Match Review: FC Liefering 2-5 Brighton
Hands up, who’d heard of FC Liefering before Brighton arranged a pre-season friendly against them? To us, a Liefering was something you toss into a swimming pool to save someone whose had one too many all inclusive cocktails rather than a football club.
They are effectively Red Bull Salzburg’s Reserves and last season they were Austria’s 22nd best club. That probably puts them about on a par with Crawley Town in terms of ability.
If the Albion beat Crawley 5-2 this coming Friday, nobody in their right mind would be getting excited about it. Yet victory by that scoreline over some Austrian plodders has Brighton fans getting wildly carried away about the season ahead under Graham Potter.
Which is actually a good thing. Sure, when we get turned over away at Watford on the opening day, a convincing way over Red Bull Salzburg’s stiffs won’t seem anywhere near as impressive, but isn’t it great to have some excitement and a little bit of a buzz back around the Albion?
The last five months of the Chris Hughton era dragged by like Sunday lunch at the in-laws. By the end of the campaign, most of us were just relieved it was over. 12 weeks of no Premier League football? Sign me up.
Yet here we were at Sportplatz Bischofshofen, excited once again. Jurgen Locadia notched. Alireza Jahanbakhsh was claiming two assists. Pascal Gross was playing as a proper number 10. There were two Development Squad players getting the chance to impress. A record signing scored a goal. And just to prove some things never change, we also conceded from a set piece.
While the result may ultimately be of little importance and even less use, there were lots of things to take away from the game. The most interesting aspect came with Potter’s choice of formation.
There had been much debate since Potter’s appointment about what shape he would adopt. Would it be his Ostersunds 3-5-2 or his Swansea City 4-2-3-1? On this occasion, it was the latter.
Choosing 4-2-3-1 makes a lot of sense. It allows Glenn Murray to play as a target man, gets Gross back into the number 10 position in which he was so good in his first season with the Albion and should in theory bring out the best in Jahanbakhsh and Locadia.
Potter’s passing, possession based philosophy was also in evidence. At one point in the first half, David Button was virtually on the halfway line getting involved in play.
Clearly, it still needs some work. Liefering’s second goal – after they’d scored a header from a free kick – saw Button, Gross and Dale Stephens get into a right state trying to play out from the back, which gifted Junior Adamu the chance to bend an excellent effort past Button and into the top corner for 2-1.
Gross had set up the Albion’s opener, an excellent looping cross to the back post being met by a powerful Lewis Dunk header.
The second Brighton goal came straight from kick off after Liefering went ahead. Murray to Dunk, Dunk to Stephens, Stephens to Locadia, Locadia to Murray. Goal. It was that simple.
Locadia was having one of his better afternoons and he added the Albion’s third after bringing under control a Martin Montoya cross before providing a neat finish.
Potter made 11 changes at half time. Among those coming on were Jahanbakhsh in the number 10 role, new signing Leandro Trossard on the left and Under 23s captain Max Sanders at right back.
Given that Sanders was playing out of position, he gave a good account of himself. Steve Alzate was the more impressive of the two young players who were given a chance to shine, providing a controlled performance as one of the two holding midfielders alongside Stephens in the first half.
Young Sanders was involved in the Albion’s fourth goal, embarking on a run forward to feed Alireza Jahanbakhsh whose excellent cross was brought down and finished by Trossard, giving the Belgian a goal within two minutes of his first appearance.
It also gave Jahanbakhsh his first assist as an Albion player. Turned out Jahanbakhsh assists are like London Buses – you wait nearly a year for one, then two come along in one half of football. With five minutes to go, the Iranian international sent in another fine delivery which was met by a Florin Andone diving header which made it 5-2.
There were some hairy moments at the back for the Albion, particularly in the first half. Liefering hit the bar and Button had to make two fine saves at full stretch.
Brighton looked more comfortable playing out from the back after the break once Matt Clarke was introduced which offers some pointers as to why Potter was so keen to land a fifth senior centre back.
As impressive as Clarke was, there is still a lot of work to do defensive wise – especially if the rumours about Lewis Dunk’s imminent £45m departure to Leicester City are true. Hopefully, improvements in that department will come as the players get sharper and fitter.
But as far as starts go, this was an encouraging one. On this basis, it certainly doesn’t look like it’s going to be a boring season under Potter, even if we could end up losing every game 6-4.
We might have only beaten the Austrian version of Crawley Town, but the excitement of being a Brighton fan is back. Let’s hope it lasts.
