Brighton 1-1 Sheffield United: Albion can’t beat rock-bottom Blades

Brighton 1-1 Sheffield United. Like the 5-0 defeat to Bournemouth, the time nine-man Walsall won 1-0 at Withdean and the evening when Sudbury Town knocked the Albion out of the FA Cup, this will be one of those matches which Seagulls supporters talk about for years to come when discussions turn to the most ridiculous results in the club’s history.

All the ingredients required to class this as an extreme embarrassment were present. The Blades arrived having just set the record for the worst start any side has ever made in English top flight history. 13 games, 12 defeats, one draw and a solitary point.

Making Brighton’s inability to beat United even more farcical was the fact that Chris Wilder’s side had to play for nearly an hour with 10 men following John Lundstram’s sending off.

And then there was what it meant for the Albion. 11 games without a home win equals the club record, set by the class of 1997-98 who are largely considered to be the worst team in Brighton history. They did at least had the excuse that home games were taking place in Gillingham at the time.

Brighton have won just once at the Amex in 2020. Imagine if fans had been allowed to attend every match this calendar year and their financial commitment and loyalty was being rewarded with a solitary victory from 16 matches?

Graham Potter should thank his lucky stars that he has overseen such a barren year in front of empty stadiums. It is easy to not feel too critical when you are sat in the warm at home, not forking out a lot of money to attend the Amex in person.

It becomes a different story when you are turning up week in, week out and the players and manager are rewarding you with utter dross. You can only imagine the meltdown in the stands that would have been occurring as the games passed and still no home win was forthcoming.

In normal times, Brighton 1-1 Sheffield United would have led to a full-on mutiny the likes of which the Amex has only ever seen when Millwall came to town for Sami Hyypia’s final home game at the helm.

Could you blame fans if that happened? Brighton have now faced all four of the sides below them in the Premier League table and failed to beat any of them.

“When results start matching performances we will be fine,” was the line trotted out through most of September and October. Not many people stopped to think what would happen if things went the other way.

Now we are seeing poor performances in which we are getting poor results we deserve in much the same way as a promising start to the 2019-20 campaign gave way to absolute dross from the start of December until lockdown in March.

Brighton were in a relegation battle then and there is no doubting that Potter is overseeing another struggle against the drop, except this one is perhaps the most serious the Albion have faced in their four seasons as a Premier League club.

Whilst the Albion cannot buy a win for love nor money, Burnley and Fulham are improving and West Bromwich Albion have appointed Big Sam Allardyce which surely increases their chances of survival.

Brighton meanwhile seem to be going backwards, as proven by their efforts in becoming only the second team out of 14 to give up points to Sheffield United this season.

The first 20 minutes set the tone for what was to come; Brighton had lots of possession but did nothing with it. Sideways pass after sideways pass allowed a Blades defence which has leaked goals at an alarming rate the time they needed to set themselves and be organised.

Brighton were simply far too slow in everything they did. Nobody is to blame for that other than Potter; he sets his team up to play with possession as king and whilst having 73 percent of it makes for a nice statistic, it is absolutely pointless if you are racking up those numbers by passing the ball from side to side with no inclination to go for goal.

Aaron Ramsdale did not have a save to make until the 22nd minute when he blocked an Aaron Connolly drive. The recalled Neal Maupay then had a couple of efforts blocked on the line as a familiar sense of déjà vu descended – it was only a matter of time before United punished this wastefulness by scoring themselves.

They nearly did from a David McGoldrick free kick on the half hour mark. Robert Sanchez though made a spectacular save low down to his left to turn the ball around the post. A reminder that the Blades could trouble the Albion if the hosts were not careful.

But then Lundstram saw red, giving the Albion 55 minutes to play against 10 men. There could be no complaints about the sending off as Lundstram went in high and hard on Joel Veltman.

Referee Peter Banks momentarily forgot that he was officiating a game in the 21st century and initially awarded only a yellow. VAR told him to have another look – presumably with a reminder that we are no longer in the 1970s when the sort of tackle Lundstram put in might have been legal – and Banks changed his mind.

This is where a manager earns his money – and in Potter’s case, has the opportunity to justify the questionable six-year contract that Brighton gave him last November after just four months in charge and four Premier League wins.

Potter had an hour to outwit Sheffield United, something that Nuno, Dean Smith, Marcelo Bielsa, Mikel Arteta, Jurgen Klopp, Pep Guardiola, Frank Lampard, David Moyes, Slaven Bilic, Brendan Rodgers, Ralph Hasenhüttl and Ole Gunnar Solksjaer have all managed. Potter also had the added advantage of his team having a player more than the Blades for two thirds of the 90 minutes.

And he failed. At half time, Alireza Jahanbakhsh replaced Veltman which left a lot of people baffled, not least Warren Aspinall on BBC Radio Sussex who sounded extremely exasperated when saying, “That’s not the change I would have made, but then again I am not the manager.” Seemingly, it is not just the patience of supporters wearing thin with Potter.

The second half was more of the same. Pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass… playing right into the hands of United, who had predictably set up in two banks of four with Oliver Burke up top on his own to try and defend their way to a second point of the season.

Brighton could find no way through and the only thing of note Ramsdale had to do was pick the ball off the feet of Connolly, who went down far too easily looking for a penalty.

If Connolly is not careful, he is going to stray into the same reputational waters occupied by a certain Wilfried Zaha as a player who dives on a frequent basis.

Predictable disaster then struck when United took the lead. McGoldrick found Jayden Bogle and he beat Sanchez via a deflection off Adam Webster.

Lewis Dunk asked the referee to check for an offside but that seemed to be an appeal based more on desperation for there to be something which could save Brighton’s blushes.

Potter made two further changes. Danny Welbeck – the one proven Premier League striker in the Brighton squad – finally entered proceedings with 25 minutes left to play.

He was joined by Andi Zeqiri, the £3 million summer signing from the Swiss second division on for his debut. Bizarrely, Potter decided to introduce the 6’1 target man out on the left wing. Another one for Potter Positional Roulette.

The arrival of two forwards into proceedings finally saw Brighton do something in an attacking sense. Connolly produced what might well be the worse miss any Albion striker has ever managed, heading over Jahanbakhsh’s cross from two yards out. To make matters worse, Welbeck was waiting behind and he surely would have converted.

There was a let off down the other end as Burke fired wide on the counter attack before Brighton did manage to find an equaliser. Welbeck brought a Webster header down on his chest and fire clinically past Ramsdale to turn what would have been a highly embarrassing result of Brighton 0-1 Sheffield United into a mildly embarrassing result of Brighton 1-1 Sheffield United.

Potter tried to use his get out of jail free card in the final seconds. Welbeck saw his header cleared off the line but only as far as Jahanbakhsh, who just had to guide the ball into the empty goal from inside the six yard box. Instead, he contrived to hit the post for what might well be the second worse miss any Albion striker has ever managed.

Even if that had gone in and Brighton taken all three points, there would still be serious questions for Potter to answer about the performance, the lack of cutting edge, his substitutions and why it had taken an injury time winner to squeak past a side who have recorded the worst start to a top flight season since the 1800s when the Football League was founded.

The concern must be that if Brighton cannot beat a team as poor as Sheffield United at home and when things fall in their favour, then where is the next three points coming from?

Fulham 0-0 Brighton and Brighton 1-1 Sheffield United are two results recorded in five days that belong to a team who are getting relegated.

A long, hard winter lies ahead. Potter needs to find a way to shake Brighton out of this slump fast, or else the Championship is calling and years of hard work to get the club into the top flight will have gone to waste.

Tony Bloom’s ambition of the Albion becoming a top 10 Premier League club has never looked more like pie in the sky than after Brighton 1-1 Sheffield United; our only concern this season has to be staying out of the bottom three – which we did at least manage after the 5-0 defeat to Bournemouth, the time nine-man Walsall won 1-0 at Withdean and the evening when Sudbury Town knocked the Albion out of the FA Cup.