Brighton & Hove Albion 2021-22 Season Review: April
What on earth happened? Having lost six consecutive matches through February and March, Brighton went completely berserk in April as they set about rewriting the history books in the final two months of the 2021-22 Premier League season.
The difference in performances and results was extraordinary. It was like divorcing Ann Widdecombe to marry Ariana Grande.
Three wins, two draws and one defeat from six April matches transformed a 2021-22 campaign which had been drifting towards lower midtable obscurity into one which ended with Brighton securing a record breaking ninth place finish.
Not that things were all rosy in the Albion garden after the first match of April. Far from it in fact as Brighton failed to score at the Amex for a fifth consecutive game, this time when drawing 0-0 with rock bottom Norwich City.
The Albion racked up 31 shots across the 90 minutes. Only four of those were on target. Brighton saw their best opportunity present itself to Neal Maupay when the Canaries gave away a comical penalty in the first half.
With an unchallenged shot from 12 yards and an entire goal to aim at, Maupay did what everyone was expecting and sent the ball sailing over the bar and off towards France.
Maupay’s miss being greeted with laughter as much as despair told its own story. Gallows humour was the order of the day beyond the abysmal penalty.
One bloke in the West Upper gained cheers and guffaws when he turned around, threw his arms up and looked to the sky screaming “JUST ****ING SHOOT” as if looking for God to intervene.
Here was a man who could not longer handle Brighton stroking the ball around the edge of the box in an attempt to set a Guinness World Record for most pointless sideways passes made in a single game.
At half time, another chap said to his friend in the gent’s toilet as the second half kicked off: “Thought I might miss a goal going for a piss now but there’s no ****ing chance of that.”
To round off a surreal afternoon nicely, Graham Potter then claimed it was not helpful for Brighton fans to shout SHOOT in the most bizarre post-game interview from an Albion manager since Micky Adams said his players needed a hug after losing to Huddersfield.
Highly paid professional footballers who have played at the highest level could not deal with Clive from Portslade telling them to have a shot, apparently. The story went viral and Brighton found themselves as something of a laughing stock amongst the football world.
How would Brighton follow up a 0-0 draw at home to the worst team in the 2021-22 Premier League when playing away at Arsenal in their second game of April? Why of course, they would go and end their seven game winless run by beating the Gunners 2-1.
Potter crammed his starting XI with as many central midfielders as he could find – it was a surprise Gary Dicker did not get a call up – in a weird yet wonderful 3-3-3-1 formation for the trip to the Emirates.
It worked to an absolute tee. As intriguing as Enock Mwepu, Yves Bissouma, Alexis Mac Allister, Pascal Gross and debutant Moises Caicedo all starting was Potter’s decision to deploy Leandro Trossard wide on the left.
The Vampire of Genk had enjoyed regular success from left wing back for Belgium, including during the March international break when he had scored and assisted twice in a win over Burkina Faso.
Trossard opened the scoring against Arsenal from his new role midway through the first half when drifting in unnoticed from his flank. Lewis Dunk hit a long ball into the right channel, where the outstanding Mwepu brought it under control.
The Computer then pulled a low cross back to the edge of the box for Trossard to dip an effort over Aaron Ramsdale. “We’ve scored a goal!” was the chant ringing out from the away end. And some goal it was too.
An excellent passing move gave Brighton a second just past the hour mark. Marc Cucurella found Caicedo, he played a one-two with Trossard involving a back heel from the Belgian which set Caicedo into space on the by-line.
One perfectly dinked ball back to the edge of the box later and Mwepu was on hand to guide a volley past Ramsdale without so much as breaking stride.
Home fans began streaking out of the Emirates at that point, fearing that their top four hopes were in tatters. Those departing early missed Arsenal enjoy their best spell in the final 20 minutes.
Martin Odegaard and Sambi Lokanga both hit the bar before Odegaard pulled one back with a distance effort.
A lengthy six minutes of injury time was added on, where Brighton needed Robert Sanchez to make two vital saves to secure a first three points since the middle of February.
There was clearly something the Albion liked about the N postcode. Having won only three times in nine months at the Amex, Brighton made it two wins in the space of seven days in North London by beating Spurs 1-0 a week after their heroics at the Emirates.
Again Potter formulated the perfect game plan to stifle top four chasing opponents and secure a first victory away at Tottenham since 1981.
A side containing the goal-getting talents of Harry Kane and Son Heung-min were restricted to just five shots all afternoon and not one on target.
Sanchez was so unemployed he could have popped off to the cheese room at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, had it not been scandalously dropped when the ground was opened.
Even the most ardent of Spurs fans had to admit that Brighton were worthy of three points. It looked like the Albion would have to settle for one until the 90th minute when Trossard scored an un-brie-lievable goal to win it.
Trossard, Danny Welbeck and Adam Lallana linked up down the left but the danger appeared over when Lallana stumbled and was tackled.
The loose ball though found its way to an alert Trossard. He glided past Eric Dier and towards Lloris before using the outside of his right boot to bend an effort out of the reach of the Spurs goalkeeper and into the back of the net.
3,000 Brighton fans in the sun-soaked away corner of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium went wild. Those scenes of jubilation continued after the final whistle, when Potter and his players received the adulation of the travelling crowd.
The mood around the Albion had been transformed. Nobody cared too much about an expected 3-0 defeat away at Manchester City, where all the goals arrived in the second half.
Two of them required heavy deflections. Riyad Mahrez hit a weak shot which ballooned off Joel Veltman to deceive Sanchez.
Phil Foden then got his normal goal against Brighton when he tried his luck from 25 yards with a shot which deflected in off the boot of Enock Mwepu.
Bernardo Silva got goal number three after Sanchez and Mwepu conspired to gift City the ball. Oleksandr Zinchenko and Kevin De Bruyne punished that by linking up to find Silva on the edge of the box, who beat Sanchez at his near post.
The scoreline might have been heavier were it not for some unreal defending from Caicedo. His reading of the game allowed him to make two last ditch blocks on De Bruyne and Mahrez, leaving Brighton fans rather giddy with excitement about their Ecuadorian midfielder.
Southampton provided the fifth opposition of April as Brighton returned to the Amex, hoping that their recent good form on the road could yield a fourth home win of the 2021-22 season.
Things got off to a very amicable start when the Albion took the lead after only 76 seconds. Good news for Danny Welbeck, bad news for anyone who missed kick off caught up in the traffic and travel chaos that engulfed Sussex on this sunny Sunday afternoon.
Cucurella drove a low cross into the box, Saints goalkeeper Fraser Forster and defender Mohammed Salisu did a wonderful Chuckle Brothers impression under pressure from Mwepu and Welbeck was on hand to fire home from a matter of yards.
You wait 96 days for a Brighton goal at the Amex and then two come along in the space of 44 minutes. Or to be more precise, Southampton very charitably decide to score a comical own goal to put the Albion 2-0 ahead.
Welbeck was brilliant in the build up, charging inside from the right hand touchline and using the outside of his boot to perfectly switch play into the path of Trossard.
Trossard hit a low diagonal pass into the box which Welbeck was about to latch onto at the back post, only for Mohammed Salisu to fire past Forster and make it Brighton 2-0 Southampton.
There is no better time to score than a minute before half time… unless of course you then manage to concede a silly goal in the 49th minute with the interval seconds away.
Terrible game management left the Albion in a situation whereby only Dunk and Cucurella were in their own half when the Seagulls should have been seeing out injury time.
Cucurella subsequently had to take one for the team, wiping out Nathan Tella on the edge of the Albion box to pick up a deserved yet required yellow card.
There was just one problem with this – James Ward-Prowse. The best set piece taker in the Premier League stepped up, the Brighton wall fell apart like Berlin in 1989 and the ball was bent into the side of the goal Sanchez was meant to be protecting.
That goal seemed to ruin the Albion’s confidence. From 2-0 up and cruising, the second half became almost painful to watch. It therefore came as a surprise to absolutely nobody when Southampton equalised on 54 minutes.
Ward-Prowse was again the scorer, beating Sanchez from 25 yards to round off a quick break from Tella and Oriel Romeu after Adam Webster had passed the ball straight to the latter. It finished Brighton 2-2 Southampton and the long wait for a first home win since Boxing Day went on.
History suggested that failing to beat the Saints at home should have been expected. The Albion have tasted victory against Southampton in Sussex only twice since 1957.
Wolves provided the final opposition of April and in contrast, history suggested that Brighton could be reasonably confident of adding another away win to their impressive 2021-22 collection.
The Albion have always been a bogey side for the Old Gold. They hammered home that fact in some style, winning 3-0 at Molineux in the most underrated performance of the season.
Wolves came into the game with the best defensive record in the Premier League outside of the top three of City, Liverpool and Chelsea. That was until Brighton put three unanswered goals past them in a display of total and utter domination.
The Albion could even afford to miss another penalty. Mac Allister was the guilty party this time, hitting the post from the spot after VAR ruled that Romain Saiss had handled a Solly March cross into the box.
Mac Allister was given a second bite of the cherry when Brighton were awarded another penalty nine minutes later. Trossard fancied his chances this time but Mac Allister refused to hand the ball over.
The Lionel Messi look-a-like duly showed bollocks of steel to send his effort exactly the same way as the failed first attempt. This time, it crashed into the back of the net rather than the upright.
Trossard doubled the advantage with 70 minutes played. Welbeck found everyone’s favourite vampire, who produced some neat footwork to skip away from Joao Moutinho before firing a clinical low effort into the far corner.
The game was up at that point even though there were still 20 to play. Wolves mustered their one and only shot on target on 85. Brighton responded by going up the other end and grabbing their third on 86.
Trossard threaded a pass left to Cucurella and although the Spaniard’s cross was cleared, Wolves only managed to get the ball as far as Bissouma. He stepped around one Old Gold shirt and fired in from the edge of the box.
Victory at Molineux ensured that Brighton had already beaten their previous best Premier League points haul despite the 2021-22 season still being in April.
It was a far cry from where they had begun the month, slumped in 13th spot in the table and with all the good work of earlier in the campaign threatening to go to waste.
The challenge as April gave way to May was now to put 2021-22 in the history books as the season when Brighton soared to their highest finish in English football.
They did that of course, and in some style…
April 2022 record: P6 W3 D2 L1 F8 A5
Results: 0-0 v Norwich (H), 2-1 v Arsenal (A), 1-0 v Spurs (A), 0-3 v Man City (A), 2-2 v Southampton (H), 3-0 v Wolves (A)
League position at the end of the month: 9th
WeAreBrighton.com Player of the Month: Moises Caicedo
