Match Review: Bournemouth 3-1 Brighton
Bournemouth away. Always hated it. From Wayne Henderson falling over in the 90th minute to the David Brooks show last December, the Vitality Stadium has never been a happy hunting ground. But even by the standards Brighton have set there over the years, this 3-1 defeat to an out-of-form Bournemouth side was bad.
Eddie Howe’s men hadn’t won in the Premier League for six games. They’d only scored once in that time. The Plucky Little Bournemouth fairy tale of a magical rise through the pyramid with nothing but an old cow and a bag of magic beans was finally being stripped away. The Cherries were a club in crisis.
Until Brighton arrived in town, of course. If ever there’s an opponent that you want to face when you happen to be a club in crisis, then it’s the Seagulls.
That’s been true of many different Albion line ups throughout the years. It particularly applies to Graham Potter’s version though, who’s defence make the foundations upon which the Leaning Tower of Pisa is built look solid and who it appears have been tactically found out by the rest of the top flight.
A back line who give away three or four chances per game combined with a predictable approach which is easily countered is frankly a recipe for disaster. Bournemouth exposed those flaws perfectly, going from one goal in their previous 540 minutes of league football to three in 75.
For the first five months of the Potter era, Brighton were a surprise package. Opponents weren’t prepared to face a Seagulls side who kept possession, played in triangles and would pass their way through the middle – because it was such a far cry from what they’d come up against with Chris Hughton at the helm.
Potter and Hughton were chalk and cheese. That’s probably why we all got so carried away in the beginning, raving about Potterball and mentioning Europe with only half a tongue in a cheek.
If you weren’t going into work on a Monday morning and quoting Brighton’s possession stats at the water cooler, were you even an Albion fan?
Nobody got more carried away than Tony Bloom. Other clubs may have been sniffing around Potter in November as Everton, West Ham United and Arsenal all contemplated managerial changes, but even allowing for that and our promising football, handing a manager a new five-and-a-half year contract for winning four Premier League games in his life seemed a little excessive.
Still, most of us chose to ignore the boldness of the decision – after all, Potter was delivering excitement. So much so in fact that in those early days, we were even willing to turn a blind eye to results such as home draws with West Ham United and Burnley and defeat to Southampton.
We managed to find extenuating circumstances for all of those, as well as drawing at Newcastle United and losing away at Villa. Hey, results didn’t matter at that point in time we said – as long as performances were good, the points would eventually find their way onto the board.
Except points haven’t found their way onto the board. And now performances have dropped off as the rest of the Premier League have worked out how to stop Brighton playing. The 3-1 defeat at Bournemouth has shown us that Brighton are in for another long, hard battle against relegation.
Suddenly, possession stats aren’t anything to shout about. Before Bournemouth took the lead at the Vitality Stadium, Brighton had recorded over 75% of the possession.
The reason that figure was so high wasn’t because the Albion are peak Pep Guardiola Barcelona reincarnated. It’s because Howe realised – as every other Premier League manager surely has – that you can let Brighton have as much of the ball as they want.
Simply sit back and let the Albion stroke it around harmlessly. Brighton could have 95% possession and chances are we still wouldn’t do anything with it.
Part of the reason that opponents can get away with not trying to dispossess Brighton is because they don’t actually need to have the ball to create chances of their own. We’re kind enough to do it for them.
The Albion will give up two or three good goal scoring opportunities through sloppy defending every game. Players aren’t allowed to clear their lines, otherwise they get Shane Duffyed onto the bench. And when passing out from the back or trying to be too clever inevitably ends up going awry, it gifts away goals.
Each week, Potter is sending out a side that can’t defend at one end and don’t convert enough of their chances at the other. People will say that he needs new additions to the squad this January to address those issues, but he is the man who spent £20m on Adam Webster in order to break up the best centre back partnership Brighton have ever had.
He is also the man who refuses to give Glenn Murray any significant game time. You remember Glenn? The third most lethal striker in the Premier League last season in terms of goals-to-chances ratio. The bloke who’s been our top scorer for the past three seasons.
Murray spent the entire 90 minutes of the 3-1 defeat to Bournemouth sat on the bench. Potter preferred to play Dale Stephens at right back and introduce natural width in Solly March and Leandro Trossard with 5’7 Neal Maupay leading the line. After all, who wants a target man who is your best header of the ball on the pitch when you’re playing with two wingers and trying to overturn a two goal deficit?
At the end of the game, Murray’s prolonged clapping of the support afterwards felt like a goodbye, suggesting that his Brighton career is over.
If that is the case, then let us hope that Murray isn’t firing Nottingham Forest to promotion to the Premier League come May as we head the other direction into the backwaters of the Championship. It might look like a very stupid decision from Potter otherwise.
To the defending, and all three of Bournemouth’s goals were preventable. Harry Wilson’s opener came from Lewis Dunk’s poor clearing header and took a deflection off Bernardo on the way through.
Pascal Gross claimed the second when he marked his first start since Boxing Day by flicking Diego Rico’s corner past Maty Ryan under pressure from Callum Wilson.
Wilson himself added the third with his first goal for 16 games, a run stretching back to September. Webster this time was the man to deflect the ball past Ryan as the former Bristol City defender continues on his mission to rack up an End of Season Highlights DVD even more impressive than Colin Hawkins’ efforts over a decade ago.
Aaron Mooy pulled one back for Brighton with a fine effort late on which saw him shift the ball from right to left before hitting an unstoppable effort off Bournemouth goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale’s post and in for 3-1.
Ramsdale had a busy night in general, the England Under 21 international pulling off two or three top drawer saves. Ryan too made a couple of quality stops in a game which could have finished 5-5.
It didn’t though. It finished Bournemouth 3-1 Brighton. As he does after every game, Potter will no doubt tell us that he and his players learned from their evening’s work at the Vitality Stadium and that they will take the positives.
But there were no positives. A strong final 20 minutes in which Ramsdale was called into action should not be allowed to paper over the fact that we were beaten by two clear goals by a side who had picked up just four points from a possible 36.
Possession football, Potterball, whatever you want to call it, didn’t work against Bournemouth. It’s not a style that will grind out the victories that we surely need now to guarantee survival.
Hughton hauled Brighton to safety last year with results like a 1-0 win at home to Huddersfield Town and a 0-0 draw at Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Can you see Potter instructing his side to man the trenches, battle hard and do whatever it takes to get points on the board?
Because that’s what we need. 66% possession in a game doesn’t keep you up. 21 shots on goal won’t keep you up if they don’t go in. Brighton losing 3-1 at Bournemouth is the sort of the result certainly doesn’t keep you up. Only points will do. Potter needs to start finding them from somewhere.
