Match Review: Birmingham City 0-4 Brighton
Let us rewind a year. On Saturday July 28th 2018, Brighton went to St Andrews to face Birmingham City in their penultimate pre-season friendly before the Premier League season kicked off.
It wasn’t exactly a great afternoon for the Albion. The side who would go onto finish 17th in the Championship nine months later battered Chris Hughton’s side for the majority of the 90 minutes.
That they only had one goal to show for their efforts was due to the brilliance of Maty Ryan. That Brighton managed to rescue a draw was only because of a stunning free kick in the very last seconds from Yves Bissouma.
In many ways, that day in the second city was a textbook Hughton away performance. It took 57 minutes for Anthony Knockaert to register Brighton’s first shot on target. Lewis Dunk had a header shortly after, but that was it in terms of attacking intent.
Fast forward 12 months and the contrast with what Graham Potter’s Albion dished up couldn’t be more stark. Four goals scored in 90 minutes represents a quarter of the total that the Seagulls managed in their 19 Premier League away games last season.
Potter wanted his side to be positive at every opportunity. Some of the link up play between the front three of Glenn Murray, Jurgen Locadia and Leandro Trossard was excellent.
Based on this, there could actually be a point in going to away fixtures this season for reasons other than drinking a lot of beer and hoping there might be a shot on target. We might even manage to win more than three games on the road.
The more grounded among us will point out the fact that it was only Birmingham we beat, a side most bookies have down to finish fourth bottom. And they did have a familiarly rotund individual in goal who did his best to gift us our second in comedic style.
But it isn’t a bad thing to be excited about what this season could hold – especially as the difference in approach and the result was so marked.
The most interesting aspect was probably the formation. Potter is known for his tactical flexibility but so far, he’d largely stuck with the 4-2-3-1 that he favoured at Swansea City.
Here, he sprung something of a surprise by using a 3-4-3 formation. Dan Burn joined Lewis Dunk and Shane Duffy at the back, Martin Montoya filled the right wing back role with Solly March on the left and Dale Stephens and Davy Propper were the midfield duo.
We’ve already touched upon the strike force, Locadia and Trossard playing fluidly off Murray down the middle. All three looked real threats throughout with Murray and Locadia on the score sheet and Trossard claiming three assists.
With only two subs used – development squad player Steve Alzate again impressed after coming on for Stephens and Florin Andone got 25 minutes replacing Murray up top – we can make a reasonably assumption that this is something near what Potter considers to be his best team.
We’ll probably get more of an idea in next week’s final friendly with Valencia. Should Potter decide 3-4-3 could be the way forward, then it doesn’t look like particularly good news for Alireza Jahanbakhsh given Locadia’s form or Pascal Gross with no number 10 role.
We wrote only last week that Gross could thrive under Potter in a 4-2-3-1, rediscovering the form of his debut campaign back in his best position.
That just goes to show the unpredictability and with it, the excitement that Potter is bringing to the party. Nobody knows what is going to happen or how he is going to set up.
We’ve gone from being able to predict the team and formation with pretty much 100% accuracy every week to having no clue at all. It’s all rather exciting.
Some of the football played was equally rousing. The Albion’s first goal came after just eight minutes and was the result of fine passage of passing which started with Burn at the back and went through Trossard, Burn again, Propper and Locadia who fed Murray to beat David Stockdale.
Stockdale gave his former team a huge helping hand with the second. His attempt at playing a lofted pass out to the right wing was woeful, allowing Trossard to intercept and exchange passes with Murray before finding Locadia.
The Dutch striker still had plenty to do but with his back to goal but he produced a fine first touch and turn before firing past Stockdale, who simply watched the ball fly into the bottom corner, possibly with his mind on other things such as whether to have baked beans or gravy with his KFC Mega Bucket that evening.
What side to get from the Colonel was still troubling Stockdale when Murray intercepted a back pass but to be fair to Dave, he did well to prevent Murray from knocking the ball past him to create what would have been an open goal.
Another former Brighton player had Birmingham’s best chance when Gary Gardner crashed a header against the bar. In case you’ve forgotten who he is, Gardner was the 132nd player signed on loan during Sami Hyypia’s brief reign of terror.
Shane Duffy added the Albion’s two other goals in the second half, both from Trossard free kicks. The first saw him bundle past Stockdale at the second attempt after Dave had made another fine stop and the second saw Duffy head home first time with virtually the last kick of the game.
Those Guinness in Molly Malone’s later would be well earned by Duffy. Just like so much else about Brighton’s Saturday at St Andrews, that’s in stark contrast to 12 months ago.
