WSL preview: Albion host the Hammers

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Melissa Phillips' side play their first game of the season at the Broadfield Stadium on Sunday.

Bruce Talbot

2023-10-07T17:00:00Z

Terland opens up the 2023/24 WSL scoring against Everton.

Albion will be looking to make it successive wins in the Barclays WSL when we take on West Ham United at the Broadfield Stadium on Sunday (12 noon) in our first home match of the season.

View from the bench

Head coach Melissa Phillips said, “I think we all appreciate that the WSL is one of the most competitive leagues in the world. You see the way that so many squads strengthened throughout the summer months and every game will be competitive for sure.

“West Ham will want to bounce back [after losing 2-0 to Manchester City last Sunday] and, looking at the game, they felt it was a really strong performance against a very good Man City side, so they’ll look to improve upon that.”

The history

Albion have a remarkable winning record against West Ham, with victories in each of our last six games against them in the WSL. We did the double over them last season, winning 5-4 there in November before a header from Kayleigh Green sealed a 1-0 win at the Broadfield Stadium in the return fixture. The sides also met in the Conti Cup in January and after a goalless draw we won the penalty shoot-out 3-0.

Player to watch

One Hammer who will need no introduction to Albion fans is goalkeeper Meg Walsh, who ended a four-year association with the Seagulls in May and signed for the Hammers in the summer. Walsh won her first Republic of Ireland cap while with Albion and made 76 appearances for the club after signing for us from Yeovil Town in 2019.

Megan Walsh joined West Ham this summer after four years with Albion.

Stats and facts

West Ham have only ever had a longer run of consecutive defeats in the Women’s Super League against Arsenal and Chelsea (both 8) than their current run of six straight defeats against the Seagulls.
After beating Everton on the opening weekend, Albion are looking to win consecutive league matches for the first time since February-March 2022 against Reading and Aston Villa. This game will be their 30th since that run ended.
West Ham have won just one of their last 13 league matches (D3 L9), though that victory did come in their most recent away game against Leicester in last season’s penultimate round.
Albion made 29 high turnovers against Everton on MD1, with six of them resulting in a shot – both figures led all teams in the division across the opening weekend.
Albion have lost five of their last seven home matches in the Women’s Super League (W2), although they did beat West Ham during this run back in May (1-0), which was their only clean sheet across their last 15 home matches.
Elisabeth Terland has scored six of Brighton’s last 10 league goals, with Katie Robinson being the only other player to score more than one goal for the Seagulls during this period (2).
West Ham’s Emma Harries has been directly involved in four goals across her last three league appearances against Brighton (3 goals, 1 assist), netting a brace in her last outing against them in March for previous club Reading.
In a run of form that started in November 2022 with a goal and assist against Liverpool, Albion’s Katie Robinson has been directly involved in 10 goals in her last 17 appearances in the Women’s Super League (3 goals, 7 assists), the most of any player currently aged 21 or younger over this period.
Match officials