West Ham have been handed a potential boost ahead of the visit of Brighton to London Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
It always feels like West Ham is the team certain players love scoring against. Over the years, Jamie Vardy, Callum Wilson, and several others have been known to always score when facing the Hammers, so much so that it feels like it’s almost a guarantee that they will.
It’s also been the case for West Ham that players on long goal droughts will often finally find their shooting boots when they face us. I’ve lost count of how many times over the years players have either scored their first-ever Premier League goal against us or scored their first goal for months the moment we’re their opponents.
I suppose every club has players who appear to be nemesis’. Players who are just regular thorns in the side of certain clubs, no matter who they’re playing for or what form they’re in at the time.
We have a couple of players like that, too. Jarrod Bowen absolutely loves playing against Wolves and Brentford, for example. He has six goals and one assist in his 11 meetings against Wolves and seven goals in 12 appearances against the Bees.
jarrod bowen celebrates goal vs Wolves
One player who has loved facing West Ham throughout his career is Danny Welbeck.
He’s faced us 23 times since 2009 and has scored seven goals, assisting a further four. That doesn’t seem like a great record, but hear me out because he’s scored more goals against us than any other club he’s faced in his entire career.
Of those 23 appearances against the Hammers, he’s only lost four times. One of those came last season and the other three were when he was playing for Watford and Sunderland.
It’s only really been since he became a Brighton player where he’s enjoyed playing us the most. As a Seagull he’s played us seven times, scoring three times and registering one assist. That means almost half of his career goals against West Ham have been for Brighton.
So Welbeck has become something of a nemesis to West Ham over the past few years.
Thankfully, news emerging at the moment suggests we won’t have to worry about when the Seagulls visit east London on Saturday afternoon.
The Metro are reporting that the 34-year-old is ‘likely’ to miss the game due to an ankle injury, which is a huge boost to West Ham’s chances of securing a much-needed three points. Not just because he loves playing against us but because he’s also been in relatively good form under new boss Fabian Hurzeler this season, scoring six goals in 16 appearances.
So if Welbeck does miss out on Saturday afternoon, that’s one less thing we have to worry about.