2019-20 Season Review: January
On paper, January looked like it could be a very good month in Brighton & Hove Albion’s 2019-20 Premier League season.
Chelsea on New Year’s Day aside, the Seagulls had three winnable games. They faced a trip to an Everton side who Carlo Ancelotti was still attempting to get a grip of, followed by the relegation threatened duo of Aston Villa at the Amex and Plucky Little Bournemouth at the Vitality Stadium.
Throw in a gentle FA Cup Third Round tie at home to mid table Championship side Sheffield Wednesday, and most Albion fans were expecting progress in the competition which brought such joy under Chris Hughton in 2018-19 accompanying a march up the table.
You will notice the use of the word could there, because sadly none of those things happened. Brighton crashed out of the FA Cup and picked up just two points from a run of games which most were predicting eight to 10 from.
Not only that, but January was the first month in the 2019-20 season when Brighton fans began to openly question Graham Potter. The Albion had recorded disappointing results in the previous five months of Potter’s reign, but they had still played reasonably well.
On the rare occasions they deserved to lose, it was down to poor performances from the players rather than anything that could be directly attributed to Potter.
January was different though. In particular, the Villa and Bournemouth matches could have yielded more than a single point were it not for some strange tactical tinkering and decisions.
Most concerning, parallels with the previous campaign’s dire form from January onwards were becoming hard to ignore. A good first half of the season followed by a second which saw the Albion dragged into the relegation battle had cost Hughton his job.
Brighton had survived, but only because Huddersfield Town, Fulham and Cardiff City were somehow worse. The teams at the bottom looked stronger in 2019-20 and the Albion could surely not rely on the weaknesses of others to avoid the Championship again.
Not that trips to Luton Town, Barnsley or Blackburn Rovers were on anyone’s mind after the opening game of January. The Albion had never taken a point from Chelsea in league football before but that changed thanks to one of the best goals ever scored by a Brighton player.
Chelsea had taken the lead inside of 10 minutes thanks to some pretty shambolic Albion defending at a corner as they missed three opportunities to clear the ball.
The circus began when Lewis Dunk lost Curt Zouma who as a result had a free header back across goal. Tammy Abraham fired the loose ball at Aaron Mooy, whose block but was hardly convincing.
From there, Cesar Azpilicueta found himself completely free in the six yard box, front and centre of goal with the simple task of tapping into an empty net. He duly did so with just over 10 minutes played. New year, same rubbish defending from set pieces.
Dan Burn left the action shortly after with a fractured collarbone. His absence over the next five weeks of January and stretching into February would go onto show just what an important player he had become to Potter in the 2019-20 season as Bernardo hardly set on the world on fire.
After a dire opening 45 minutes, Brighton sparked into life in the second half but could find no way past Kepa Arrizabalaga. That was until the 84th minute when Leandro Trossard’s corner was headed back across goal by Dunk.
There did not seem much on with the ball seemingly dropping into empty space behind Jahanbakhsh. And then the Iranian international somehow contorted his body, threw himself through the air and produced the perfect bicycle kick to deliver a powerful effort which left Kepa Arrizabalaga with absolutely no chance.
It was a stunning strike that unsurprisingly ended up winning Goal of the Season at our End of Season 2019-20 Awards. It also helped Jahanbakhsh be crowned WeAreBrighton.com January Player of the Month with a huge 82.45% of the vote, helped in part by the fact he could count on every man, woman and child from Iran’s unwavering support.
Most important of all was that it meant that the game finished Brighton 1-1 Chelsea. An excellent result given the Albion’s dreadful record against the Blues and one which provided a very good start to January and the second half of the 2019-20 season for Brighton.
Sheffield Wednesday came to the Amex three days later for a game that was filed under the ’90 minutes of my life I’m never getting back category.’
Both Potter and his opposite number Garry Monk named second-string sides, which in theory should have meant a straightforward result for Brighton as the Albion’s squad depth looked to far outstrip that of Wednesday’s.
Potter had also shown his willingness to use every player at his disposal so far in 2019-20, meaning that this presented an opportunity for fringe players to put themselves into first team contention.
All of which made it very strange that Brighton looked like they could not give a toss. The only player who seemed to care was Ezequiel Schelotto and all that resulted in was him popping up in every position other than the right side of the front three were he was supposed to be. Yes, Schelotto was named as a striker.
Leon Balogun was hauled at half time after having a nightmare at right back which probably hastened his departure to Wigan Athletic. There was also the unedifying sight of Gaetan Bong getting booed off when he was substituted, causing Bong to look visibly upset.
It turned out to be Bong’s last action in a Brighton shirt as he joined Nottingham Forest a couple of weeks later. While the left back may have struggled with the step up to the Premier League, he never gave less than 100%, had played a vital role in helping the Albion reach the Premier League and made over 100 appearances for the club.
Some supporters may have felt he was not worthy of a place in team by the end, but even so it was a sad way for his Albion career to end.
Sadder even than the fact there would be no memorable FA Cup run after last season’s brilliant day out at Wembley as Adam Reach scored the only goal in a 1-0 Wednesday win.
Potter might have found forgiveness easier to come by for resting so many first team players if Brighton had followed it up with a result at Everton a week later.
Instead, the Albion were poor again and it was only because of Maty Ryan’s efforts that they escaped Goodison Park with just a 1-0 defeat. Ryan had promised to donate A$500 to the Australian Bushfire Fund for every save made in the Premier League that weekend and his teammates certainly did their best to help raise money to save kangaroos and koalas by forcing Ryan into making a string of stops.
Richarlison scored the only goal of the game on 38 minutes and although Glenn Murray had a glorious chance to equalise towards the end, it would have been hash on the hosts if Brighton had escaped with a point.
Potter treated us to the sight of Bernardo as a holding midfield player at Goodison Park as five of Brighton’s players ended up swapping positions in the second half. Further tinkering came a week later against Aston Villa and this time, it proved costly.
Brighton were leading 1-0 as their fourth match of January entered the closing stages and three very welcome points against one of the poorer teams in the 2019-20 Premier League were close to being secured.
Aaron Mooy was very evidently tiring having given everything he had over the course of the previous 70 minutes. Leandro Trossard had given Brighton a first half lead, finishing past Pepe Reina after a wonderful run by Neal Maupay, who Villa fans were convinced would be signing for them the previous summer because of the fact that they had won the European Cup in 1982.
With 20 minutes remaining, Mooy appeared to be a prime candidate to be substituted. Instead, what we got was a spin of Potter’s roulette wheel and a game of musical chairs.
Aaron Connolly was replaced by right back Montoya, Steve Alzate moved into midfield from the defensive role in which he’d excelled and Mooy was pushed closer to Maupay up top.
Within seven minutes, Mooy gave away possession. Villa broke and Jack Grealish – who had hardly escaped Alzate’s pocket up until that point – was left with time and space by Montoya to strike an equaliser. His fourth goal in his past four games against the Albion.
There was no doubting that was two points dropped. Worse was to come though in the final game of January at the Vitality Stadium, where Brighton faced a Bournemouth side who scored just one goal in their previous six Premier League games of 2019-20.
Naturally, it was against the Albion that they ended that barren spell. Having hit the back of the net once in 540 minutes, they did so three times in 75 on their way to a 3-1 victory.
All of Bournemouth’s goals looked preventable. Harry Wilson’s opener came from Dunk’s poor clearing header and took a deflection off Bernardo on the way through.
Pascal Gross claimed the second when he marked his first start since Boxing Day by flicking Diego Rico’s corner past Ryan under pressure from Callum Wilson.
Wilson himself added the third with his first goal for 16 games, a run stretching back to September. Adam Webster this time was the man to deflect the ball past Ryan to leave Albion fans tearing their hair out.
Mooy did pull one back late on but it was nothing more than a consolation. Potter came in for criticism again, this time for using Dale Stephens at right back and throwing Trossard and Solly March on as out-and-out-wingers.
Their task was seemingly to toss cross after cross into the box, which might have been a good tactic had Murray not spent the 90 minutes sat on the bench.
Instead of one of the best headers of the ball in the Albion squad getting on the end of deliveries, it was left to the Hobbit-sized strike partnership of Connolly and Maupay to try and beat Bournemouth’s centre backs in the air.
Murray stayed out on the pitch for a prolonged period after the final whistle which many Brighton fans interpreted as a goodbye. There were plenty of clubs interested in the services of Brighton & Hove Albion’s second-highest goalscorer of all time in the January transfer window and nobody could blame him for wanting to leave after not starting a game in the 2019-20 season since September.
Surprisingly though, Murray stayed. Tariq Lampety, a £4 million signing from Chelsea and Alexis Mac Allister joined him in the Albion squad for the the final four months of the campaign.
The Mac Allister transfer saga was a particular joy to watch as in classic Brighton style, nobody had thought to put a recall option in his loan at Boca Juniors.
When the Argentinian was given a surprise work permit, the Albion suddenly found themselves having to pay £500,000 to sign their own player from Boca. It was a rare moment of comedy in an otherwise disappointing January.
January 2020 record: P5 W0 D2 L3 F3 A7
Results: 1-1 v Chelsea (H), 0-1 v Sheffield Wednesday (H), 0-1 v Everton (A), 1-1 v Aston Villa (H), 1-3 v Bournemouth (A)
League position at the end of the month: 15th
WeAreBrighton.com Player of the Month: Alireza Jahanbakhsh
