Fulham 0-0 Brighton: Albion avoid defeat in a game they dare not lose

Here is a challenge. How many words can you get out of a report from a game as turgid as Fulham 0-0 Brighton, a match which the pundits on Amazon Prime said would stick in the memory for about as long as it takes to say Craven Cottage?

It was not a great 90 minutes of entertainment, we can all agree on that. Fulham played like a side who were knackered from their efforts in holding champions Liverpool to a draw 72 hours earlier and Brighton were less expansive than normal, prioritising a result over anything else following the harrowing experience of getting torn apart when losing 3-0 at Leicester City on Sunday.

Before the game, Albion fans had demanded changes from the King Power Stadium debacle and Graham Potter duly listened. The headline act was that Robert Sanchez took over from the out-of-form Maty Ryan in goal, who did not even make the substitutes bench.

Potter’s use of his goalkeepers is baffling. Sanchez this season has jumped from third choice to first to third choice and back to first. Ryan has now gone from number one to number three overnight, all whilst Jason Steele gets summoned from Singing Hills golf club every matchday to sit on the bench.

Imagine if Sanchez had picked up an injury after five minutes at Craven Cottage. Who would you rather have coming on for the next 85, Steele or Ryan?

We have long given up trying to understand how the mind of Potter works, but even by his high standards of craziness, the way in which a goalkeeper can flit between starting to failing to make the matchday 18 is plain weird.

There were five other changes alongside the much-needed swapping of Sanchez and Ryan. Tariq Lamptey, Adam Webster, Adam Lallana, Leandro Trossard and Steve Alzate were all recalled with Joel Veltman, Dan Burn, Pascal Gross, Neal Maupay and Alireza Jahanbakhsh dropping out.

The first half was an absolute snooze fest. Thank God it was on Amazon is all you could say. At least watching on Prime, you know that the money you are paying for such a boring 45 minutes of football can also get you free next day delivery on a new toaster.

If this game had been on Sky, where there are no such appliance-based bonuses on offer, you would feel completely ripped off. Let alone paying £15 for the honour of catching the action from the Cottage had Premier League PPV managed to survive beyond a month of its attempts to perform open-wallet surgery on football supporters.

Brighton had the only chances of note in the tedious opening 45 minutes. Lamptey’s cross just needed a touch from Danny Welbeck but the former England man failed to connect, the latest sign that there must be some sort of vortex at the training ground in Lancing, sucking the scoring ability out of any striker who signs for the Seagulls.

Potter could land Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi and the Albion would find a way to turn them into Portuguese and Argentinian versions of Craig Davies within a fortnight.

Solly March then went close with a cross which looked like it might drop in until Alphonse Areola pushed it away. That was the only save either keeper had to make as the sides trudged off locked at Fulham 0-0 Brighton, leaving Amazon to try and find some highlights to fill half time’s 15 minutes – probably the toughest challenge of Jeff Bezos’ life, and he has built a rocket ship that has gone into space and landed back on Earth.

Thankfully, the second half was a much improved affair. Brighton had a 20 minute spell of total domination in which they – surprise, surprise – failed to score.

Actually, the ball did end up in the back of the net once. A lovely little move worked its way out to March on the left and Welbeck did well to lay off to Lallana who beat Areola.

The joy was short lived. VAR took a look and concluded that there had been a pretty clear handball from Welbeck in the build up. After weeks of farcical decisions coming from Stockley Park, it was the perfect example of how VAR should be used to look at incidents and nobody could complain when the goal was ruled out.

March was by now taking the game by the scruff of the neck. He fed Trossard whose cross found Lewis Dunk but the Albion striker appeared in two minds as to whether he should try and test Areola or knock it down for Welbeck.

In the end, he did neither and his header drifted wide of the far post having been just out of the reach of Welbeck. When Webster then rattled the bar with a header of his own, it was turning into a familiar story for Brighton of missed chances. As virtually every Albion fan said on Twitter, this now had a 1-0 Fulham win written all over it.

That it stayed Fulham 0-0 Brighton was down to two Sanchez saves. There was an element of luck to the first as Ruben Loftus-Cheek went through one-on-one and Sanchez bizarrely dived to his right before Loftus-Cheek had even taken a shot.

Thankfully, the Fulham player put his effort straight down the middle of the goal and it struck Sanchez’s trailing legs. Had Loftus-Cheek shown a little more composure or delayed for a second and rolled it to Sanchez’s left, then we would have been left with the unedifying sight of the Brighton goalkeeper attempting to make a save by diving in the opposite direction before the goal scorer had shot.

Imagine for a second if Ryan did that. Actually, you do not have to – we have done it for you. The Ryan haters would have exploded with “mAtY rYAn iS rUBisH hE wAs lUCky tHe DwaRf diVEd tHe wROng wAy GEt oUT oF mY clUB.”

Sanchez’s second stop was much more impressive. Fulham introducing Aleksandar Mitrovic at 0-0 was enough to strike fear into the hearts of most Brighton fans, given the manner in which the Serbian striker has bullied Dunk and Shane Duffy in the past.

His towering downward header caused chaos in the Albion area until Sanchez pulled off an excellent reaction stop from Ademola Lookman’s close range effort.

Sanchez then showed superb reactions to recover and bravely smother the ball in the ensuring melee as Fulham tried to poke home at the same time as nobody in blue could find a way to put a foot through it.

Despite the fact Fulham were now ending on top, Potter seemed ill-disposed to use his bench to try and turn the tide back in Brighton’s favour.

Aaron Connolly or Neal Maupay might have had some joy running in behind, but the only changes Potter opted for came with Veltman and Jahanbakhsh getting the last 10 minutes and Gross’ introduction for the final five.

That seemed particularly harsh on Gross. Whilst the German had been disappointing at Leicester, Potter had to take a lot of the blame for that having decided to drop him in as a holding midfielder following a run of two goals and two assists in a more familiar attacking berth.

Brighton were huffing and puffing to find a way through Fulham whilst Potter’s most creative player was sat on the bench for 85 minutes, seemingly as a result of the manager playing him out-of-position four days earlier.

Still, small gripes. Before the game, this looked more of a must-not-lose fixture than a must-win for the Albion. In that regard, Fulham 0-0 Brighton could be considered a decent result for the Seagulls, as any point away from home in the Premier League is – provided of course that it is followed up with a win over Sheffield United on Sunday.

Easier said than done, obviously. Taylor Swift has released more albums in 2020 than Brighton have won league games at the Amex, but even taking into account that astonishing statistic, the Albion must surely be able to beat a team who have drawn one and lost 11 of their 12 games so far. Fail to do so and nobody could argue if we slip into the bottom three over the festive period.

Fulham 0-0 Brighton was the first league game at Craven Cottage to have ended goalless in nine years, a run stretching back 196 matches. Given how ropey the Seagulls have been in front of goal this season, it will not have come as too much of a surprise that it was the Albion who were the opponents to visit west London and end that run.

One final, genuine surprise to finish with. The word count challenge we set at the start: turns out we have managed to get 1472 words out of Fulham 0-0 Brighton. And the new toaster ordered for WAB Towers is due for delivery on Thursday. We would class that as a successful evening.