Match Review: Sheffield United 1-1 Brighton
A penny for Chris Hughton’s thoughts on Sheffield United 1-1 Brighton please. The Albion picked up a huge point from a side who could be playing Champions League football next season with a performance that was almost an ode from Graham Potter to his predecessor.
Brighton managed just two shots on target in 90 minutes at Bramall Lane. The 33% share of possession must be the lowest since Potter assumed control. Two attacking corners completed stats that were on a par with a Hughton away performance.
And yet it worked. We’re at the stage of the season where points are more important than anything else. Potter has seemingly realised this, abandoned some of his principles and been rewarded with a hard-fought draw at a difficult place to go. He should be applauded for that.
Not many managers are willing to backtrack on their ideas, even temporarily. Call it stubbornness. Call it blind faith. Whatever you call it, ultimately it ends with the sack – as we saw with Hughton last season.
Anybody who watched Brighton in the second half of the 2018-19 campaign could see that the switch from 4-4-1-1 to 4-3-3 was a bigger disaster than your Chinese neighbour returning from a visit home with a cough.
Hughton refused to reverse his decision until the final four games of the season, when we reached last chance saloon having suffered home defeats to Burnley, Southampton, Bournemouth and Cardiff City. Brighton survived – just – but Hughton didn’t.
Potterball has delivered some memorable games this season. Beating Tottenham Hotspur 3-0 at the Amex. A first ever win away against one of the big six at Arsenal.
But it has also cost us in numerous fixtures too. Points were dropped in games with Burnley and Aston Villa via last minute goals conceded through Brighton’s desire to keep playing attacking football, even in the final minutes of games in which we should have shut up shop and taken what we had.
Sheffield United’s visit to the Amex in December was probably the one game that highlighted the flaws with Potterball more than any other.
Adam Webster was picked for his ball playing ability but spent most of the afternoon looking like a dog chasing a balloon.
There were plenty of other ghastly individual performances, the Albion had no answer to United’s overlapping centre backs and without Maty Ryan, it could quite easily have been a cricket score.
Not this time though. Potter combated the Blades’ aerial threat by naming a back five consisting of Ezequiel Schelotto, Lewis Dunk, Shane Duffy, Webster and Dan Burn. Schelotto was the shortest of those at a measly 6’1.
Potter played two out-and-out centre forwards in Glenn Murray and Neal Maupay – giving United’s three centre backs two strikers to pick up rather than one would prevent them rampaging forward too much.
Perhaps must crucially of all was that he told his side to prioritise defending over everything else. Duffy in particular was absolutely outstanding, a reminder to everyone – Potter included – that it shouldn’t matter that he can’t play a 20 yard pass out from the back when he will block, tackle and head anything that moves.
Maupay said afterwards that this 1-1 draw with Sheffield United is exactly the sort of game that Brighton would have lost a few weeks ago. And he’s right.
The first 15 minutes were the Alamo. Bramall Lane was in full voice, a proper city centre ground full of proper football supporters roaring their side on.
Imagine trying to play Potterball under that much pressure. Dunk, Webster and Duffy trying to pass it out of our own box as waves of red and white shirts crashed forward.
Ryan having to take every kick short. Yves Bissouma and Davy Propper not being allowed to clear into the corners when necessary.
Rather than the players, it would have been us supporters needing to suck on balloons – and there were 2,000 of those released before kick off – to get through it.
Instead, the Albion managed to weather the storm – Hughton style. Some desperate defending kept United at bay until the 27th minute.
That was when Enda Stevens beat Ryan at his near post with a cracking volley after Burn’s attempted clearing header from an Oliver Norwood cross didn’t get the distance it needed.
The Blades were ahead for less than four minutes. Aaron Mooy sent over a free kick, Webster met it with a downwards header and Maupay managed to steal in before Dean Henderson could get there to steer the ball home. Sheffield United 1-1 Brighton.
Much of the second half focus from an Albion point of view was on two VAR decisions. The first came when Schelotto’s cross hit the raised hand of Ben Osborn.
A year ago, awarding a penalty against Osborn would have been extremely harsh. The handball was clearly not deliberate and the Blades defender had no time to react to get his arm out the way, even if he’d wanted to.
As we all know though, VAR has changed the footballing landscape. We’ve seen penalties this season awarded for a ball brushing a finger from a yard away and based on that standard, Brighton should have had a spot kick.
VAR looked at it and disagreed. Add a lack of consistency in decisions from one week to the next to the ever growing list of problems with the way that the Premier League employs its technology.
Then there was John Lundstram’s tackle on Lewis Dunk. In real time, it looked like two players going for the ball but watch it back – as VAR did again – and you’ll clearly see Lundstram plant his studs onto the thigh of Dunk.
On any other week, the bloke watching in a call centre at Stockley Park is giving a red card there. That Lundstram’s tackle on Dunk wasn’t even the worst foul that VAR looked at and decided wasn’t a sending off offence – take a bow whoever reckoned Spurs’ Giovani Lo Celso stamping on Chelsea’s César Azpilicueta was an alright thing to do – tells you everything you need to know about what a farcical weekend it was.
Before Lundstram had nearly transformed Dunk into Heather Mills, the Albion captain had missed Brighton’s best chance of the game when hooking a volley over the bar from a Mooy corner.
United had three equally good opportunities to find a winner themselves but nobody could find a way past the outstanding Ryan.
Another Blades corner caused chaos in the Brighton box with Ryan saving an Oliver McBurnie shot superbly from point blank range.
The Australian number one then produced a double save late in the day, somehow keeping out McBurnie’s effort from a David McGoldrick cross before recovering to tip away John Fleck’s header at full stretch.
Come the final whistle, it felt like a big result. Not many clubs have come or will go to Sheffield United and pick up a 1-1 draw as Brighton managed.
More important than the result though was the performance. In too many games this season, we’ve failed to do the basics because Potter has wanted us to play in a certain way.
There is a time and a place for doing that. A scrap against relegation isn’t it. An away game against a side pushing for a place in Europe isn’t it.
If Sheffield United away was the day that Potter realised that, then it’s good news. Judging by some of the hysteria on social media, certain Brighton supporters weren’t happy with the approach.
But ask yourselves this – would you rather battle your way to 13 more points this season and Premier League survival, or play pretty football for the next 11 games but be going to Luton and Barnsley away next season?
We know what we’d pick.
