Brighton 4-0 West Ham: Albion hammer not so happy Hammers

Who else was worried about what might lie in store before Brighton 4-0 West Ham? The Albion might be a free scoring, attacking side under Roberto De Zerbi, but a failure to beat Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa, Fulham and only just scraping past Plucky Little Bournemouth suggested there was still an issue when teams come to the Amex and set out to defend.

David Moyes tried to replicate the negative tactics of those four opponents, looking to sit back and play on the counter. A sensible ploy, one might of thought, given the Albion’s struggles in breaking down defensive teams even since De Zerbi took over.

Brighton though were not having any of it. Unlike those games against Forest, Villa and the Cottagers, the Albion’s scintillating football created chances which were ruthlessly taken to round off a great week for the club with a biggest Premier League win of the season.

Not enough credit was given to Brighton for their midweek FA Cup victory at Stoke City. The Albion had not won in the Potteries since 1961. The Bet365 Stadium is a notoriously difficult place to go.

And Stoke are a lot better than their lower midtable position in the Championship suggests, as evidenced by their 5-1 hammering of playoff hopefuls Sunderland whilst Brighton were busy beating West Ham 4-0.

Victory in a potential banana skin of a tie kicked off what has turned into a brilliant week for Brighton. A favourable draw for the quarter final followed with the Albion to host League Two Grimsby Town.

Moises Caicedo then signed a new contract. In the grand scheme of things, that probably changes very little regarding a likely summer departure.

But it has given everyone a real boost and created this idea that maybe Brighton can hold onto their best talents; even those whose agents put questionable statements on Instagram begging for a move away.

The only dark cloud of the week came when De Zerbi was handed a touchline ban for his antics following the defeat to Fulham, forcing him to watch from Brighton 4-0 West Ham from the stands.

How much would the absence of their charismatic head coach hurt the Albion, we wondered? Not very much was the answer.

Andrea Maldera took charge in the dugout, a calm and suave presence crouching down and offering instructions compared to the bundle of energy that is De Zerbi.

It feels like most of us know little about the Albion’s new coaching team behind De Zerbi (other than one bloke looks just like Greg Wallace) compared to the familiarity there was with Bruno, Ben Roberts and even Billy Reid.

From Maldera’s performance and the way Brighton destroyed West Ham, it is obvious the Albion are in safe hands with coaches every bit as good as De Zerbi himself.

Match of the Day showed De Zerbi on the phone from his perch in the West Stand. He may well have been ordering a pizza for delivery as Brighton were so comfortable as to not need their manager issuing instructions to the bench at all during the 90 minutes.

The one big call De Zerbi made other than deciding what topping to have was dropping Robert Sanchez for Jason Steele.

Sanchez has had his fair share of dodgy moments this season but there cannot have been many Brighton fans who expected De Zerbi to jettison a Spanish international in favour of a bloke who Sunderland supporters hail as the second-worst goalkeeper their club has ever had.

For Steele to go from one of the stars of Sunderland Till I Die to now being De Zerbi’s first choice in a Brighton side pushing for Europe is a stunning story of redemption.

Especially when you consider he was only signed by the Albion in the first place to help the club fulfil its homegrown quota as number three goalkeeper behind Maty Ryan and David Button.

Steele deserved the opportunity for his faultless performances in cup football over the past three seasons. He made two big saves with his legs in the first half, without which Brighton 4-0 West Ham might have taken a different turn.

His passing out from the back was also cool and calm under pressure. De Zerbi said afterwards his main reason for the goalkeeping change was Steele’s attributes fitting more closely to the style of football the head coach wants Brighton to play.

The Albion had moved 1-0 ahead six minutes before Steele made his stops from Jarrod Bowen and Tomas Soucek. Kaoru Mitoma was felled in the box by Bowen with Stuart Attwell showing no hesitation in pointing to the spot.

Given the vendetta VAR has had against Brighton in recent weeks, everyone inside the Amex seemed to be waiting for Stockley Park to find some sort of pitiful excuse to overturn Mr Attwell’s decision. None was forthcoming however and Alexis Mac Allister duly smashed the resulting penalty into the back of the net.

1-0 at half time did not feel a big enough lead. There seemed little way that West Ham could be as woeful in the second 45 minutes as they had been in the first.

Three unanswered goals after the break would suggest that they were. But to focus on how bad the Hammers played takes away from the fact that Brighton were utterly superb in making their visitors look like a bunch of amateurs rather than a set of players good enough to have qualified for Europe the past two seasons.

Mac Allister passed up two opportunities to add to his penalty, not testing Alphonse Areola suitably with a weak effort and then seeing a cheeky back heel turned away for a corner.

It was from said corner that the second Albion goal arrived. Joel Veltman had somehow been left completely free six yards out in the middle of the goal to chest home a Pascal Gross corner flicked on by Mac Allister.

Brighton may have the worst record in the Premier League this season when it comes to scoring from set pieces, but not even they could miss such an opportunity. The marking from West Ham was criminal.

Areola became an increasingly busy figure in the final 30 minutes. He saved from Evan Ferguson and the Irish teenager was then denied by a quite incredible last ditch tackle from Emerson.

There was a superb moment not long after that when Ferguson thought he was being substituted and walked slowly off the pitch to a standing ovation from the North and West Stands.

Lewis Dunk began shouting and gesticulating wildly at Ferguson to point out he was not actually the player being hauled and to get back up front.

Which was just as well as Ferguson had a role to play in third Brighton goal. Veltman gained possession and found Ferguson, whose clever flick was into the path of Gross on the right.

Gross delivered a low and hard cross to the back post where the stretching Mitoma converted, leading to delirium amongst the thousands of Japanese Albion fans paying homage to their countryman. They and Mitoma are a credit to their country.

West Ham fans showed that their self-label as some of the best supporters in the world is a load of nonsense as they began streaming out at that point.

Those unhappy ‘Ammers who did remain saw Areola produce a stunning full length save to tip a Julio Enciso curler onto the bar.

There was nothing the West Ham goalkeeper could do when Brighton added their fourth a minute from time. Danny Welbeck created some space on the edge of the box before drilling an unexpected shot clinically into the bottom corner.

The visitors departed shell-shocked. Declan Rice did manage to muster some words afterwards and his comments save us the job of trying to put together a final paragraph which makes clear one final time just how good the Albion were in Brighton 4-0 West Ham.

“Credit to Brighton, they played us off the pitch. To be out there, it was demoralising – to stand there, to try to defend and see them keep the ball.”

That is De Zerbi’s Seagulls. Demoralising opponents. Long may it continue.