Brighton & Hove Albion 2020-21 Season Review: November
Brighton & Hove Albion kicked off November with a trip to Tottenham Hotspur, where Graham Potter made a decision that would go onto have far-reaching consequences for the remainder of the 2020-21 season.
When the Seagulls line up was announced for the trip to Spurs, there was no Neal Maupay or Maty Ryan anywhere to be seen. Maupay’s banishment from the Brighton squad was not a total shock – since starting 2020-21 with four goals from the opening four games, he had gone completely off the boil and produced a number of impressive misses as October gave way to November.
Dropping Ryan however came as a total surprise – especially as the man replacing him had never played above League One level before. Robert Sanchez had begun the campaign as fifth choice goalkeeper behind Ryan, David Button, Christian Walton and Jason Steele.
Three months later and here he was, a 23-year-old goalkeeper who hardly tore up any trees at Rochdale or Forest Green Rovers being thrown in against the likes of Harry Kane, Son Heung-min and Gareth Bale. Had Potter hit the Christmas brandy eight weeks early?
No was the answer to that. Sanchez gave an assured display, including making one excellent second half stop. He probably would have expected to be much busier against such a quality forward line as Spurs’, but it was actually Brighton who enjoyed more possession and were arguably the better team at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
Yet again though, the Albion’s finishing let them down. Without Maupay or Aaron Connolly – also dropped completely from the matchday squad – Leandro Trossard was left to plough a lonely furrow up front on his own.
Starting Sanchez and handing Pascal Gross his first Premier League start of the campaign may have worked for Potter, but the decision to name no recognised centre forward led to an even more toothless display than normal.
It finished Spurs 2-1 Brighton. Kane cheated his way to a penalty with that party trick of his, backing into Adam Lallana to send the Brighton midfielder tumbling over Kane’s back and the Spurs striker crashing to the ground.
Had Lallana landed a little more awkwardly, he could have broken his neck. Incredibly, VAR took a look and decided that Lallana was the guilty party and so awarded a penalty.
Even more incredible was that this ‘foul’ very clearly took place outside the box. After endangering the life of Lallana, Kane duly beat Sanchez from 12 yards to give Spurs the lead.
To compound the misery of seeing that penalty given, Brighton were then denied an obvious spot kick when Trossard was prevented from reaching a ball into the box by Matt Doherty grabbing him around the neck.
It was a move that Owen Farrell has been sent off for – and that is in bloody rugby. That neither Graham Scott nor Jonathan Moss watching on VAR thought it worthy of a penalty was staggering.
Next it was Spurs’ turn to be aggrieved. There was plenty of controversy about Brighton’s equaliser as Solly March very clearly fouled Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg in the build up. The ball eventually found its way to Gross who teed up Tariq Lamptey to open his Brighton account with a calm finish.
Mr Scott was told about March’s questionable slide tackle and so trotted over to the pitch side monitor to take a look. Despite having watched it back, he somehow concluded that March had not done anything wrong and allowed the goal to stand. The only possible conclusion was that Mr Scott was trying to even things out after his two first half howlers.
It was the first time in Premier League history that a referee had watched back a replay and not changed his decision, leaving Jose Mourinho and Spurs incensed. Which was ironic given that their 1-0 lead and had been handed to them and maintained by two equally poor pieces of officiating.
The officials could be apportioned no blame when Spurs found their winner 17 minutes later. Sergio Reguilon swung over a cross from the left which found the unmarked Bale to head past Sanchez. Another goal conceded from a cross into the box as Brighton’s defending continued to be suspect.
24 hours after the defeat at Spurs and we found out why Maupay had been dropped. The Daily Telegraph revealed that Potter took the decision to omit Maupay to “bring the striker back down to earth” and “remind Maupay that no one player is more important than the team.”
A day later and the plot thickened even further. Maupay needed bringing back down to earth because of an altercation with a teammate in the aftermath of the 1-1 draw with West Brom which rounded off October.
Putting two and two together, it seemed likely that teammate was Ryan and he too had been jettisoned at Spurs as a result. All did not seem well behind the scenes ahead of the second game of November when Brighton hosted Burnley, the Premier League’s bottom club at that point in the 2020-21 season.
A 0-0 draw at the Amex hardly improved the mood, stretching the Albion’s barren run since the start of 2020 to four wins in 26 matches.
There were some positives from the stalemate, though. Ryan returned and kept a clean sheet, seemingly justifying Potter’s decision to give his number one goalkeeper a kick up the posterior by dropping him at Spurs.
Lallana ran the show in midfield as he completed back-to-back 90 minutes for the first time since decimalisation and Danny Welbeck was a lively presence on his full debut. Only two superb Nick Pope saves prevented Dat Guy from marking the occasion with a goal.
Welbeck did not have to wait long to get his Albion account up and running. A week later and he opened the scoring with a wonderful effort in the third game of November as Brighton beat Aston Villa 2-1, the Albion’s second victory of 2020-21 and their first ever at Villa Park.
A clever pass from Lallana released Welbeck and he latched onto the ball, travelled 40 metres up the pitch with it and produced a beautiful little chip over Emiliano Martinez.
Villa’s response to going behind was to start showcasing their abilities as thespians, constantly throwing themselves to the ground every five minutes in an attempt to win fouls and Oscar nominations.
There was no need for Villa to act to find their equalise. Brighton instead gifted it them by being asleep at the start of the second half. No prizes for guessing how the hosts’ goal came about, the Albion failing to clear their lines from a set piece to allow Ezri Konsa to scramble home.
Ben White had to produce an outstanding piece of defending and Ryan made a superb save to keep Villa out. Brighton then found their winner through a delightful passing move which eventually found Gross on the right hand side of the penalty area.
The German playmaker spotted a gap in the Villa defence and stroked the perfect ball low and hard across goal into the path of March, who curled a scrumptious right footed effort into the top corner.
There seemed to be no stopping March. He ended November as WAB Player of the Month, his second consecutive award after also winning in October and rumours continued to strengthen that he could be a shock call up to the England squad to solve Gareth Southgate’s lack of left wing back.
Gross’ assist meanwhile meant that he overtook Glenn Murray as the player with most goal involvements since the Albion joined the top flight in 2017, 12 goals and 17 assists moving him onto 29.
Food for thought for the pAsCAl gRoSS iS A sEt pIEcE meRcHAnT club, who were strangely silent throughout November as Brighton looked to be turning their 2020-21 season around with Gross back in the side.
The Albion did have to survive a couple of scares right at the death at Villa Park. Lamptey was sent off and then in the final seconds, it looked like Villa’s Daniel Day-Lewis acting abilities would rescue them an underserved point when Trézéguet went down in the box and Michael Oliver pointed to the spot.
Thankfully, Mr Oliver was advised by VAR to consult his pitch side monitor, realised that Solly March had just about nicked the ball from Trézéguet and overturned his decision. We always did like VAR…
There was further good reasons to praise the video assistant when champions Liverpool – who were making a decent fist of their title defence in the first three months of the 2020-21 season – came to Brighton in the final game of November.
This was a match that had it all and resulted in one of the Albion’s best performances of the campaign as they rattled the cage of Jurgen Klopp and his champions.
The Liverpool managed managed to make it all about him afterwards, completely losing his mind live on BT Sport in a wonderful argument with interviewer Des Kelly over fixture scheduling, five substitutes and injuries.
This meltdown ended up taking all the headlines, alongside Jordan Henderson saying he wanted VAR scrapped. Later in the evening, James Milner began making further waves when he tweeted that it was “clear and obvious” that technology was ruining football.
Funnily enough, nobody could recall Mr Henderson or Mr Milner making similar statements when decisions made using VAR had gone Liverpool’s way as they sauntered to the Premier League title the previous year.
Liverpool’s petulance dominated the headlines and was the ultimate example of what failing to beat #TeamsLikeBrighton can do to the so-called elite. Unfortunately, it also dominated the coverage and analysis which meant that the Albion never received the praise they deserved for their exertions in Brighton 1-1 Liverpool.
Graham Potter was bold in his team selection, naming three centre forwards against the champions. This came after the Brighton boss started with four centre backs in that previous November home game against Burnley who were, lest we forget, bottom of the table at that point in 2020-21.
To be fair to Potter, there was method behind the apparent madness of going all-out attack against the Redmen. Virgil van Dijk was murdered a few weeks earlier, resulting in candlelit vigils and prayers said across Merseyside for his loss.
Joe Gomez had suffered a serious injury on international duty and Trent Alexander-Arnold had also been on the shelf for some time. Liverpool therefore arrived at the Amex with a makeshift defence and Potter clearly thought playing all of Welbeck, Connolly and Maupay would test a back four featuring two youngsters and Fabinho playing out-of-position.
And he was right. Brighton were excellent in an opening 20 minutes in which they should have been 2-0 ahead. Connolly was the first to fluff his lines, going through one-on-one with Allison Becker after Maupay played him in but the shot went woefully off target.
There was worse to come nine minutes later when Connolly’s pace again took him in behind, leading to Neco Williams bundling the Irishman over in the box.
Maupay stepped up to take the resulting penalty but he put his spot kick wide of the right hand post. It was an awful miss and Maupay knew it as he effectively substituted himself off ‘injured’ moments later. It was reported as being a hamstring problem, but it looked like either a bruised ego or snapped enthusiasm.
VAR made its first intervention on 35 minutes when Mo Salah collected Roberto Firmino’s flick and finished clinically. The second best Egyptian footballer after Adam El-Abd had strayed offside by a finger nail however and so the goal was chalked off by the tightest of margins.
Liverpool were much improved in the second half and took the lead. It was another soft goal for Brighton to concede, Salah playing in Diogo Jota who escaped the attentions of Webster and Trossard a little too easily before firing low and hard past Maty Ryan.
Lallana replaced Connolly but the ex-Liverpool midfielder’s afternoon against his former club was short-lived. Essentially, he ran onto the pitch and 30 seconds later ran back off and straight down the tunnel, as if he were a bloke playing Sunday League at East Brighton Park who has not paid for his parking and has just clocked the traffic warden turning up.
Sadio Mane thought he had sewn the three points up when he scored a header from a free kick but again VAR intervened to rule it out for a minimal offside.
That was justice in a way as the initial free kick had been awarded after White won the ball with a perfectly timed challenge which Stuart Attwell somehow concluded was a foul.
Liverpool defended stoically in the final 10 minutes and it looked like they had done enough to secure what would have been a very underserved victory right up until Andy Robertson decided to leather the foot of Welbeck in the area.
Attwell initially saw nothing wrong with it, which was strange given the free kick and yellow card that went against White. VAR told him to have another look and he duly awarded the Albion a second penalty of the afternoon with just seconds remaining.
Following Maupay’s earlier howler, Gross was the man charged with taking it and he showed exactly why a German should always be on penalty taking duties, slamming his effort past Allison.
November 2020 record: P4 W1 D2 L1 F4 A4
Results: 1-2 v Spurs (A), 0-0 v Burnley (H), 2-1 v Aston Villa (A), 1-1 v Liverpool (H)
League position at the end of the month: 16th
WeAreBrighton.com Player of the Month: Solly March
