West Ham fans will tell you the Irons never do anything by halves, but the stats don't exactly back that up.

Nuno Espirito Santo's side are odds-on favourites for Championship promotion and have begun the season in blistering goalscoring form - their 32 scored across their opening 12 league games is their joint best ever return at this stage of a season, along with 1933-34.

While they remain within three points of the summit in the second-tier - with a chance to go top on Saturday if results go their way - the Hammers have made life incredibly difficult for themselves along the way, due largely to starting games slowly.

In 15 games across all competitions this season, West Ham have fallen behind in the first half of nine of them.

The Hammers have gone at least one goal down in the opening 45 minutes of three of their six home league games, three more on the road, plus in all three League Cup fixtures too.

Of the 20 goals the Irons have conceded in all competitions, 15 of them have come in the first half of games, and they only remain in the mix at the top because they have scored 20 of the club record-equalling 32 league goals after half-time.

They are consistently having to chase the game, and the trend shows no signs of letting up.

Hammers' penalty woes cost them top spot

The Hammers have conceded inside 20 minutes in five of their past eight games in all competitions, including the past three at home, while only two of the 32 league goals they have scored have come in that same span.

By contrast, they have not conceded a second-half goal in their past eight league games and allowed only four after the interval across their 12 games so far - if games began at half-time the Hammers would already have daylight at the top of the Championship.

Espirito Santo's men have come from behind to earn a point at home to QPR and away at Watford and Millwall while they overturned a 2-1 deficit to win 3-2 at Bolton, but those six points gained from losing positions might well have been nine, enough to see them top of the table, had they not missed late penalties at home to Charlton and QPR.

It is a pattern which the Portuguese is well aware of, telling BBC Radio London after the draw with QPR on 9 October: "We didn't start the game well. Something that happened [before]. We were below par. Much better in the second half, much improvement.

"When you look back, you say we have to fix it urgently; we have to start the games better. We have to start games and sustain the level of performance."

It looked like things had been fixed with wins and clean sheets, in the following two matches at Lincoln and Swansea, but the pattern returned as the Hammers fell 2-0 down inside 11 minutes against Southampton last weekend on their way to a 3-2 defeat at the London Stadium.

Espirito Santo said afterwards: "It was a frustrating afternoon for us, the way we concede very early.

"We were improving, we've come from two clean sheets and to start the game with the two goals was frustrating, but the reaction was good, we went for it."

He will hope a similar reaction will not be necessary as West Brom head to the capital on Saturday (15:00 GMT).

Albion won't make it easy for the Hammers, however, even if they do manage a rare fast start of their own.

The Baggies have earned 11 points from losing positions already this season, second most in the top four tiers of English football behind only Barnet's 13 in League Two.

James Morrison's man have only scored seven goals in six away games - with only one of those in the first half - but have managed five goals in the final 15 minutes of matches to help earn 10 points.