WeAreBrighton.com 2018-19 Season Review: January 2019
Twice in September, Brighton had come from two goals behind to rescue a point. Those draws against Fulham and Southampton from what looked like pretty hopeless positions were an indication of the togetherness and the fight that the Seagulls of 2018-19 were said to have among their squad.
Fast forward four months and those qualities were starting to disappear. The boot was well and truly on the other foot in January as it was the Albion who squandered two goal advantages against both West Ham United and Fulham, resulting in just one point from fixtures which really should have reaped six.
It was at the London Stadium where Chris Hughton and his merry men kicked off 2019 in one of the craziest games of the season.
After a pretty turgid first half, the game sparked into life when the Albion scored twice in the space of 120 seconds early in the second half.
Both came from corners, the first a rasping volley from Dale Stephens through a crowd of players after Lukasz Fabianski had made a bit of a hash of attempting to clear Pascal Gross’ set piece.
Almost straight from kick off, Brighton won back possession and earned another corner. Gross again swung the ball over, this time to the back post where Duffy arrived, controlled with his chest and then contorted his body into some weird shape that shouldn’t be humanly possible to volley home. It was the sort of finish you’d expect from a nimble Brazilian forward, not a bloke from Derry who is over six feet tall. Mesmerising stuff.
The Hammers were certainly shell shocked and at that point, it looked like a convincing win similar to last season’s 3-0 triumph could be on the cards.
That was until Manuel Pellegrini made a double change to get the hosts back into the game as Mark Noble and Michail Antonio entered proceedings.
Noble had been on the pitch for a grand total of three minutes when he created West Ham’s first of the evening, playing a chipped pass over the top to Marko Arnautovic who was given way too much time and space by Duffy, allowing him to place the ball through the legs of David Button for 2-1.
That came just eight minutes after Brighton’s second and within another two minutes, West Ham were level. If being too deep was the cause of the first Hammers’ goal, then it was the polar opposite for the second.
Bernardo, seemingly forgetting we were defending a one-goal lead, found himself further forward than both Jurgen Locadia and Glenn Murray, miles into the West Ham half.
It was like somebody in the home stands was controlling him on FIFA and had just sent him as far up the pitch as possible with no regard for what would happen if the Hammers were able to break down our left.
Quite what he was doing up there is anybodies guess, but Antonio took full advantage of the space that afforded him to get to the byline and pull the ball back for Arnautovic to notch his second.
After those four goals in 12 minutes, things calmed down and despite West Ham dominating the final 20 minutes, the Albion held on for a precious point – although it felt more like two dropped at the time.
Three days later and the FA Cup provided a distraction from the Premier League with the third round draw throwing up the most uninspiring game imaginable away at Plucky Little Bournemouth.
Just two weeks had passed since we’d lasted visited the Vitality Stadium for a 2-0 league defeat in the final days of December.
This return trip to Dorset couldn’t have been more different as Brighton finally beat the Cherries for the first time in 11 meetings. Eddie Howe wasn’t looking his usual smug self afterwards either as he faced the prospect of only a second defeat in 13 games as a manager against Brighton.
Both Howe and Hughton rested the majority of their key men with the Albion making eight changes from the West Ham game. Most notably, fans of the Sunderland Till I Die documentary were delighted to see Jason Steele making his Brighton debut in goal.
The signing of Steele was met with much derision by supporters of his former club but he impressed with two fine saves late on, pushing away David Brooks’ volley and then keeping out former Seagull Steve Cook’s header.
The smile that Steele had on his face after the second of those was like a man who has just turned up to a blind date and been greeted by Ariana Grande.
Nobody could blame him after a torrid couple of years in which he was relegated into League One with the Black Cats and Blackburn Rovers in successive seasons. Steele’s renaissance was the magic of the FA Cup at work once again.
At the opposite end to Steele, Brighton scored with their first two shots on target. Anthony Knockaert made it 1-0 when he picked up a clever back heel from Locadia and drilled it past Artur Boruc.
Shortly after, Yves Bissouma doubled the advantage as the Cherries invited him come forward with the ball and he was only too happy to do so before unleashing a 30-yard drive which flew into the bottom corner. Not a bad way to mark your first Brighton goal.
Marc Pugh pulled one back with a stunning effort from outside the box just after half time but any hopes of a Bournemouth comeback were extinguished with yet another Albion goal from a corner nine minutes later, Knockaert sending in a deep delivery which Duffy headed back across goal to Florin Andone who headed home.
The fourth round draw threw up Championship promotion challengers West Bromwich Albion. Before the Baggies visit to the Amex, there were two nice and easy Premier League fixtures to play against Liverpool and Manchester United.
Despite Liverpool supporters’ frequent petitions and protests about there being some sort of referee-led conspiracy against them all season, Jurgen Klopp’s side got every single decision at the Amex as they ground out a 1-0 victory courtesy of a Mo Salah penalty.
Ironically, that penalty was probably the one thing that referee Kevin Friend got right. Salah may have gone to ground like a cartoon character who had slipped on a fruit peel, but Pascal Gross had his arms all over him and if you do that in the box, you’re playing a risky game.
Otherwise, Mr Friend managed to give an astonishing four handballs against Brighton in the first half alone. Every time the Albion made inroads into the Liverpool half, Mr Friend would find some offence that we’d apparently committed to halt the move and stop any attacking momentum that might have been building.
You know it’s bad when Hughton, one of the more reflective managers who rarely criticises referees, felt the need to highlight the inconsistencies in his post match interview. Despite having over 71% of possession, Liverpool knew they were lucky to leave Sussex with all three points. Not that any of their Twitterati could admit that.
The trip to Old Trafford saw a similarly soft penalty cost the Albion a point against one of the Premier League’s big boys as they fell to a brave 2-1 defeat.
This time, Paul Pogba was the man who took a leaf out of the Tom Daley playbook and Gaetan Bong was the player making the clumsy challenge.
Yes, it probably was a foul as Bong did nudge Pogba, but the way he went to ground you’d have thought he’d been hit by an Eddie Stobart lorry travelling at 80mph as opposed to getting a little shove in the back.
Pogba duly dispatched the penalty past Button before a piece of brilliance from Marcus Rashford made it 2-0. The England striker collected a pass from Diogo Dalot and completely outfoxed Gross with a delightful piece of trickery before curling into the top corner from the tightest of angles.
Brighton’s consolation featured an equally outrageous piece of skill as that Rashford finish. Davy Propper was the man to provide it, taking Victor Lindelöf out the game with a clever step over before bending the ball into the area with the outside of his right boot, straight into the path of Gross. The German brought it down on his chest and hit a volley over David De Gea and into the roof of the net.
If Pogba had made a pass like Propper’s, Match of the Day would’ve dedicated at least 45 minutes to just showing it over and over again on repeat and it would have become the most used GIF on Twitter of 2019. It was that good and it went a long way towards helping Propper win January Player of the Month.
Less good was the following week’s meeting with West Brom. Darren Moore made it pretty clear that his priorities for the season were winning promotion rather than getting anywhere in the FA Cup by naming four academy graduates in his starting line up.
Hughton meanwhile sent a side with £57m worth of talent onto the pitch, which should have been more than enough to see off a Championship development squad. Instead, it was a 0-0 draw and a nice midweek trip to West Bromwich for a replay.
The positives? There weren’t many. Under 23 forward Viktor Gyokeres had a lively 20 minute cameo after he’d replaced Locadia, Button earned another clean sheet with a fine save onto the bar from a Tosin Aradabioyo header and £3.5m defender Dan Burn was a clear man-of-the-match winner on his Albion debut.
Three days later and January ended just as it had began – with the surrendering of a 2-0 lead. The venue this time was snowy Craven Cottage, one of the best away stadiums to visit in the country resembling a scene from a Christmas card.
Perhaps that is why Brighton decided to gift the second worst team in the Premier League all three points with a spectacular second half horror show?
It had all started so well. Just three minutes had been played when Murray turned an excellent low cross from Martin Montoya past Sergio Rico via an equally impressive flicked finish for 1-0.
A quarter of an hour later and Murray made it 2-0. March’s cross caused chaos and confusion in the box with Gross producing an overhead kick somewhere in the melee which the veteran striker nodded home. 18 minutes gone and the Albion had a clear lead against the most terrible defence in the division. Happy days.
The Albion players certainly seemed to think so as they took their feet completely off the pedal for the second half. It looked to all intents and purposes like they felt the game was won and they didn’t need to try anymore, a haphazard attitude which was nearly as pathetic as it was costly.
Four goals in 22 minutes saw Fulham produce punish that attitude. Callum Chambers and Luciano Vietto both scored either side of an Aleksandar Mitrovic brace, the Serbian forward bullying Lewis Dunk and Duffy to the point where both centre backs began resorting to desperately appealing for fouls whenever they were forced into going near Mitrovic. He completely dominated them physically.
The Albion’s defensive duo weren’t the only ones who struggled. Gaetan Bong and Jurgen Locadia had a terrible time of it down the left hand side while Hughton’s tactics and substitutions came under proper scrutiny for the first time.
From the first whistle of the second half, Fulham were completely dominant and yet it was 25 minutes before Hughton did anything to try and alleviate the problems that were obviously occurring all over the pitch, largely being caused by the 4-3-3 formation that he was doggedly sticking with.
It was very much a case of him burying his head in the sand and hoping that we could hold on to our lead, rather than doing something proactive to try and help protect it.
Predictably, that timidity didn’t work and three points were thrown away. Hughton’s inactivity and fear of making changes to a side who hold the lead for fear of it going wrong had cost us big time.
As a result, it felt like a bit of a turning point. Even the most supportive of Albion fans were beginning to openly question some decisions being made by the bench as the first signs of frustrations were starting to brew among supporters hurrying down snow covered paths away from Craven Cottage.
After all, if we could all point out so many problems after watching the game through the prism of eight pints of San Miguel, then Hughton and his highly paid team of footballing experts should have had no trouble highlighting what went wrong and making the changes necessarily to stop us sliding into relegation trouble.
Or so we thought.
January 2019 record: P6 W1 D2 L3 F8 A10
Results: 2-2 v West Ham A, 3-1 v Bournemouth A, 0-1 v Liverpool H, 1-2 v Man United A, 0-0 v West Brom H, 2-4 v Fulham A
League position at the end of the month: 13th
WeAreBrighton.com Player of the Month: Davy Propper
