.
50 min: … chipped miserably into the two man wall. Anderson is having a proper stinker thus far.
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49 min: Ryan is rather fortunate to see a scuffed clearance find the feet of Dunk but the centre half is still forced to bring down Yarmolenko in a dangerous position. Felipe Anderson lines it up …
48 min: “Maybe Chris Hughton hasn’t sat down yet because he’s targeting 10,000 steps today and hasn’t quite got there yet,” ponders Matthew Stephens. “Or has a bad back.” Not spotted any frozen peas or Voltarol as yet.
47 min: Pass, pass, pass from West Ham. Passpasspass. But they’re going nowhere and Fabianski eventually has to scramble a clearance out of play under pressure from Murray.
Peep! Off we go again.
It’s not been a classic to be honest. Albion well worth their lead but they haven’t really been battering down the door. West Ham surely can’t be as poor in the second half.
PEEP! Both sides look happy enough to see half-time. West Ham have some work to do if they’re going to figure out how to break down this Brighton defence.
45 min: One minute of added time to be played.
44 min: Anderson looks to take on Bruno … Bruno comes away with the ball.
42 min: Duffy gets his head on the end of a Anderson corner.
40 min: A nice move from a throw in: deft flick on from Murray, huge booming volley miles over the bar from Jahanbakhsh.
39 min: Our man in the press box at the Amex …
Chris Hughton lives and breathes every minute of the game. Hasn't sat down once this half
— Ed Aarons (@ed_aarons) October 5, 2018
38 min: Sheesh. Knockaert smashes a free-kick near halfway all along the ground and out for a goal kick near the corner flag. There have been some pretty shambolic moments in this first half.
36 min: Noble – who has not enjoyed the best 36 minutes of his career – thunks a simple-ish pass straight out of play for a Brighton goal kick.
35 min: Knockaert wangs a cross out of play.
33 min: Duffy very deliberately brings down Arnautovic on halfway as the West Ham man looks to break. His name goes into Kevin Friend’s Little Book Of Men Who Have Been Bad.
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31 min: A superb block from Bruno denies Arnautovic from Zabaleta’s neat lay off. The ball breaks to Obiang who drives his volley into the turf and over the bar.
30 min: Jahanbakhsh zips a shot at goal from distance but Fabianski drops to save comfortably. It feels like there’s more goals in this yet.
29 min: Noble, off-balance, scuffs a shot at goal from the edge of the area but it’s straight at Ryan.
27 min: That’s Murray’s sixth goal in five league appearances against West Ham and his 99th for Brighton overall. He goes level with Kit Napier as Brighton’s second highest scorer of all time.
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GOAL! Brighton 1-0 West Ham (Murray 25)
It’s West Ham’s bete noir, Glenn Murray! Jahanbakhsh feeds Kayal down the left, West Ham are at sixes and sevens at the back, and the cross finds an unmarked Murray to tap home.
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24 min: March, playing just off Murray, has probably found more space than any other forward in the game so far. Not done a great deal with it yet …
22 min: Much was made of the West Ham “front three” pre-game but Arnautovic is pretty much up there on his own at the moment, with Yarmolenko and Anderson pushed back to make a midfield five.
20 min: March thumps a ridiculously optimistic angled drive yards over the bar from wide on the left. Murray, who had been expecting a cross, looks somewhere between perplexed and furious.
18 min: A Brighton corner is headed straight up into the air by Balbuena, resulting in half a dozen players pogoing like a bunch of mid-90s teens in the area, with the ball bouncing around aimlessly. Eventually a West Ham head gets the thing clear.
17 min: Knockaert scutters away at pace and feeds March on the left but his pass is far too heavy.
15 min: The first comes to nothing but is cleared behind for another. The second goes the same way as the first. The third … is hammered away by March.
14 min: Anderson pulls a free-kick back at waist height to the edge of the area, where Arnautovic has cleverly peeled away. His volley is on target but deflected away for another West Ham corner.
@John_Ashdown Just wanted to say that 'Yarmolenko and Bong' is the best name for a firm of solicitors ever. Can anyone make up better two- or three-player combos in the same vein?
— Chris Oakley (@COakleyFtbl) October 5, 2018
12 min: Noble tries to force a wasteful pass at Anderson and concedes possession oh-so-cheaply. West Ham have started very scruffily.
11 min: Murray batters his way through a couple of challenges on the Brighton right but it’s a bit scrappy at the moment.
9 min: Cult hero and captain Bruno launches a couple of long throws towards the box but West Ham clear with little fuss.
7 min: Felipe Anderson picks a Brighton pocket in midfield but then whelps his forward pass far beyond Arnautovic.
5 min: Knockaert comes in off the right but can’t quite connect cleanly with an effort on goal. Jahanbakhsh looks to fizz in a cross from the other side but it’s straight at Fabianski.
4 min: “Hello from the sunny south coast,” writes Andrew Benton. “OK, the floodlit south coast. I can hear the fans singing from my digs. Home advantage for the win, definitely. Hooray, hooray, hooray go the cheers.” Very descriptive. It’s almost like being there.
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3 min: … which Duffy nods clear.
2 min: Arnautovic gives Duffy the runaround on the right and fires in a cross that Ryan opts to turn behind. Corner to the Hammers …
1 min: Twenty seconds in we have an odd off-the-ball incident between Yarmolenko and Bong. The Ukrainian looked to be caught by Bong but nothing too malicious in it I don’t think.
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Peep! Off we go then! West Ham and Marko Arnautovic get us under way.
Click-clack, click-clack … the players emerge from the Amex tunnel.
Sky Sports have a quick chat with Brighton’s incoming technical director Dan Ashworth (live from what looks like his kitchen). He says he’s looking forward to the more hands-on day-to-day routine of club football.
He advocates for technical directors generally, says he’ll be looking for results over “two, three, four years” and says he’s there to support the manager and “help Chris Hughton in any way I can”.
Always comes across very well does Dan Ashworth. Smart cookie.
The teams
Brighton: Ryan, Bruno, Duffy, Dunk, Bong, Knockaert, Propper, Kayal, March, Jahanbakhsh, Murray. Subs: Bissouma, Locadia, Andone, Balogun, Izquierdo, Button, Bernardo.
West Ham: Fabianski, Zabaleta, Balbuena, Diop, Masuaku, Rice, Yarmolenko, Noble, Obiang, Felipe Anderson, Arnautovic. Subs: Cresswell, Snodgrass, Adrian, Ogbonna, Fredericks, Lucas Perez, Antonio.
Referee: Kevin Friend (Leicestershire)
West Ham are unchanged from the side who beat Manchester United so convincingly. There are three changes for the home side: Glenn Murray (two goals short of his century for Albion) and Bruno return while there’s a first Premier League start for Alireza Jahanbakhsh.
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Preamble
Friday night and the lights are low
Looking out for a place to go
Where they play the right music
Getting in the swing
You come to look for a king
Anybody could be that guy
Night is young and the music’s high
With a bit of rock music
Everything is fine
You’re in the mood for a dance
And when you get the chance …
… you join me for 15th v 14th action in the Premier League!
But, not to worry, those league placings undersell what could be quite an interesting contest. On the one hand you’ve got a resurgent West Ham, who are beginning to look more and more like the a squad that cost oodles to put together, and on the other there’s a Brighton side struggling for points and who, weirdly, haven’t beaten anyone in the Premier League other than Manchester United since 4 March.
One thing is guaranteed this evening: we absolutely positively won’t get a 0-0. The last 0-0 between these sides? 1979! And that’s the only one in their 22 meetings! And there’s never been one on the south coast!
So stick around for all the action. What will now almost certainly be a miserable goalless borefest kicks off at 8pm BST.
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