2019-20 Season Review: October
Promising performances will only get you so far in football. It is a results-based business and for all the pretty football that Graham Potter had brought to Brighton in the opening two months of the 2019-20 season, the Albion entered October with only one win to their name.
And then Tottenham Hotspur arrived at the Amex. Just four months earlier, Spurs had finished runners up in the Champions League and although Mauricio Pochettino and his players were going through a disastrous spell which would ultimately cost the Tottenham manager his job, they were still a quality outfit.
How much glue would you needed to have sniffed for breakfast on Saturday 5th October to imagine that Brighton would beat Spurs 3-0 to secure their second win of 2019-20? The entire Loctite factory with a couple of Pritt Sticks thrown in for good measure by our reckoning.
Beat is the wrong word, really – this was a hammering. More than a few eyebrows were raised before kick off with Potter opting to team Pascal Gross and Aaron Mooy together as two number 10s in a very narrow 4-2-2-2.
Spurs had no answer to it. Some of Brighton’s football in the previous seven Premier League games had pointed to an opponent getting blown away at some point, but nobody could have predicted it would be a team as good as Spurs who were on the end of it.
Everything just seemed to click. From the moment that Gross whipped a dangerous looking cross over in the second minute which caused Hugo Lloris to fall into the goal and injure his arm to leave Neal Maupay with a tap in, Brighton were in complete control.
Mooy was outstanding, giving the best individual performance of the 2019-20 season. The headlines though went to Aaron Connolly who marked his full Premier League debut by drawing comparisons to a young Wayne Rooney.
Connolly notched Brighton’s second with a brilliant piece of improvisation, back heeling Dan Burn’s low cross towards goal. Spurs’ replacement goalkeeper Paulo Gazzaniga kept out the initial effort but Connolly reacted quickest to slam home the rebound.
The teenager wrapped the game up midway through the second half with a Rooney-esque first time finish across Gazzaniga and into the bottom corner from 25 yards.
A brilliant goal but one which would not have been possible without Lewis Dunk. The Brighton captain’s outstanding 2019-20 form would be ignored by Gareth Southgate when the England manager named his squad for the October matches with Czech Republic and Bulgaria, which seemed even more ridiculous in light of Dunk’s assist against Spurs.
It was Dunk’s defence splitting pass from 50 yards away which put Connolly in, the sort of through ball you expect from prime Andreas Iniesta and Xavi rather than a Brighton centre back.
Dunk may have been unable to break into the national team, but Connolly had no such trouble. He was fast tracked into the Republic of Ireland’s senior squad hours after the Spurs game.
With Steve Alzate making his Colombia bow at the same time, Brighton had suddenly gone from giving two development squad players league debuts in four-and-a-half years under Chris Hughton to seeing Alzate and Connolly become full internationals in three months under Potter.
Aston Villa provided the opposition in the Albion’s second match of October and for the second time in 2019-20, a stupid red card inside of 30 minutes cost Brighton what should have been another three points.
For Florin Andone against Southampton in August, see Mooy away at Villa. In fact, you could argue that Mooy’s sending off was even more ridiculous given that it was for two completely unnecessary bookings in the space of five minutes.
The first yellow came when Mooy gave away a free kick and then deliberately blocked Villa from taking it quickly. There was little danger from Villa restarting play with a short pass – in fact, they were trying to go backwards towards their central defenders.
It therefore wasn’t a tactical yellow card which was a required intervention but a booking born out of petulance. The second was a little more unfortunate, a tackle on Jack Grealish that was clumsy rather than malicious.
But even so, to go to ground minutes after you’ve just been booked to try and win the ball back is a risky manoeuvre which you have to get right.
Mooy didn’t and Brighton paid the price, going onto lose 2-1. Adam Webster had headed home his first Albion goal to give the visitors the lead which was the least that they deserved for another performance full of good football.
Going down to 10 men allowed Grealish extra space to work in and Brighton know better than most the damage he can wreak. It looked like the Albion might make it to the break ahead until three minutes into first half stoppage time.
Grealish was of course the scorer, sliding in to finish Frederic Guilbert’s cross, which somehow evaded Dunk, Webster, Dale Stephens, Maty Ryan, and Martin Montoya.
Not exactly convincing defending but at least it wasn’t a shot from 30 yards in front of the Holte End which went through our goalkeeper’s legs this time.
Despite their numerical disadvantage, Brighton kept plugging away to find a winner. Countless opportunities to score were squandered, most notably when Montoya shot straight at Heaton – yes, the Albion’s right back found himself front and centre of the Villa goal when the Seagulls were down to 10.
Jonathan Pearce commentating on Match of the Day said with surprise after that Montoya miss, “They’re not sitting back Brighton. It’s really refreshing that they’re going for a winner down to 10 men.”
Refreshing it might have been, Jonathan – but sometimes, it’s okay to not want to go forward. Like in the 95th minute of a game you’ve given it your all in and can walk away with a decent point from despite playing for over an hour with 10 men.
Potter though was still urging his side forward which resulted in Gross smashing the ball hopelessly into the Villa half for lone striker Solly March (lone striker Solly March!) to chase.
The move broken down, Villa broke and 30 seconds later Grealish slipped in Matt Targett who scored a winner. Mooy’s five minutes of insanity and some very poor game management from the Albion have proven costly.
A week later and Brighton rounded off October by giving their worst performance so far in the 2019-20 season as Everton came to town. Thanks to a combination of an appalling VAR decision to award the Albion a penalty and a Lucas Digne own goal, Brighton ended up winning 3-2.
To be fair, it was about time Brighton had some luck. As well as those two incidents, the Albion were extremely fortunate that VAR missed Montoya wrestling Richarlison to the ground for what looked a blatant spot kick and that Pascal Gross’ free kick to open the scoring went straight through the arms of Jordan Pickford.
Every time one team scored, the other would go up the other end and notch. Gross’ free kick was followed by Webster getting the slightest of deflections to Richarlison’s goal bound header for an own goal.
Ezequiel Schelotto entered the action for his first appearance in the stripes for 18 months after falling out with Hughton and suffering a career-threatening knee injury. It was Schelotto’s fellow substitute Leandro Trossard who won the game for Brighton in a mad final 10 minutes.
Everton kick started the frantic finale when taking the lead through Dominic Calvert-Lewin when he latched onto Mason Holgate’s through ball to beat Ryan and give the Toffees the lead.
Remarkably, sections of the Amex began emptying at that point. It had been so long since the Albion managed a meaningful goal in the final stages of a match that they probably thought they could make it home to admire the lovely Saffron Barker on Strictly Come Dancing without missing anything.
How wrong could they be? On 80 minutes, VAR gave Maupay the chance to make it 2-2 from the spot which he duly took. Michael Keane was adjudged to have stepped on Connolly’s big toe in a foul which quite literally nobody in the ground spotted.
Then with four minutes added time about to expire, the winner arrived for the Albion. On another day, this was a passing move that would garner plenty of attention as the ball swept from Ryan at one end of the pitch and into the back of Pickford’s net at the other.
Yet because of the VAR controversy, the brilliance of Alzate’s back heel, Burn’s lung-bursting run, Stephens perfectly weighted through ball and Trossard’s dangerous low cross being turned in by Digne went under the radar.
Potterball in motion and Graham certainly seemed to enjoy it, tearing onto the pitch to celebrate in front of the North Stand at the final whistle like a man whose mate has just returned from the bar with a round of Jagerbombs.
He had every right to be happy. Brighton ended October closer to the Champions League places than the relegation zone in terms of points and in Connolly – a worthy winner of our WeAreBrighton.com Player of the Month Award – the Albion seemed to have unearthed that Premier League quality striker they had been spent the previous two seasons looking for.
Brighton were belatedly putting points on the board and against opponents like Spurs and Everton. The future under Potter suddenly looked a lot brighter.
October 2019 record: P3 W2 D0 L1 F7 A4
Results: 3-0 v Tottenham (H), 1-2 v Aston Villa (A), 3-2 v Everton (H)
League position at the end of the month: 12th
WeAreBrighton.com Player of the Month: Aaron Connolly
