Back at the Broadfield and back in the win column for the first time this season baby! After a tight draw against Villa and a tough trip to Manchester, it was vital the Albion took all three points from West Ham – and ooh boy did they not disappoint! This was the performance where the best elements of the first two games combined to produce the desired result. The defence was immaculate, the midfield controlled the game and the attack put up four – what more could you ask?

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For a full recap of the match action courtesy of Heather Miller, head over to the Albion website: HERE
Match highlights are available on the official WSL YouTube channel: HERE

The SheGulls Summary

Brighton & Hove Albion

• Brighton dominated the game for the most part, despite the fact that according to the statistics, West Ham slightly edged them for possession with 52%. Ultimately it’s what you do with it though and the Albion had nearly twice as many shots on target and led 2.9 to 1.7 in xG. Bar the spot kick and a penalty box ping-pong that was blocked by a combination of Michelle Agyemang and Moeka Minami, West Ham rarely threatened to cause any real damage.
• It has been a long-time bug bear that for such a tall team, the Albion are not a goal scoring threat from corners. Number of goals scored directly from corners in the 24/25 WSL season – none, zero, zip. When Caitlin Hayes signed for us in January we were told that she was normally good for a few headed goals a season. Here, in just her fifth start for the club, and with Celtic fans in the crowd cheering her on, she did not disappoint. A pinpoint corner in the 23rd minute from Fran Kirby sailed across the six-yard box and there was Caitlin, as promised, to tower above everyone and nod Brighton into the lead. Fantastic to see her work ethic and presence pay off, despite the fact she may not start every game.
• Not too long later, a crisp piece of interplay between Kiko Seike and Rosa Kafaji in the box allowed the Japanese international to slot a cool finish past West Ham goalkeeper Kinga Szemik and into the bottom left-hand corner of the net. So far this season Kiko has looked one of our most dangerous attacking threats and games and goals like this will only help to grow her confidence moving forward.
• Attention then turned slightly to making it to the break without conceding, something that has proved difficult for the Albion when taking the lead in the past. Credit to the team though, they made it there safely, and optimism was high that we could kick on in the second-half. Brighton weren’t about to have it all their own way though.
• The one criticism of Chiamaka Nnadozie is that she can be a bit unconventional sometimes in her goalkeeping. Overall that’s an enormous net positive, but there is the occasional time when her bravery and front-foot approach can get her in trouble. Case in point with West Ham’s goal from a penalty that she gave away when coming out bravely, but perhaps unnecessarily, to palm away a ball from Ffion Morgan. We’ve seen similar before, a save she made in the French Cup Final against Grace Geyoro (watch here) for instance – difference was – that time she got the ball. It should be said that the grass was very heavily watered at half-time and it’s fair to wonder if she just misjudged the skid on the ball on, what is still to her, an unfamiliar pitch. Either way West Ham didn’t care, Viviane Asseyi slotted calmly home from the spot, and suddenly the deficit was down to one.
• The teams that will naturally rise to the top half of the league are those who can convert a lead into three points and not buckle under pressure. There were a few nervy minutes following the penalty where some of the Man City vibes starting creeping in and Dario acknowledged as much in his post-match press conference. In such situations it helps if you have players who can take the bull by the horns, create something from almost nothing and put you back on the front foot.
• Step up Kafaji, one of the consensus best young talents in football, certainly before she joined Arsenal last year. Fellow Gunners loanee Agyemang won the ball back deep in the opposition half and the ball broke to Kafaji just outside the box. Rather than recycle the ball from an acute angle she decides to curl a rather delicious finish over the head of Szemik and into, what I believe is referred to as, top bins. A beauty of a goal from almost nowhere, it’s fair to wonder if this is the year she puts the doubters to bed.
• Not content with one excellent finish from range, Marisa Olislagers made it two late on with a powerful curling shot that beat the keeper for movement and power more than anything else. The commentator and I agree that Szemik should have done better with it after getting a full arm to the ball, but if you don’t shoot you don’t score and in reality all that matters is it went in.
• One of the most pleasing aspects of the performance was that it would be impossible to pick out a player who didn’t play well. The attack scored four, from four different goalscorers, and none of them were Agyemang who had a good game herself. The midfield were both creative and structured when required, Kirby, Jelena Cankovic and Maisie Symonds all had pass accuracy over 82% and the Albion really dominated the midfield with meaningful possession. The defence effectively kept a clean sheet, bearing in mind that the penalty incident and goal were solely down to Nnadozie – who actually had an excellent game bar that error.
• Something I’ve noticed with Charlie Rule, particularly in the two home games, is she’s very good at adapting to the threat posed and changing her defensive approach. After not playing for such a long time and then coming in at centre back against Villa, a position to my knowledge she has never played professionally, she settled in incredibly well after a couple of early issues and kept that clean sheet against some very different attacking threats. In this game Asseyi got past her a couple of times early down the left hand side, but she seemed to change her approach to one where her opponent was forced to go through her rather than round her – and Asseyi got so little change out of Charlie at that point that West Ham moved her centrally to see if they could get any joy there instead. Spoiler alert, they didn’t.
• Though not on the score sheet and rather under the radar in general, I thought Cankovic had an excellent game. She seems to be operating as a box to box midfielder collecting the ball deep, often deeper than Symonds, and carrying it forward with trademark aplomb. Her pass accuracy of 87.5% – completing 42 of 48 attempts – shows how key she really is to the build-up play in the middle of the park.
• I can’t finish without also adding that the centre back pairing of Hayes and Moeka Minami looked absolutely solid as a rock. Caitlin has all the physical attributes you look for in that position – tall, physically dominant, vocal, good passing range from deep etc. Minami is slightly different and in many ways that is what makes them an effective pair. Her anticipation is probably the best I’ve seen in the WSL, she just seems to know exactly where she needs to be at all times, winning balls first, getting her head onto long passes forward and crosses that she often has no right to win, and above all her skill in not just defending, but turning defending into retained possession – which is just so rare nowadays. With Maelys Mpome and Manuela Vanegas to come back into this unit – you have to think the Albion are going to be very very hard to beat this season.
• Overall this was the performance that we were looking for, a dominant win, at home, over a tough but weaker opponent. We needed the three points yes, but in playing well the result followed, and that is always the right way to do it.

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West Ham

• It’s hard not to feel like West Ham will be relegation candidates this term. Unlike say, Aston Villa, who seem to have parlayed their 24/25 late season form into a strong summer window and a solid start, the Hammers seem to have reverted to type – the type who have finished 9th and 11th in the last two WSL seasons.
• Asseyi tried very hard and broke through once or twice, but even with their limited amount of star power, none of them shone particularly brightly. Three changes at half time is never indicative of success and Rehanne Skinner obviously felt like major personnel and tactical changes were required to try and arrest the slide into comfortable defeat.
• Albion play West Ham again in the Subway Cup in a few weeks time, so it’ll be interesting to see if they learned anything from this loss. That game may well decide who wins the group and makes the quarter-final stage.

Other Business

• The officiating was of a good level and for the most part referee Grace Lowe appeared to favour letting the play continue when possible. The only issue I would take is that if a player makes no attempt to play the ball and pulls an opponent back, with meaningful enough contact to warrant a foul – it should be a yellow card. Maybe you can let one go, but Asseyi committed five fouls all similar in nature and still didn’t get booked. If flagrant fouls go unpunished, especially in that volume, the player will just continue to do it until a card is brandished. How many more fouls would Asseyi have been allowed to get away with? Has accumulation of fouls been disregarded as a reason to be booked now?
• The attendance for the game was 1810, some 400 fans down on the opening day Villa fixture. Whilst not wishing to belabor the point – something needs to be done to raise flagging attendances, particularly after England just won the European Championship again and in theory the game should be in another boom period. If not 10,000+ at a stadium just because it’s in Brighton is going to be an almost impossible task to fill.
• Finally, we received the sad news on Saturday that long-time Liverpool manager and stalwart of the women’s game for many years, Matt Beard, had passed away. Though our footballing philosophies may not have aligned of late, he deserves an unimaginable amount of credit for what he has done for both the sport itself and the many, many people he coached, worked alongside and befriended along the way. Our thoughts go out to his friends, family and anyone affected by his tragic passing and it was our honour to spend a minute in silence prior to kickoff on Sunday in his memory.

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The SheGulls Podcast was recorded last night will be released soon – so for more analysis of this game and previews of Portsmouth away (Subway Cup) and Everton at home (WSL) – do give it a listen.

See you all soon as always!