Match Review: Brighton Under 18s 1-3 Aston Villa

Well, that was a bit of a piss take wasn’t it? £15 in advance or £20 on the night to see not even a Brighton Under 23 team take on Aston Villa in the Carabao Cup, but a Brighton Under 18 team. Paul Barber must be laughing all the way to the bank.

Andy Naylor wrote another great piece for The Athletic in the buildup to the game about why the Albion should consider taking this competition seriously.

Given the Premier League sides tumbling out in the early rounds – Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United, Sheffield United and Plucky Little Bournemouth all fell to lower league opponents at the third round stage – there is genuine chance for a less fashionable club to go all the way to Wembley.

It’s just under six months since we got to experience what that is like. Brighton v Manchester City in the FA Cup Semi Final under the arch was a day that nobody who was there will ever forget. And that was just for a semi final.

Imagine how special the occasion would be if there was actual silverware on the line, not to mention the chance of qualifying for the Europa League.

But Graham Potter couldn’t have taken this clash with Villa less seriously if he’d dressed up as a clown and spent the 90 minutes riding a unicycle around the perimeter of the pitch while given out balloon animals to children.

Never before have we gone to a game and had to Google the Brighton starting lineup to know who they were. There’s playing a weakened side to protect players for the bread and butter of Premier League football, and then there’s throwing in two 17-year-olds, an 18-year-old, three 19-year-olds and one 20-year-old. None of whom would be allowed in Molly Malone’s when they operate their over 21s door policy.

When people complain about the team selection and the cost of tickets – as many already have – Barber will no doubt wheel out the excuse that the Albion weren’t to know that there would be so many injuries and Potter would have to chuck in so many youngsters.

Which is bollocks, really. Take a look at every single League Cup selection going back to Sami Hyypia’s reign of terror and you’ll see weakened teams.

Christ, we even went to White Hart Lane under the Finn in 2014 and started Christian Walton and Paddy McCourt as Hyypia saved his first choice players for crucial games against Bournemouth and Wigan Athletic.

Even if this had been the Under 23s – let alone the Under 18s – charging £20 is ridiculous. Especially when you consider that season ticket holders could watch these exact same players completely free of charge last Friday night against Everton – and in every other Under 23 fixture this season.

Of course, the Albion have history when it comes to this. In pre-season they peddled the blatant untruth that it would be a Brighton first team travelling to the People’s Pension Stadium to take on Crawley Town in a friendly, despite the fact there was a much more testing friendly less than 24 hours later against Fulham.

Many Seagulls supporters bought tickets and subjected themselves to a Friday night in Crawley based on the fact that they would get to see at least a few senior players, seeing as this was billed as a first team squad.

Instead, it was 100% development squad with the exception of new signing Matt Clarke, who was then sent on loan to Derby County. Money well spent.

Thankfully, the cost of the ticket for this one was more than covered by the easy money that was to be made betting on the tie.

As soon as the Albion team showed a starting XI half of whom had a geography project on the River Ouse to hand in the following day, it was a no-brainer to lump on Villa to win.

Remarkably, Bet365 had the visitors priced up at 11/10 as late as five minutes before kick off. Some Albion fans reported getting 12/5.

We took the former price and with £100 on, won a hefty amount back which should just about afford to pay for a bag of Starburst at each of the next three home games.

Villa meanwhile made changes from their regular line up but it was still a starting lineup packed with proven Championship performers. The phrase men against boys wasn’t a cliche here – it was actually happening in front of our very eyes.

The average age of the Brighton team was 21.5 years. There’s a fine line between giving kids a chance to gain experience and chucking too many in at once or at the wrong time, they take a pasting and their confidence is shattered going forward.

Based on the first half performance, it looked like Potter was the wrong side of that line. Villa scored twice in the opening 45 minutes and both from some pretty naive defending from the Albion’s inexperienced line up.

Jota got the first with a crisp half volley on 21 minutes and then on 33, Conor Hourihane was left unmarked to tap home Keinan Davis low cross.

For reasons nobody can understand, Villa had sold out the away end and the 2,500 supporters were thoroughly enjoying themselves at that point. Some of the Albion players looked nervous, perhaps pondering what their mothers would say when they weren’t home by the 9pm school night curfew.

Aaron Connolly had Brighton’s first real chance just before half time when he rattled the post. The second half was much more positive from an Albion point of view, the teenagers seeming to relax a little bit once they’d had a Fruitshoot and Milky Bar at halftime and they found a way back into the game through Haydon Roberts who headed home a Peter Gwargis corner.

That was a deserved debut goal for the England Under 17 international. It wasn’t hard to see why both him and Teddy Jenks are so highly rated by both the Albion setup and the Three Lions as they were probably the most impressive performers.

Brighton were on top after that which forced Dean Smith to turn to his captain Jack Grealish, introducing him from the bench five minutes after Roberts struck.

It was Grealish who eventually sewed the tie up for Villa, notching their third with 12 minutes. At least this time his goal wasn’t from 25 yards and didn’t go through the legs a bloke called David playing in goal.

Before Grealish netted, there were worrying scenes as captain-for-the-night Shane Duffy limped from the field. It says much about the professionalism of Duffy that he was dishing out advice in the warm up and led by example throughout when there are plenty of players who would no doubt consider themselves above lining up with the kids in a game the first team manager clearly didn’t give a toss about.

Internally though, it would be fascinating to know what he’s thinking having gone from being voted the Albion and Ireland’s Player of the Season four months ago to playing alongside teammates who he couldn’t legally take to the Grosvenor for a spin on the roulette table.

Duffy now very much appears to be fifth choice centre back, so it will be interesting to see what the future holds as he is surely too good for that.

Duffy’s place was taken by French youngster Romaric Yapi, leading the North Stand to sing “If you’re Yapi and you know it clap your hands” which has to be the greatest player song in Brighton history.

It’s almost worth hoping that Martin Montoya, Solly March, Adam Webster and Bernardo all get struck down by a mystery illness so Yapi has to start at Chelsea on Saturday and we can hear that being belted out by the 3,000 strong away end.

Joining Yapi on the pitch in the closing stages was Jack Spong, meaning that the Albion ended the tie with Yapi, Bong, Spong and Button on the pitch which sounds like a terrible re-imagining of the Teletubbies.

Not that we want to give Potter any ideas. Such is the contempt with which he treats the League Cup that he probably would field Tinky-Winky, Dipsy, Laa Laa, Po and that weird hoover thing if he could.

Villa march onto round four and you wouldn’t bet against them going all the way if Smith fields a similarly senior side throughout the remainder of the competition.

The Albion’s youngsters meanwhile did themselves proud and the future does indeed look very bright, despite all the complaining we’ve done. But was it worth forking out £20 for? Certainly not. Barber no doubt loved it, but not many of his customers would have left the Amex very Yapi after that.