Brighton starting to reap the rewards of patience with Alexis Mac Allister

Patience is a virtue and it is one that Brighton & Hove Albion are now starting to reap the rewards from when it comes to Alexis Mac Allister.

A year after he arrived in England from Boca Juniors, the Argentinian international has begun turning in eye catching performances of the sort that not many other players in Graham Potter’s Brighton squad are capable of.

Until recently, Mac Allister had found opportunities hard to come by. He did not make his first Premier League start of the season until the 1-0 home defeat to Arsenal, playing out-of-position as a striker in a much-changed line up.

Understandably, he struggled to impress too much in such an unfamiliar role, becoming another player to fall victim to Potter’s Selection Roulette Wheel.

In the 1-0 defeat at Manchester City, he was given a start in the attacking midfield role he is accustomed to and the result was his best performance in a Brighton shirt.

Despite the obvious talents of City’s squad costing billions of petrodollars, Mac Allister showed both the ability and the positivity needed to get the Albion playing on the front foot.

Nothing summed that up better than the perfectly weighted through ball he hit on the volley to release Leandro Trossard in the first half for what was Brighton’s best chance of the game.

Three days later and Mac Allister retained his place for the trip to The Leeds United, where the only goal of the game came through a sweeping move in which Brighton broke out of their own half and into the Champions of Europe’s box to tee up Neal Maupay for a tap in.

Pascal Gross and Ben White got things started but it was Mac Allister who was the architect. He drove towards the hosts’ penalty area, only to be confronted by a congested box.

At this point, most Brighton players would have looked for a sideways pass to keep possession, taking the sting out of the break and allowing The Leeds United crucial time to reorganise themselves.

Not Mac Allister though. He instead guided the ball into Trossard and continued his run to collect an excellent return from the Belgian. Mac Allister had now glided behind the home defence into enough space to pick out Maupay with a low pass across the box for the easiest goal Brighton’s top scorer will net all season.

That it has taken time for Alexis Mac Allister to start turning in match winning moments is not really a surprise. When he arrived last January, he was a 21-year-old who has just left Argentina for the first time, coming to a very different way of life in England and style of football in the Premier League.

Some of the biggest names in Argentinian football have struggled to adapt to English football. Juan Sebastián Verón was unable to set the world alight at either Manchester United or Chelsea and Angel Di Maria lasted just a year at Old Trafford after United forked out a then-British transfer record of £59.7 million for his services.

Both of those players were older than Mac Allister and had the advantage of coming to the Premier League from Europe, which acts as a kind of halfway house between South American football and English football. Mac Allister was very much being thrown in at the deep end in comparison.

What did not help is the way the Albion hyped up his arrival on social media, as if we had just signed Lionel Messi himself. There is a school of thought that they did this to try and divert attention from the fact that Tariq Lamptey was the only ‘new’ signing Brighton had made in January; if supporters were whipped up into a frenzy about the arrival of Mac Allister, perhaps they would forget that the club had failed to sign the striker or left back it looked like we desperately needed at the time.

Piling pressure and expectations onto Mac Allister in order to distract from a poor transfer window was unfair on the Argentinian. What he needed was an understated arrival and the chance to adapt to English football quietly without supporters being led to believe that the next Diego Maradona was in town.

Which to be fair is exactly what Potter gave him. Despite the attention now focussed on Alexis Mac Allister because of the profile his arrival had been given, Potter waited over a month to give him his Brighton debut in March’s 0-0 draw at Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Lockdown followed, which was good in some ways for Mac Allister and bad in others. It cannot have been easy for him to suddenly find himself cut off just three months into life in a brand new country.

On the flip side, once players were allowed to resume training, it gave him a mini pre-season of sorts to become better accustomed to Potterball and learn about his teammates ahead of the final nine games of the season.

Potter has continued to treat Mac Allister carefully. The Brighton boss wisely used the Carabao Cup at the start of the campaign to further Mac Allister’s English football education.

He played 270 minutes across matches with Portsmouth, Preston North End and Manchester United which yielded two goals and three highly promising showings.

Mac Allister’s seven Premier League appearances in 2020-21 have totalled only 280 minutes. Even a last minute equaliser in his 12 minutes on the pitch to rescue a point in a 1-1 draw at Crystal Palace could not convince Potter that Mac Allister was ready for more action.

Reports from Argentina in November said Mac Allister had contracted coronavirus and he was subsequently absent from the squad from the games against Aston Villa, Liverpool and Southampton. The virus will not have helped his chances of greater involvement during the autumn.

Even without Covid-19 though, it is doubtful Mac Allister would have featured much. Potter has set out to play the long game, been patient and now Brighton have on their hands a player who looks both capable and comfortable in the Premier League.

It is an eminently more sensible approach than chucking him straight into the side upon his arrival, watching him potentially struggle in an alien environment and shattering his confidence in the process. Potter deserves huge credit for his handling of Mac Allister.

Alongside Potter’s patience, there is another reason for Mac Allister looking so good against City and Leeds. The way in which Mac Allister approaches the game seems far better suited to a side who do not relentlessly retain possession.

He wants to get on the front foot, be creative and make things happen quickly. That is why he is always looking for a forward pass, like for the goal at Elland Road. His style is blunted when it is all about sideways passing.

At City, Brighton recorded 35 percent possession. Against Leeds, it was 34 percent. The more pragmatic approach that Potter adopted in those matches has helped to bring out the best in a player who is starting to prove that he can be a match winner.

Alexis Mac Allister looks like he has arrived in the Premier League. It has been the worth the wait.