Key events
David Moyes has been speaking to TNT Sports: Divin Mubama “deserves his opportunity. He’s been knocking on the door and training well. He made an impact at the weekend. He’s been around the first team and been involved in a lot of these games in the last year, so he’s no stranger to it. Hopefully he will do well and get a couple of goals.
“If we can do it tonight it will be great. We’ve done well in Europe and away from home in the past few years and it would be nice to do the same tonight.”
For West Ham, Divin Mubama starts up front with both Jarrod Bowen and Michail Antonio missing, with Mo Kudus, Emerson Palmieri and Edson Alvarez also out. There’s been an outbreak of illness in the Hammers camp.
That’s four changes for Brighton, who have lost Tariq Lamptey and Ansu Fati to long-term injuries, with Jack Hinshelwood at left-back and Bart Verbruggen in goal, Karou Mitoma and Igor Julio coming in.
Here’s the Brighton and West Ham teams
AEK Athens: Stankovic, Rota, Vida, Moukoudi, Hajsafi, Szymanski, Amrabat, Mantalos, Pineda, Gacinovic, Zuber. Subs: Mohammadi, Araujo, Ponce, Eliasson, Mitoglou, Sidibe,
Athanasiadis, Ginis, Pizarro.
Brighton: Verbruggen, Hinshelwood, Igor, Dunk, Veltman, Gross, Gilmour, Adingra, Ferguson, Mitoma, Joao Pedro. Subs: Milner, Dahoud, Baleba, Steele, McGill, Buonanotte, Jackson, Duffus, Hinchy, Chouchane, Kavanagh.
Referee: Sandro Scharer (Switzerland)
West Ham: Fabianski; Johnson, Mavropanos, Aguerd, Cresswell; Soucek, Ward-Prowse, Fornals; Benrahma, Mubama, Paqueta. Subs: Areola, Anang, Zouma, Ings, Cornet, Ogbonna, Kehrer, Coventry, Emerson, Chesters, Scarles, Orford
Preamble
Brighton can carve this season into club mythology by winning in Athens to book a spot in the knockout stages. The same goes for West Ham in Serbia. Both teams may have to look to other results to avoid an extra knockout round in February. It’s a night each of the British teams – Liverpool and Rangers play later – can secure qualification. The same goes for Aston Villa in the Europa Conference.
But, for the early shift, here’s the Europa League games to look out for.
Group A
Backa Topola v. West Ham (KO 5.45)
Freiburg v. Olympiacos (KO 5.45)
Group B
AEK Athens v. Brighton (KO 5.45)
Group C
Sparta Prague v. Real Betis (KO 5.45)
Group D
Atalanta v. Sporting (KO 5.45)
Sturm Graz v. Rakow Czestochowa (KO 5.45)
Group F
Maccabi Haifa v. Rennes (KO 5.45)