West Ham cling on for Brighton point thanks to Mohammed Kudus redemption
West Ham 1-1 Brighton: The Ghana winger headed his third of the season to cancel out Mats Wieffer’s maiden goal for the Seagulls
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Your support makes all the difference.Mohammed Kudus earned West Ham a point against bogey side Brighton in a 1-1 draw at the London Stadium.
The Ghana winger headed his third of the season, and his first since completing a five-match ban for his red card at Tottenham in October, to cancel out Mats Wieffer’s maiden goal for Brighton.
The Seagulls came closest to grabbing a winner but were unable to prevent their run without a victory stretching to five matches.
However, they did maintain their record of not losing at the London Stadium in all eight of their Premier League visits.
Brighton defender Jan Paul van Hecke will probably not remember much about the first half after getting accidentally kicked in the head by team-mate Carlos Baleba at a corner, but it was a tepid opening 45 minutes.
A long ball from Konstantinos Mavropanos sent Jarrod Bowen scampering through early on, with the Hammers skipper getting in behind Pervis Estupinan only to see his angled shot saved by Bart Verbruggen.
For Brighton, Joao Pedro’s cute chip in the area found Kaoru Mitoma, whose sharp volley was beaten away by Lukasz Fabianski.
But a dismal first half was best summed up when Hammers full-back Emerson Palmieri reached the byline and pulled the ball back to Lucas Paqueta, who launched a first-time shot well over the crossbar.
Brighton livened up proceedings seven minutes into the second half when Lewis Dunk went up to challenge Fabianski for Estupinan’s far-post cross.
The ball squirmed out to Dutch midfielder Wieffer, who lashed it back first time past Fabianski from 12 yards out.
Germany striker Niclas Fullkrug had been handed a long-awaited full Premier League debut after an injury-hit start to his West Ham career following a big-money summer move from Borussia Dortmund.
But after 56 underwhelming minutes, and just two touches in the opposition penalty area, the 31-year-old was replaced by Crysencio Summerville.
Moments later West Ham equalised, Tomas Soucek’s ball sending Bowen racing towards goal again.
The England forward was held up by Dunk and Joel Veltman but still got his shot away, and as Verbruggen parried the ball it sat up for Kudus to nod in the rebound.
Brighton almost snatched the victory but Fabianski made a fine reaction save from Yasin Ayari’s deflected shot and Yankuba Minteh’s cross for Mitoma was deflected onto a post.
Seagulls substitute Evan Ferguson then miskicked from six yards and Fabianski saved with his legs to deny Ayari in stoppage time as West Ham clung on for a point.
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