Match Review: Huddersfield 1-2 Brighton

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Solomon March. The much-maligned winger was the star of the show with two assists as Brighton and Hove Albion came from behind to defeat 10-man Huddersfield Town 2-1 at the John Smith’s Stadium.

It’s been a toss up this season between March and Gaetan Bong over who has become the boo boys new favourite. Bong has been out of form over the last few weeks and has quite rightly lost his place to Bernardo, who has looked a real upgrade in the last two games so maybe some of the stick that comes his way is justified. It’s harder to find reason for it being directed at March though.

Here are some cold, hard, facts for you. March has now set up all but one of our goals in the last five weeks. Two in this one and Lewis Dunk’s headers at both Cardiff City and Everton. He has five so far this season which is the third best total in the Premier League behind only Ryan Fraser and Raheem Sterling. You don’t need Rachel Riley to tell you that that makes him the second-highest English producer of goals in the top flight. Are you watching, Gareth Southgate?

March’s performance wasn’t the only pleasing aspect of an excellent day out in Kirklees. The Albion looked a real threat from set pieces which is one area that Chris Hughton highlighted in the summer that he wanted to see an improvement. Having scored from just one corner last year in the 2-1 win at home to Arsenal, Shane Duffy’s first half equaliser was our sixth goal from a set piece so far this season.

As a result, Duffy and Dunk now have five goals between them. Something to consider for anyone looking for a value anytime goalscorer bet in the next few weeks, especially when FansBet are boosting the odds to 8/1 as they did at the weekend.

Hughton’s team selection was also a positive. Away from home with Murray leading the line and Pascal Gross just behind, we are often too cumbersome, which isn’t what you need when trying to play on the counter. With Bernardo looking to get forward from left back, Jose Izquierdo back after injury, March down the other flank, Yves Bissouma in midfield and £5m signing Florin Andone leading the line on his full debut, all of a sudden we had plenty of pace that can make us more of an attacking threat in spite of Hughton’s conservative approach.

Then there was the fact that we’d clearly learnt from last week when it comes to managing a game versus 10 men. Against albeit superior opponents in Leicester, we never got on the front foot or tried to take advantage of the fact the opposition were playing shorthanded. Here we did and the reward was Duffy’s equaliser and then Andone’s brilliant header.

As for the red card, well Steve Mounie’s challenge was extremely similar to Dale Stephens at Cardiff City, so if that was a red by the letter of the law then this was too. Huddersfield fans, in between marking Rainbow Laces Day with a couple of classy renditions of “Going down on your boyfriend”, were incensed by the performance of Michael Oliver but they could have no complaints about the sending off.

Where they could feel genuinely hard done by was that Leon Balogun wasn’t sent off. His first touch after replacing the injured Bruno was to produce a tackle on Alex Pritchard that was arguably worse than Mounie’s, yet Mr Oliver didn’t deem it worthy of even so much as a yellow or the penalty that it surely should have been.

Perhaps most pleasing of all though was the fact that after 52 Premier League games, the Albion have finally come from behind to win. Whenever we’ve gone 1-0 down in games before, it has become a case of feeling like it was game over. Not any more. It’s an important monkey to have off the backs, knowing that we do have the tools and the talents to get back into games even when we fall behind.

Not that we should have been behind in the first place really. It was an absolutely woeful opening minute, the sort of stuff you’d laugh your head off at if you saw it happen on a Sunday morning at Waterhall. Bruno’s attempts to clear Philip Billing’s long throw somehow just resulted in him smashing the ball 80 feet up in the air and into the penalty area.

Dunk, Bissouma, Bernardo and Maty Ryan all gathered underneath where the ball is now coming down having completed an orbit of the sun, only to see Mathias Jorgensen somehow have a free header for 1-0 despite all four of them being on the scene.

Thankfully, we can look at that moment of complete ineptitude and laugh. That is largely thanks to the efforts of March. Same again on Tuesday, please.