Match Review: Brighton 0-0 West Bromwich Albion
If you’ve ever dreamed of spending a Tuesday evening in West Bromwich, then this 0-0 draw in the fourth round of the FA Cup between the two Albion’s would have been a great result for you.
For anybody else, it was terrible. A terrible game played out to a terrible atmosphere. Any doctors out there working on a cure for insomnia could do a lot worse than make sufferers sit through this 90 minutes as it would stand a good chance of sending even the most ardent of insomniacs to sleep.
From a Brighton point of view, the result wasn’t really acceptable. West Bromwich Albion are a Championship side as it is and they made nine changes from their last league game, starting the game with four academy graduates on the pitch.
Brighton meanwhile named a side up with £57m worth of talent in a starting line up that you wouldn’t be too upset to see start against Fulham on Tuesday night. Yet for all that money and all that quality, they couldn’t see off a second tier club’s reserve side playing at home. That’s poor, whichever way you look at it.
Let’s get the negatives out the way early. Anthony Knockaert gave one of his most petulant displays in an Albion shirt, and that’s saying something. Everybody hoped that with his goal in the 3-1 win away at Bournemouth in the last round, Knockaert had turned a corner and would rediscover the form that had seen him voted our WeAreBrighton.com Payer of the Month for September.
Instead, he was back to being a source of constant frustration. If there was a poor pass to make it, he’d make it. If there was a shot to miscue, he’d miscue it. If there was a blind alley to run down, he’d run down it. All while waving his arms in the air, whinging and blaming everybody else for his mistakes.
Jurgen Locadia meanwhile seems to be regressing at an alarming rate after his fine form just after Christmas and he had another poor game, which just goes to prove that one swallow does not a summer make – or in this case, two goals do not a £16m striker make.
Florin Andone was equally disappointing as the Albion fashioned 22 shots, got seven on target but couldn’t score. The only two midfield or forward regulars who didn’t see action against the Baggies were Solly March and Pascal Gross, rather markedly the two players who seem to have come under the greatest criticism in recent weeks.
What this highlighted is how much the Albion rely on those two to unlock a defence or provide a real goal scoring opportunity. It should also give some food for thought to those who claim Knockaert should be starting over March or that a new £7m signing from Argentina who has played only 33 times in the Primera División in his career is going to replace Gross.
As for the positives, well there were several. Yves Bissouma was colossus in midfielder, driving forward and looking to make things happen. There are certainly defensive elements to his game that need working on and which mean that he doesn’t have the full trust of Chris Hughton yet, but in terms of raw talent he must be one of the most exciting young players we’ve seen in the stripes for many years.
Under 23 forward Viktor Gyokeres had a lively 20 minute cameo after he’d replaced Locadia, David Button earned another clean sheet with a brilliant save onto the bar from a Tosin Aradabioyo header and Dan Burn was a clear man-of-the-match winner on his Albion debut.
Playing alongside Shane Duffy, Burn headed, blocked and tackled anything that moved. The Albion have developed a real ability to unearth quality defenders on the cheap in the Hughton era and on this showing, Burn can provide exactly the same sort of quality cover that Uwe Hunemeier, Connor Goldson and Leon Balogun have done.
It wasn’t just Aradabioyo who hit the woodwork as Brighton also managed it when Jonathan Bond tipped a Dale Stephens curler onto the post and Bond denied Glenn Murray right at the death with a fine stop in the final minute.
And that was it. A forgettable afternoon that by 5pm made the £15 tickets which we’d all hailed as a steal beforehand suddenly look like the biggest rip off since Brighton Station’s cash machines started charging people £2 withdraw their own money.
As one Twitter user, @NorthStandN1E put it, “The only good thing about today – bar Dan Burn – was Bargain Hunt on the TVs in the North Stand before the game.”
And just like the endless repeats of Bargain Hunt show daily on Yesterday, we’ve got to go all through it all again in West Bromwich in 10 days time. On a Tuesday night. Can’t wait.
