Match Review: Millllllllllllll 2-2 Brighton (Albion win 5-4 on penalties)
Imagine not liking football. Imagine not understanding how, in 30 minutes, you can go from complete despair at a bottle job performance against a side 25 places below you in the pyramid to absolute delirium at progressing to the semi finals of the FA Cup for only the second time in 117 years. Imagine not loving Brighton and Hove Albion.
Sunday afternoon at the Den was like years of supporting the Albion packed into one crazy 120 minutes of football. For the large part, it was dire and forgettable. People gave up, disappointed at what was going on in front of them. Those who remained loyal were then treated to a little golden period where everything went right. After which, excitement turned into a sense of “oh well, it was nice while it lasted” as we were brought back down to Earth with a bump – Manchester City in the last four. Cheers.
That opening 80 minutes was shambolic, really. Brighton will never probably got a better chance to make it to the last four of the World’s Greatest Cup Competition but here we were, 2-0 down against a Millwall side who could be playing the likes of Lincoln City and Fleetwood Town next season.
Chris Hughton had picked a full strength side with only one enforced change from last week’s 2-1 win at Crystal Palace due to Yves Bissouma being suspended, but we were bottling it pure and simple. Whether the Albion players had underestimated their opponents or whether they were intimidated by the red-hot atmosphere at the Den, the men in yellow just hadn’t turned up.
Millwall were going through and deservedly so – Manchester City, they were coming for you, as 15,000 rabid Lions fans sung with gusto as the gamed ticked into the 88th minute. Quite prophetic of them when you think about it.
The game hadn’t been without controversy up until that point. Shane Duffy should have had a first half penalty and Glenn Murray was unable to prevent Alex Pearce heading home Millwall’s opener after he was the victim of a rugby tackle that would have been deemed illegal at Twickenham.
But the officials weren’t to blame for the fact that Millwall led 2-0 with the fourth official’s board about to go up – Brighton were woeful with Aiden O’Brien taking full advantage to add a second for the Lions with 10 left on the clock.
What would have helped is the video assistant referee. It seems absolutely ridiculous that VAR can be used in certain FA Cup games and not others. Surely, in order to maintain the integrity of a competition it has to be a level playing field across the board? And that’s before we come onto the fact that that Jurgen Locadia’s 120th minute “goal” which was ruled out for offside was actually onside with Martin Montoya having timed his run to perfection.
Imagine if they played one half of the Wimbledon men’s draw using Hawk-Eye technology and not the other? Nobody would take the competition seriously if Andy Murray made the final having had six Hawk-Eye calls go his way to face Roger Federer, who should have lost in the semi finals to Rafa Nadal but didn’t because video technology wasn’t available in that particular match. Yet that is the farcical situation the FA have put us in by not wanting to set up Championship grounds with the necessary technology. It’s not like they don’t have the cash to do it, either.
Thankfully, the lack of VAR didn’t end up impacting on the result. That it didn’t was because of Hughton’s three substitutes. Solly March, Jose Izquierdo and Locadia turned the performance from terrible to sublime. Locadia gave by far and away the best showing of his 14 months as a Brighton player since arriving for £14m from PSV Eindhoven last January. He ran, he harried and he scored a fantastic goal, showing great strength to roll his marker and fire home in the 88th minute to make it 2-1. He looked like a football player rather than a bloke who wishes he was a musician.
Solly March had brilliantly worked his way to the byline to set up Locadia before scoring the equaliser himself, although it did owe a lot to a catastrophic goalkeeping howler from David Martin. There looked to be little danger as March whipped a free kick from way out on the right into the box out of nothing more than desperation. Every Brighton player was up, including Maty Ryan, but it didn’t need a touch from anyone as the ball sailed straight through Martin’s arms and in at the far post.
That quietened the home support and despite the Albion dominating possession in extra time, it was to the dreaded penalties. Millwall had seen their regular taker Shane Ferguson stupidly get himself sent off for a terrible stamp on Lewis Dunk just 60 seconds before the full time whistle, and that moment of insanity would go onto cost Millwall dear in the shoot out.
Murray smashed the bar with Brighton’s first and Millwall were spot through Shaun Williams, Ryan Tunnicliffe and Ryan Leonard until Ryan pulled off an utterly outrageous save, sticking out his leg when he was already diving full stretch to his left to keep out Mahlon Romeo’s fourth kick for the hosts. Shades of Ben Roberts against Swindon Town with that one and Ryan’s finest moment on an afternoon in which he also superbly denied James Meredith, Jed Wallace and Lee Gregory to ensure it made it to penalties at all.
After Murray’s miss, Locadia, March, Davy Propper and Dale Stephens all scored while the veteran Steve Morrison converted for Millwall after Romeo had been denied. Tied at four penalties apiece, it went to sudden death. Lewis Dunk stepped up to convert as his journey from Withdean to Wembley continued and then Jake Cooper blazed over to send the Albion into the semi finals.
We’ve won a penalty shoot out at the Den before, of course. That came in the Johnstone’s Paint Pot of 2006, when another homegrown hero scored the final Brighton spot kick. Kerry Mayo gave Dean Wilkins’ Seagulls a 3-2 shoot out win in front of 3,659.
If you’d told anyone of the near-900 fans who’d braved the trip to South Bermondsey that evening that 12-and-a-half years later, we’d be walking up Coward’s Way talking about a trip to Wembley in the FA Cup Semi Finals then you’d have been locked up for eating too many magic mushrooms.
But now, it’s the Albion who are coming for Manchester City. Who are in the last four of the FA Cup for only the second time. And who are just two wins from playing in Europe. Imagine not loving this.
