Brighton 3-3 Wolves: A second half comeback to turn the season around?

For the opening 45 minutes of Brighton 3-3 Wolves, it looked like 2021 would begin how 2020 had finished with another nail being hammered into the coffin of Graham Potter and the Albion’s time as a Premier League club.

Wolves led 3-1 going into half time, thanks to all the normal mistakes which have frequently underpinned Brighton’s disappointing season so far.

There were two goals conceded as a result of set pieces, taking the tally onto nine for the season. Potter’s selection roulette wheel had this time landed on starting one central midfielder and five centre backs.

Of those five, Joel Veltman and Ben White were the lucky duo selected to play out-of-position in a side that looked terribly unbalanced as a result.

The Brighton boss then compounded matters by switching to a back four just after Wolves had gone 2-1 ahead. Incredibly, he decided that Leandro Trossard playing in front of Dan Burn on the left rather than the more defensive-minded Solly March was a good idea for nullifying the threat of Adama Traoré.

Within a couple of minutes, this batshit mental piece of management resulted in Burn being hopelessly exposed as Traoré ran at him. The wholly predictable outcome was a penalty to Wolves which was easily converted for 3-1. Brighton were sinking without a trace.

Potter now faced one of the biggest half times of his live. Whatever he said certainly seemed to fire up the players and combined with a strangely sensible double substitution which saw Handsome Davy Propper enter proceedings in midfield and Andi Zeqiri given an opportunity up front, Brighton were able to complete a memorable comeback.

Who knew that having players in their correct positions could result in a better performance and a final score of Brighton 3-3 Wolves, which had seemed worlds away an hour earlier?

The Albion had actually began the game well, taking the lead inside of 11 minutes through a rare Aaron Connolly goal. There was a lot to like about it, starting with Adam Webster’s jinking run out of defence, Trossard’s trickery out wide and then the way Connolly was more sneaky than throwing a Christmas Eve party under tier 2 restrictions to beat Rui Patricio to the ball and convert.

It was Connolly’s first goal at the Amex since he burst onto the scene with that brace in the 3-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur back in October 2019. He nearly had another shortly afterwards, only to see his brilliant bicycle kick held by Patricio.

If that had gone in, then it would have put Brighton 2-1 ahead. The initial lead had lasted only seven minutes before the Old Gold equalised with some typically criminal defending from a corner.

Brighton failed to effectively clear the initial delivery and when Nelson Semedo retrieved the ball and chipped back into the box, Romain Saiss found himself completely free to guide an excellent looping header over Robert Sanchez and into the top corner.

Worse was to come for Brighton as Burn took centre stage, channelling the spirit of Calamity Colin Hawkins at his very best. There were a lot of Brighton supporters on Twitter trying to claim that what followed from Burn was the poorest performance any Brighton defender has ever given, but in reality it was not a patch on Hawkins’ reign of terror which we thoroughly enjoyed throughout 2008 and 2009. As the old saying goes, if you do not laugh then you would have to cry.

Burn’s nightmare began when his attempts to place a simple back header to Sanchez went nowhere near the young goalkeeper, instead gifting Wolves a corner. Not good news when you play for a team who are as world class defending set pieces as the government’s Covid-19 track and trace app.

From said corner, the ball ended up with Pedro Neto whose deflected shot was unconvincingly pushed straight back into the danger area by Sanchez, where it hit the hapless Burn to bounce in for a comedy own goal.

It would have been interesting to see how much blame Maty Ryan would have copped had he been the one making a questionable save – which had shades of a Wayne Henderson special – onto his own defender.

With Burn very clearly struggling, Potter then thought he would help out his defender by switching formations and positions around to give Traoré a free run at Burn. As already noted, this ended in disaster with Burn conceding a spot kick which Ruben Neves converted for 3-1.

In hauling Traoré to the ground, Burn became the first player to score an own goal and concede a penalty in the same Premier League game since Eliaquim Mangala for Manchester City against Hull in 2014. Burn now had 45 minutes to attempt to pick up a red card to complete the Grand Slam.

Whilst a lot of the Brighton supporting world were going mad at Burn, it was hard not to feel sorry for him. He gives his all every week no matter where he is asked to play. It is not Burn’s fault that he is not good enough to be starting week in, week out in the Premier League.

The fact he plays so consistently is down to the manager. What makes Burn’s continued selection all the more bizarre is that Brighton are not exactly short in the centre back department.

As Burn was getting the run around in the first half of Brighton 3-3 Wolves, Ben White was struggling in central midfield. We seem to be saying this every week, but White is a player wanted by Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs and Manchester City as a centre back. Why not try something radical like playing him in his best position?

At half time, Potter introduced Zeqiri for the injured Connolly and Propper took over from Yves Bissouma, who was walking a tightrope after an early yellow card.

Within 60 seconds of the restart, Brighton pulled one back. Zeqiri won a header which Neal Maupay latched onto, only to be bundled over in the box. The Frenchman dusted himself down and smashed the resulting penalty straight down the middle. Game on.

Burn was back in the thick of the action, producing a great clearing header… from a March cross in the Wolves box, cementing his place as the Old Gold’s clear and obvious man-of-the-match.

Trossard then saw a volley blocked by Connor Coady and the outstanding Webster rattled the bar with a header. The loose ball fell to Zeqiri who was now just two yards out from an open goal but somehow he managed to put his effort over the bar. The £3.5 million signing from Lausanne-Sport will fit in well at the Albion with finishing like that.

Potter finally put Burn out of his misery – dashing any hopes of the Grand Slam in the process – when Adam Lallana took over for the final 20 minutes, joining Propper in the middle of the park. White was shifted to left back to rack up his 19th different position of the campaign.

Two minutes later and Lewis Dunk made it Brighton 3-3 Wolves, powering a home a header from a Trossard corner. It was a real captain’s goal and the desire that Dunk showed to throw himself at the delivery and the passionate celebrations which followed were a sign that there is still some fight in this Brighton team after weeks in which they have looked like they did not really care.

Lallana and Propper were now controlling the show, as you would expect from two experienced full internationals. When Trossard beat Patricio with a fierce shot, Brighton thought they had won it only for referee Andrew Madley to rule the goal out because of an apparent foul by Trossard on Rayan Aït-Nouri.

There is no doubt that goal should have stood. The Albion themselves had a let off of their own in the final seconds when Wolves youngster Owen Otasowie put a free header over the bar.

Had that gone in, it would have been harsh on Brighton as their blistering second half performance was more than worthy of a share of the spoils.

The hope now has to be that the comeback can kickstart the Albion’s season. It needed fight, passion and belief to overturn a two-goal deficit against a side as good as Wolves, qualities which have been sorely missed in a dire run of seven without a win.

That sequence now stretches to eight. Failing to beat Wolves also means that Potter has overseen the worst ever run of home matches without a victory, up to 13 now and eclipsing the 12 set by Steve Gritt’s side in the 1997-98 season.

With a ridiculously tough run of games to come which includes Manchester City, The Leeds United and Liverpool away and Fulham and Spurs at home, things do not get any easier as the campaign hurtles towards February.

It is this devilish set of fixtures to come which made the Christmas period look so important. Fulham, Sheffield United, West Ham United, Arsenal and Wolves needed to yield a decent haul of points because once they were out of the way, it was difficult to see where victories were going to come from. Four points from those five games is not really good enough.

But it is what it is. And if Brighton play as well in the next five as they did in the second half of the 3-3 draw with Wolves, there is no reason why there cannot be a few shock results over the coming weeks.

Just pick players in their correct positions, yes Graham?