West Ham 1-1 Brighton: When a draw feels as euphoric as a win

Voodoo. Witchcraft. Some sort of black magic. What else can explain the fact that West Ham cannot beat Brighton no matter what they do, the latest encounter between Hammers and Seagulls ending 1-1 at the London Stadium?

Curses in football are nothing new. When Derby County evicted a group of Romany Gypsies from the site they called home to build the Baseball Ground in the 19th century, said Gypsies responded by cursing the club to never win the FA Cup.

Derby went onto lose three finals in six seasons. When they reached their fourth in 1946,the club paid another set of Gypsies to lift the curse.

As the game looked to be heading into extra time with the Rams locked at 1-1 with Charlton Athletic, the ball unexpectedly burst. This was seen as a symbol that the curse had ended and Derby duly ran out 4-1 winners.

Barry Fry had a different approach to removing a curse over St Andrews when he was Birmingham City boss, placed by a single Romany Gypsy woman who was moved on when the Blues built their home in 1906.

She deemed Birmingham to never, ever have success as long as they occupied their stadium. In the midst of a damaging winless run, Fry decided to urinate in all four corners of the pitch in a ceremony he was told could help life the hoodoo.

In an interview with Four Four Two some years later, Fry said: “We went three months without winning. We were desperate, so I pissed in all four corners, holding it in while I waddled round the pitch. Did it work? Well, we started to win and I thought it had, then they fucking sacked me, so probably not.”

David Moyes could do worse than drink a lot of orange juice and then wander around the London Stadium, relieving himself as he goes. Nine times now West Ham have faced Brighton in the Premier League and nine times they have failed to win following this 1-1 draw.

Everything looked set up perfectly for a West Ham victory, too. They took the lead inside of five minutes thanks to some questionable goalkeeping and defending from a corner.

Brighton were then wrecked by injuries, losing both Jeremy Sarmiento on his full debut and Adam Webster in the first half. When Adam Lallana then limped off with 15 minutes remaining, the Albion found themselves trailing 1-0 and down to 10.

They should have been 2-0 behind. Another Hammers corner led Robert Sanchez to get in another state. Sanchez appealed to the referee for a foul when in reality he had simply missed his punch.

VAR took a look, which must have been to simply appease the goalkeeper and prove he was at fault. It was during this investigation that the ball was found to have brushed the ankle of Michail Antonio stood in an offside position on its way in and so the goal was disallowed.

It was a ridiculously harsh decision on the Hammers. Worse was to come though for home fans as in the 89th minute, Neal Maupay produced an utterly outrageous overhead kick to make it West Ham 1-1 Brighton.

The Albion had somehow rescued a point despite all the odds being against them. Nothing it seems is certain except death, taxes and West Ham not beating Brighton.

You can add the Hammers scoring from set pieces to that list, actually. All the pundits could talk about in the lead up to the game was how good West Ham are from corners, a fact highlighted by the role they played when Moyes’ men beat Liverpool 3-2 last month to end the Reds’ 25 game unbeaten.

With the world and his wife aware of the threat posed and how Liverpool’s zonal marking was a complete disaster, it was pretty impressive for Brighton to mark zonally and concede from the first West Ham corner of the game.

A little work on the training ground dealing with set pieces would not go amiss, especially when faced with two fixtures in four days against the Hammers followed by James Ward-Prowse and Southampton.

Neither Lewis Dunk nor Sanchez covered themselves in glory for the goal. Dunk appeared to duck out the way and Sanchez just sort of stumbled into the side netting as Tomas Soucek glanced in a delivery from Pablo Fornals.

If West Ham scoring from a corner was predictable, then so was Brighton squandering an easy chance. Maupay managed that even before Soucek’s opener, dragging a shot hopelessly wide from a promising position eight yards out. The Maupay haters were readying their bile at that point. Little did they know what was to come 87 minutes later.

Unlike Brighton not studying West Ham set pieces, the Hammers had done their homework on Sanchez. Twice in the opening 20 minutes, home players attempted to go for goal from outrageous distances, knowing that Sanchez’s starting position is way higher than any other goalkeeper in the Premier League.

Sanchez was nearly the master of his own downfall with one of those long range efforts, passing straight to Jarrod Bowen when positioned 35 yards out of his goal. Luckily, Bowen’s effort was off target.

Having earlier spilled a Vladimir Coufal effort, you began to wonder at this point what was going on with the normally-dependable Sanchez.

He was playing like a man that had been given one of those advent calendars with gin behind every door – and rather than wait to have one little bottle per day, he had instead chugged every single one an hour before kick off.

Brighton had plenty of possession in the first half but could not fashion many openings. Jakub Moder was denied by his Poland teammate Lukasz Fabianski and from the resulting corner Dunk should have at least put a free header on target. At the other end, Sanchez was grateful to his crossbar after Fornals rattled its underside from close range.

West Ham thought they had their second which surely would have killed the game off early in the second half. Sanchez missed his punch from a corner when falling to the ground to try and claim a foul and the ball was eventually bundled in.

A lengthy VAR check spotted Antonio offside. I am not saying that the decision was tight, but we should probably consider setting up a crowd funder to buy whoever the video assistant referee was a nice fruit hamper for Christmas.

Lallana was next to miss a chance when putting a first time shot wide of the post. It was an unusually poor piece of decision making from the midfielder, who appeared to have the time and space needed to take a touch and steady himself.

Graham Potter turned to his bench next, making his third and final substitution – and the only change of the night not enforced on him by injury.

Tariq Lamptey was the man who came on, giving Albion fans renewed optimism that they could yet take something from the game. Lamptey though struggled to get into proceedings initially and it was West Ham who looked more likely to score.

The gin in Sanchez’s advent calendar was clearly not that strong as it wore off in the final 10 minutes, the goalkeeper making brilliant saves from a powerful Declan Rice shot and an Antonio header.

When Lallana could not continue and Brighton were down to 10, it looked curtains. That was until Lamptey came to the party, working a yard of space where no other player could to curl a ball into the box.

Out of nowhere and with his back to goal, Maupay contorted his body and beat Fabianski with a beautiful bicycle kick as it finished West Ham 1-1 Brighton.

It was a stunning goal from a much-maligned striker, serving as a reminder that Brighton need a new centre forward not to replace Maupay, but to complement him.

There were euphoric scenes at the end as Potter gave the travelling Seagulls supporters in their corner of the London Stadium a fantastic reception.

He got one back from the fans, the smattering of boos which greeted Brighton 0-0 The Leeds United at the weekend now a distant memory.

The manner in which the draw was earned made this feel more like a victory for Brighton. And whilst a point on the road against a side fourth in the Premier League cannot be sniffed it, whisper it quietly but the Albion’s concerning winless run stretches into a ninth game.

Brighton have now equalled their longest sequence without a victory under Potter, set between last season’s November win at Aston Villa and the January success against The Leeds United.

More interestingly, Chris Hughton’s longest top flight winless run was also nine from the Crystal Palace victory in March 2019 to him getting sacked at the end of the campaign.

Many consider this to be the best squad Brighton have ever had, and yet not beating Southampton on Saturday will mean they sail into previously unchartered waters of 10 Premier League matches without a win – more than a quarter of the season.

Maybe it is the Albion who are cursed? Maybe that is why the club cannot sign a striker and the current options struggle so much in front of goal?

Perhaps Potter should urinate in all four corners of the Amex to lift a previously unknown Romany Gypsy curse? Stranger things have happened.