Match Review: Chelsea 3-0 Brighton
There was something rather apt about Chelsea’s choice of half time guest for Brighton’s visit to Stamford Bridge. Gus Poyet received a warm welcome from every corner of the stadium when he was paraded on the pitch and it seemed ironic that the man who constantly talked about glass ceilings was present as Albion fans began to seriously question for the first time whether Chris Hughton has reached his.
When Poyet was in charge of the Albion, the ceiling he talked about was reaching the Premier League. When the Uruguayan wasn’t busy touting himself for the Leeds United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Wolverhampton Wanderers or Reading jobs, he liked to constantly mention how he didn’t think Brighton could go any higher because he wasn’t being backed sufficiently in the transfer market.
Four years after Poyet’s acrimonious departure from the Amex and Hughton proved his predecessor wrong, smashing through that glass ceiling before going one better and managing to keep the Albion in the Premier League last season.
But now the glass ceiling is apparently back in place and it has some supporters wondering if Hughton is the man to take the Albion onto the next level. That may seem strange given that the only people who would’ve been expecting anything other than a defeat to Chelsea are those indulging in some seriously hard drugs, but the reaction isn’t because of what happened at the Bridge. It’s because of what has happened over the past three months.
Since Big Ben chimed to ring in the new year, Brighton have won a grand total of two league games. In that time, we’ve lost to Fulham, Burnley and Southampton. Bar a win over Crystal Palace and scraping through to an FA Cup Semi Final by beating a side in the bottom four of the Championship on penalties, 2019 has been pretty bloody horrific.
Because of our form in the first half of the season, we should have just about enough points in the bank to stay up. Survival was the aim at the start of the campaign and Hughton is on course to deliver that. Nobody can argue that has he achieved his target.
The questions about his future arise from what happens when just surviving isn’t enough anymore? If we want to push into that group of safe mid table clubs, does Hughton have the ability to take us there? Is his avoid-defeat-at-all-costs mantra going to lead to us be anything other than a side who treads water? How much could his phobia of changing tactics or personnel – we’re still playing a 4-3-3 which plainly hasn’t worked for months – potentially hold us back? These are all just question and asking them doesn’t make you anti-Hughton or a bad fan.
Chelsea away was never likely to be the place where we got answers. There were changes but these were all made with one eye on Saturday’s FA Cup Semi Final. Martin Montoya and Bernardo were both rested and Florin Andone came in for Glenn Murray which at least injected a bit of pace into the side, something that we’ve been crying out for away from home.
What we ended up with was a typical Brighton away at the big six performance. Just one shot on goal mustered through Bernardo after he was introduced in the final 15 minutes and that was a long distance effort that hardly troubled Kepa Arrizabalaga. It was one bank of four and one bank of five designed to frustrate Chelsea and for large parts of the game, it worked.
The Blues took the lead seven minutes before half time when Olivier Giroud flicked home Callum Hudson-Odoi’s cross after the teenage England international had skipped past Anthony Knockaert. In the second half, Eden Hazard turned on the magic by leaving Lewis Dunk looking more confused than a vegan whose turned up at Oktoberfest as the Albion defender ended up floundering on the ground with Hazard skipping away in the opposite direction before arrowing the ball into the top corner.
Three minutes later and Hazard turned provider for Reuben Loftus-Cheek who curled an equally clinical effort home from long range. In 18 months in the Premier League, it’s hard to think of an opposition player that the Albion have come up against who can touch Hazard for ability.
He’s now run the show four times out of four and all the time he is playing for the Blues, Brighton don’t stand a hope in hell of ending their terrible record against Chelsea which now reads played 12, won one, drawn one, lost 10, scored five, conceded 25. Please sign him in the summer, Real Madrid.
Albion highlights were few and far between. Yves Bissouma effortlessly beat two players down the right to underline his prodigious talent during a rare attack but his cutback across the box ended up being to nobody. Bernardo had his long-ranger just a couple of minutes after replacing the ineffective Alireza Jahanbakhsh and Knockaert squandered a late one-on-one when he could only hit the side netting with just Kepa to beat after a hoof forward from Dunk.
It probably says much about the Albion’s performance that the most exciting part of the evening was realising that at one point we were only two players away from having a side on the pitch wearing 1-11; only Jahanbakhsh sporting 16 and Davy Propper in 24 were outside of the traditional numbers.
Getting excited about what a player is wearing on his back is the sad reality of games away at the big six. So is the highlight of a trip to the Etihad Stadium being that it sells Strongbow Dark Fruits on the concourse. When you travel to the likes of Chelsea, Manchester United, Manchester City and Liverpool, you have to accept that you are handing over 30 notes for a very strong chance of not even seeing a decent shot on target.
That isn’t Hughton’s fault, it’s just the way the Premier League is. Where Hughton earns his money is in games against the sides around Brighton in the table. Has he done enough against them recently? No. Is that a reason to consider sacking him? No.
There may be a glass ceiling looming for the Albion boss, but right now he is on course to do what he was mandated to and keep us up – with the added bonus of a trip to Wembley thrown in. As frustrating as the last three months have been, we can’t ask for much more than that.
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