Baggies face Hammers test

West Ham United v West Bromwich Albion; London Stadium, Saturday 31st October 2026, 3pm

At the start of the season, most commentators expected West Ham United to run away with the Championship given the quality of their squad. It hasn’t quite gone fully according to plan, but there are signs that the Hammers are unstoppable when they get it right and a trip to their home stadium still represents one of the toughest tests that the Championship can present.

Two 6-0 wins, at home to Wrexham and away to Lincoln City, are the standout results for Nuno Espírito Santo’s team so far in this campaign that demonstrate how dangerous they can be, but their two league defeats, both at home, show that they can be vulnerable. Indeed, it took the Hammers until their fourth league match to claim victory having drawn at Burnley and Watford and lost at home to Charlton Athletic in their opening three games. Wolves were their first Championship victims at the London Stadium as they ran out 4-2 winners and they remained unbeaten until Southampton inflicted their second home defeat last weekend. The Saints, whose results would have them above the Hammers in second spot were it not for their four point deduction, took an early two goal lead in east London thereby quietening the 60,000 fans who became restless and uneasy. They eventually ran out 3-2 winners with West Ham’s second not coming until stoppage time and it’s been said before that, as large as the crowd is at the London Stadium, it can be a difficult atmosphere for the hosts if things don’t start well.

Unfortunately for James Morrison’s team, starting well is something they have struggled to do this season – they are yet to score in the opening 15 minutes and have conceded the first goal in eight of their twelve Championship matches. They have recovered in those games to claim a divisional high of eleven points in those games, but we would all prefer to not have to give the opponents a head start. West Ham, by contrast, are yet to win when conceding first picking up just three draws from the five games when they have let in the first goal.

Moreover, Albion have only dropped two points when scoring first, winning three and drawing one of the four matches, while the Hammers have also only dropped two points after claiming the opening goal, winning six of the seven games in which they have done so. Those statistics would suggest that the first goal is all important.

We are now almost a third of the way through the season, and while it is clear that the Baggies are far from the finished article, they are much further along the road that any Albion fan can have realistically expected at this stage. This match is another massive test, and will be immediately followed by another when in-form Southampton visit the Hawthorns on Tuesday evening.

Mozza’s hopes will have been boosted by the news that Hammers’ defender Konstantinos Mavropanos will miss out on the match with a knee injury, but there is so much quality in the West Ham side with Jarrod Bowen, Tomás Soucek and Joël Piroe just three of the players to have proved themselves in the Premier League. As Fleetwood Town proved on Tuesday evening, however, it’s just eleven against eleven on the day and Albion are move than capable of getting something from this game if they play well.

The result, or perhaps more accurately the performance, will give a good indication of how far Mozza’s Albion have come in their desire to propel the club back to the top flight. These are the sorts of games that the players will want to play in, to test themselves against the best the Championship has to offer. Having disappointed in the biggest game of the campaign so far at Molineux, I’m sure they will all be eager to put that right.

History

Given that Albion and West Ham have met 18 times in cup competitions, it is perhaps fitting that the first ever meeting between the sides was in a cup, the FA Cup First Round in 1913 and it took three games to separate the sides. After a 1-1 draw at the Hawthorns, the teams played out a 2-2 draw at Upton Park before a second replay at a neutral venue – well, I say “neutral”, but it certainly favoured the London club taking place, as it did, at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge stadium in west London. The Hammers won 3-0.

It was more than a decade before the clubs first met in the Football League – the Hammers joined the expanded Division Two after the First World War and won promotion in 1923 when they almost beat Albion to the “unique” double, but lost the FA Cup Final to Bolton Wanderers in the famous “White Horse Final”, the first at Wembley Stadium. It was in March 1924 that the first league encounter between the sides took place at Upton Park, the hosts winning 1-0 thanks to a goal from Jimmy Ruffell. The return fixture at the Hawthorns a week later ended goalless.

That was something of a rarity in this fixture in those early years with no fewer than 27 goals scored in the next 8 games between the sides. The Throstles recorded 4-1 and 7-1 wins at the Hawthorns, as well as a 5-1 win at Upton Park, while West Ham recorded a 3-0 win at home and a 3-1 win in West Bromwich.

The head-to-head record has remained fairly close throughout the history of the fixture although the Hammers have had the upper hand in the last couple of decades. Since the remarkable comeback victory at Upton Park in November 2003, Albion have only won five of the 22 meetings between the sides with the Hammers claiming eight victories in that period. With two of the Baggies’ triumphs coming in the FA Cup, it means they have won just three of the last twenty league encounters.

Connor Townend’s strike was enough to claim Albion’s most recent win, a 1-0 victory in the FA Cup at the London Stadium in January 2020, while for a league win we have to go back to September 2016. Naceur Chadli scored twice, one of which was a penalty, with Salomón Rondón and James MacClean also scoring in a 4-2 victory at the Hawthorns, Michael Antonio and Manuel Lanzini were on the mark for the visitors. Slaven Bilić was a manager in both of those games, losing as Hammers’ boss and winning as a Baggie!

Albion’s last league win at West Ham was that remarkable 4-3 victory in 2003 that I mentioned above, a match that the hosts had led 3-0 after 18 minutes. It was the Baggies’ second successive win at Upton Park as Jason Roberts’ goal had been enough to claim the points on their previous visit in September 2002 as Albion recorded their first ever away win in the Premier League.

Stat Attack

Current Form

All competitions; most recent game on the right

Last matches

Last meeting

19 May 2021 – Premier League
West Bromwich Albion 1 (Pereira)
West Ham United 3 (Soucek, Ogbonna, Antonio)

Last meeting at West Ham United

19 Jan 2021 – Premier League
West Ham United 2 (Bowen, Antonio)
West Bromwich Albion 1 (Pereira)

Last win

25 Jan 2020 – FA Cup 4th Round
West Ham United 0
West Bromwich Albion 1 (Townsend)

Albion’s Record against West Ham United