Brighton & Hove Albion welcome West Ham United to the Amex Stadium on Saturday looking to bounce back from their home defeat at the hands of Fulham in their most recent Premier League outing.
The Seagulls have enjoyed an impressive campaign in 2022-23 despite losing manager Graham Potter to Chelsea, with Roberto De Zerbi seamlessly picking up the reins from his predecessor.
Brighton sit eighth in the Premier League table, just six points adrift of the European places and a full 12 clear of their visitors to the south coast this weekend.
While their last league game ended in defeat, Brighton bounced back to beat Stoke City in the FA Cup on Tuesday night, setting up a quarter-final showdown with League Two side Grimsby Town.
The loss to Fulham is Brighton's only reverse in their nine outings across all competitions so far this calendar year, while West Ham have only won one of their last five games - albeit a 4-0 hammering of Nottingham Forest last weekend, with all of their goals coming in the final 20 minutes.
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A late collapse of their own led to them being knocked out of the FA Cup by Manchester United in midweek, although they have not lost back-to-back games in all competitions yet in 2023.
The statistics suggest that fate could await them this weekend, though, with Brighton yet to taste defeat at the hands of the Hammers in their 11 previous Premier League meetings.
It is the most the Seagulls have faced an opposition without losing in the competition, and conversely also the most West Ham have faced a specific opponent without beating them in the Premier League.
The Irons have never kept a clean sheet against Brighton in the Premier League either, and one particular stat hints that they could find themselves playing catch-up early on at the Amex this weekend.
De Zerbi's side have scored a league-high nine goals in the opening 15 minutes of top-flight games this season, whereas West Ham are the only team in the division yet to net in that time period.
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David Moyes's men can be optimistic that they would respond to any setback, having only failed to score on one of their five previous Premier League visits to the Amex.
West Ham are also averaging over 13 shots per game this season - their highest such tally since 2015-16 - and while their conversion rate to shots on target is their lowest on record, they will hope that the fit-again Danny Ings will help to improve that.
Ings scored twice in the win over Forest and also helped himself to a brace in Aston Villa's win at Brighton earlier in the campaign; a repeat of that achievement this weekend would see him become the first player in Premier League history to score multiple goals against an opponent with two different teams in a single campaign.
However, while both teams seem likely to get on the scoresheet, the formbook suggests that Brighton will ultimately come out on top - they have only lost back-to-back games once all season, whereas West Ham have only won two matches on the bounce once.
The Hammers have also only won two of their last 20 top-flight away games, losing 14 of those, including seven in an ongoing 10-match winless run on the road - their longest such streak since December 2014 to May 2015.
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Barney Corkhill
