Match Review: Brighton 1-1 Aston Villa
Six games. 14 points. Pick whichever unit of measurement you like, but Brighton drawing 1-1 with Aston Villa was the latest result to raise serious questions about Graham Potter’s game management.
West Ham United. Burnley. Aston Villa. Crystal Palace. Tottenham Hotspur. And now Villa again. All fixtures in which the Albion have taken a 1-0 lead but failed to win.
Only Burnley have dropped more points from winning positions in the Premier League this season, their total of 17 bettering Brighton’s by three.
Add those 14 dropped points to the Albion’s current total and we’d be fifth in the table. While it’s unrealistic to expect a side to never drop a point from a winning position, even cutting the number of dropped points by half – seven more on the board say from beating West Ham (+2), Burnley (+2), Palace (+2) and drawing away at Villa (+1) – would put us eighth.
Potter’s Brighton have come in for a lot of praise this season – and rightly so. But we’re teetering on the edge of getting sucked into a relegation battle.
If the manager and the players keep chucking away leads and don’t have the inclination to grind out results, then our pretty football and willingness to attack will be gracing Kenilworth Road and Oakwell next season rather than Anfield and Old Trafford.
The main talking point afterwards centred around Potter’s substitution of Martin Montoya for Aaron Connolly midway though the first half.
When a side is 1-0 up in a must-win game with 20 minutes left to play, you very rarely see a manager fiddling with his back four for tactical reasons.
If the defence is settled and on for a clean sheet, why would you want to go and unnecessarily disrupt a unit of the team that’s functioning well?
The answer is you wouldn’t. Not unless you’re Potter, who decided to take off striker Connolly for right back Montoya, moving Steve Alzate into midfield from the defensive role in which he’d excelled and pushing Aaron Mooy closer to Neal Maupay.
When Potter made all those adjustments, the score was Brighton 1-0 Aston Villa. Within seven minutes of Montoya’s introduction, it was Brighton 1-1 Aston Villa.
The outstanding Jack Grealish got the goal when he was picked out with time and space in – you’ve guessed it – Brighton’s right back position.
Grealish’s finish was superb, a stonking volley which left Maty Ryan with no chance. But Grealish only had the opportunity because Montoya was hopelessly out of position.
Keep Alzate at right back and there’s every chance Grealish’s goal doesn’t happen – with the Albion picking up three very welcome points as a result.
When Potter arrived at the Amex from Swansea City in the summer, he came in with reputation as a tactical innovator. A bold, bright young coach who would bring plenty of fresh ideas to the Albion.
Sometimes though, it’s almost like he’s trying to be too clever. At the time that the Montoya substitution was made, Aaron Mooy was clearly struggling having not played for two weeks due to injury.
Mooy looked like a prime candidate to be hauled in favour of getting some legs into midfield to help see us over the line. After all, itt would end up being his woeful, sloppy pass that gave possession away for Villa’s equaliser.
Or if you do want to remove Connolly, then throw on Glenn Murray to hold the ball up or Alireza Jahanbakhsh for a bit of running.
An unwarranted substitution followed by three positional changes when all we needed to do was see out the game. At risk of reigniting the longest running debate in the country now that Brexit looks done and dusted, you wouldn’t have got that under Chris Hughton.
It’s the second time that piss-poor game management has cost us against Villa, too. Cast your mind back to that sunny October day in the second city.
Brighton had been playing for over an hour with 10 men and, given the circumstances, were 30 seconds away from a very important point at Villa Park.
Pascal Gross just needs to hold onto the ball. Instead, the Albion go searching for an unlikely winner. Gross hits it hopefully 50 yards down the pitch for Solly March to chase, with the attack coming to nothing.
30 seconds later and Villa sweep up the other end for Matt Targett to score with the last kick of the game. Aston Villa 2-1 Albion when all we had to do was be sensible and see the match out. It’s pretty basic stuff, Brighton.
Grealish was excellent that day and he was the best player on the pitch by some distance at the Amex again this time. Lewis Dunk not being called up to the England squad in March would be disappointing – but if Grealish isn’t in there, it would be a travesty.
He seems to love playing against the Albion too. This was the fourth game in succession that he’s scored against us, stretching right back to that moment where his shot from 25 yards squirmed through David Stockdale’s legs, gifting the Championship title to Newcastle United with two minutes of the 2016-17 season remaining.
Grealish nearly lit up a dull opening 45 minutes with a powerful solo run which began in his own half, took him past Dale Stephens and Alzate and in on Ryan’s goal but the final shot was just wide.
It was a let off from an Albion point of view as Stephens crunched Grealish from behind seconds later; had the Villa captain taken an extra touch, then Stephens would probably have hacked him down in the box when he was still in possession and the visitors would have had a penalty.
Brighton heeded the warning in the best possible way – by going up the other end and scoring themselves. Maupay made the goal, driving into the defence of a side who wanted to sign him themselves in the summer before slipping the ball to Leandro Trossard whose finish past Pepe Reina was exemplary.
That was the Albion’s first shot on goal. Their second wouldn’t arrive until the 87th minute when Reina pulled off a stunning save at full stretch from a Maupay volley.
Two efforts on target all afternoon. Not great, is it? Villa managed three, and they played the game without a recognised striker. Dean Smith is close to tying up a deal to bring in Genk striker Mbwana Samatta for £8.5m which could well boost their survival chances.
Brighton meanwhile continue to rely on Maupay, Connolly – who hasn’t scored since October – and Glenn Murray – who looks about as welcome in this Albion setup as Harry and Meghan at a Royal Family Christmas dinner all the time that Potter has a phobia of allowing his side to cross the ball.
For context, Gross put in more crosses than any other Albion player. His total? Two. And he was only on the pitch for nine minutes. Two crosses in an entire game. That’s startling, even if you do want to try and play like prime Barcelona.
There was an almighty row between Maupay and his former Brentford team mate Ezri Konsa at the final whistle – ironically the only time that the Albion showed any sort of fight in another dismal second half performance.
Potter’s substitution may have been at fault for it finishing Brighton 1-1 Aston Villa, but the sort of desire the players reserved for swinging handbags at the opposition afterwards wouldn’t have gone amiss.
They’ll need to find some of that desire and fight by Tuesday night for the trip to Plucky Little Bournemouth. That one looks even bigger now after these two dropped points.
There’s a full-blown crisis at the Vitality Stadium. The Cherries are in the relegation zone having picked up just four points their last 12 games.
Losing there could destroy the confidence of these Brighton players and plunge us closer to the bottom three. Suddenly, a 1-1 draw with Aston Villa doesn’t look anywhere near as bad.
When the Albion drew 0-0 at home to Watford last February, we all said it wasn’t the end of the world – providing we backed it up with a result in the next game.
That next game finished Brighton 1-3 Burnley. History cannot be allowed to repeat itself at Bournemouth on Tuesday night, otherwise this season is going to be looking eerily like the previous one. And we all know how that ended.
