Hemed: The strikers here are good enough to score goals

Israeli international Hemed scored Brighton’s third goal in the 3-1 win at home to West Brom on Saturday – as Albion scored their first goals in the Premier League and recorded their first top-flight victory of the season.

Hemed, who has scored 32 goals for Albion in 94 games since joining from Almeria in 2015, was linked with a move away from the club during the transfer window. However he had decided he was going to stay at the club heading into deadline day and has been surprised with some comments from Albion fans that the team will not score enough goals.

Speaking after Saturday’s win, he said: “The last few days of the transfer window no one was really sure what was going to happen.

“But the last day, I knew that I would stay. I decided to stay and compete for my place in the starting 11 whoever may come in.

“In the end, everyone knows what happened. No one from the strikers we heard about came and I think the most important thing is to look at what we have and not what we don’t have.

“The strikers we have in the club are good enough to lead the team and score goals. I’m happy today that we won, I’m happy that I scored and I’m happy for the team.

“I was aware of what people were saying and it was looking like some people forgot about the strikers we have in the team.

“If you look at the last two seasons, we’ve scored a lot of goals and I didn’t understand why people were so worried.

“The team needs the best squad, it’s normal, and we want competition but in the end we know until January who will be here and the players here now will do our job.

“We scored our first goals of the season, we got the three points we wanted and this game can give us big confidence for the future.”