WeAreBrighton.com 2018-19 Season Review: December

December 2018. On the face of it, this was a good month for the Albion. There was a rare win on the road away at Huddersfield Town, Crystal Palace were famously beaten 3-1 by 10 men and Everton were vanquished at the Amex in the final game of a memorable calendar year.

But it was also the month when Chris Hughton made the fateful move from his tried and trusted 4-4-1-1 formation to 4-3-3. Six months and just six Premier League wins later, that decision went a long way towards costing him his job as Albion manager.

Not that anybody could have predicted that happening back in December. In fact, the change in formation for the trip to Huddersfield was greeted with near-universal approval as it helped to deliver what was only our fourth away win in 26 games as a Premier League club.

The previous week, Brighton had drawn 1-1 at home to a Leicester City side who played for over an hour with 10 men. For the first time under Hughton, there were murmurs of discontent among the home support.

Boos greeted the final whistle and fans began openly suggesting that a more positive approach might be needed, rather than retreating to man the trenches against opponents with less players as soon as we’d gone 1-0 ahead.

A 2-1 success at the John Smith’s Stadium seemed to justify those beliefs. It also banished the demons of the previous week’s failure to beat a side who had a man sent off as just like Leicester, Huddersfield had to play the majority of the game short handed due to an early red card for Steve Mounie.

Brighton were already 1-0 down by that point having conceded the sort of goal that you’d be embarrassed to see happen on a Sunday morning at Waterhall.

Bruno’s attempts to clear Philip Billing’s long throw somehow just resulted in him smashing the ball 80 feet up in the air and into the penalty area.

Lewis Dunk, Yves Bissouma, Bernardo and Maty Ryan all gathered underneath where the ball was now coming down after completing an orbit of the sun, only for all four of them to somehow allow Mathias Jorgensen to have a free header for 1-0.

That we could look back and laugh at that was thanks to two brilliant balls into the box from Solly March which resulted in goals for Shane Duffy and Florin Andone, his first for the club on his first start.

There was certainly some luck involved too. Leon Balogun probably should have been sent off; his first touch after replacing the injured Bruno being a tackle on Alex Pritchard that was arguably worse than the one that led to Mounie’s dismissal.

Thankfully, referee Michael Oliver didn’t deem it worthy of even so much as a yellow or the penalty that it surely should have been and Brighton had their first come-from-behind victory in 52 attempts in the top flight. The 4-3-3 future looked glorious, even if we had only beaten the worst team in the Premier League.

Three days later and we were treated to one of the most extraordinary games in Albion history. Crystal Palace came to town on a night that Brighton supporters will still be talking about 50 years into the future as the Seagulls outplayed, out thought and out battled their arch rivals to win 3-1 despite playing for over an hour with 10 men.

The tone was set for a remarkable evening when somebody lobbed a chicken and gammon pie at Wilfried Zaha in one of the most middle class examples of football hooliganism you’ll ever see.

Having a £4.50 piece of pastry thrown at him turned out to be Zaha’s only real contribution to the evening. Palace and their Golden Child were woeful while Brighton were fantastic.

Glenn Murray kept up his ridiculous record of scoring against his former clubs when giving Albion the lead in the 24th minute, sending his spot kick in off the crossbar.

Just four minutes later and Duffy completely lost his mind, deciding to headbutt Patrick van Aanholt right in front of referee Kevin Friend – and less than 24 hours after he’d tweeted “Heads gone” in what now looked like an eerie prediction of what was to come.

Pascal Gross was immediately withdrawn in a tactical reshuffle and on came Balogun, who remarkably scored within 60 seconds of his introduction with a thumping volley.

Things got even better on the stroke of half time, Andone – who had replaced the injured Murray – chasing down a lost cause clearance and doing brilliantly to run from inside his own half with the ball, beat two Palace players through sheer determination and fire low and hard past Hennessey.

Ryan had only one save to make until he was beaten by Luka Milivojevic’s 81st minute penalty but that was nothing more than an undeserved consolation. It was truly one of the greatest games we’ll ever watch as Brighton fans and left everyone giddy about what the future held, given that the relegation zone was now 12 points away.

Afterwards, we wrote in our match review: “The result lifts the Albion up into 10th, just a point behind Everton who fill the last European spot. More pertinent than worrying about how we’re all going to afford trips to Belarus or Kazakhstan in the Europa League next season is the fact that we’re already over halfway to 40 points. In a season in which it looks like as little as 35 points might keep you up, we’re nearly at the safety mark already.”

That looks absolutely mental now, bar the fact that Cardiff City filled the last relegation spot with 34 points. But it just goes to show how the Albion’s season completely fell apart after the Eagles headed back up the A23 with their tails between their legs.

The first sign of what was to come saw Brighton follow up that superb victory over Palace up by losing 1-0 away at struggling Burnley.

The Clarets hadn’t won a game for over two months before Jack Cork’s shot smacked James Tarkowski in the chest to deflect past Ryan and the covering Bernardo for the only goal of the game.

Hughton was desperate to point out afterwards that we’d enjoyed 70% possession in the second half, which was a nice statistic. Not much use though if you don’t force the opposition goalkeeper into a save until the 93rd minute which was the case here, Joe Hart finally being called into action in the final play of the game with the comfortable collection of a Murray header.

Jurgen Locadia had earlier managed the seemingly impossible by failing to hit the target with a free header from six yards, instead heading over the bar with the goal gaping – the sort of miss that was inexcusable when Craig Davies was doing it on a weekly basis at the bottom of League One, let alone a £14m striker in the Premier League.

That squandered opportunity and the Albion’s general lack of penetration looked like they might prove costly given the fixtures that were to come over the remainder of December.

Chelsea were next up and in a week in which their supporters ticked off racism when racially abusing Raheem Sterling and antisemitism by singing antisemitic songs during their 2-2 Europa League draw with MOL Vidi, they managed to complete an impressive discrimination hat-trick by having fans thrown out of the Amex for homophobic comments.

Those who were removed for living in the 17th century missed a 2-1 win for the Blues, although the visitors were hanging on to victory at the end as the Albion gave their illustrious hosts a real fright in the second half.

Brighton were their own worst enemy in the first, being absolutely abysmal in possession. They gift wrapped Chelsea two early Christmas presents inside the first 30 minutes.

The first saw the Albion fail to clear the ball from their box, leaving the outstanding Eden Hazard to collect it, dance past Martin Montoya as if the Spanish right back’s feet had been concreted into the ground and then square across goal for Pedro to tap in.

The second came when Leon Balogun gave the ball away to Willian in Chelsea’s half and one defence splitting pass later and Hazard was accelerating through the home defence to beat Ryan with ease.

Brighton put in a much improved performance after the break. March pulled one back, volleying home after a clever header back across goal from Bernardo from a Gross cross and the Albion’s scorer might have had another when Marcos Alonso had to resort to a cynical, last man pull back to prevent him having a clear run at goal. Alonso escaped a red for that, proving once again that he can get away with murder.

Chelsea were clearly worried about an equaliser coming and Kepa Arrizabalaga was even booked for time wasting as they hung on to the slenderest of wins – all a far cry from their last visit to Sussex 11 months previously when they’d eased to a 4-0 win.

The Blues may have been caught by surprise at how hard they were pushed by the Albion but there were to be no shocks away at Plucky Little Bournemouth, where the Cherries stretched their unbeaten run against the Seagulls to over 12 years.

2-0 was the final score at the Vitality Stadium with both goals scored by a man who could have been a Brighton player. David Brooks’ talents had been flagged up by the club’s scouts but the Moneyball analysis overruled them and as a result, the Albion spent £17m on Alireza Jahanbakhsh whilst Eddie Howe snapped up Brooks for £11m. No wonder Eddie was looking even smugger than usual after he chalked up yet another victory against Brighton.

A miserable afternoon was rounded off when Dunk saw red in strange circumstances. There were no complaints about the second booking he picked up for a nasty tackle, but it was actually Yves Bissouma who made the foul 12 minutes earlier for which Dunk received his first yellow of the afternoon.

Quite how Mike Dean managed to mistake the Sussex born-and-bred Brighton captain who he’d been dealing with all afternoon with a guy who grew up in Mali is anyone’s guess, but it meant Dunk missing the Boxing Day visit of Arsenal to the Amex.

That was Ryan’s final game before heading off to the Asian Cup with Australia and the Albion’s number one marked the occasion with one of his finest performances in a Brighton shirt, single handedly earning a 1-1 draw against the Gunners.

Arsenal had 85% possession in the opening half hour and three brilliant chances to be out of sight. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s attempted lob was kept out as Ryan defied all the known laws of gravity to fly through the air and claw it away.

There was nothing that Ryan could do to deny Aubameyang second time around, the £56m striker clinically finishing after strike partner Alexandre Lacazette had taken advantage of more sloppy play from Balogun to win back possession and hold off the challenges of three defenders before finding Aubameyang in the box.

Aubameyang then found himself in one-on-one with only the Albion goalkeeper to beat and there was nothing wrong with his effort hit hard and low to Ryan’s right.

It looked to all the world to be heading for the bottom corner until Ryan showed remarkable reflexes, unbelievable agility, great speed and the strongest of hands to get down and somehow keep it out.

Without those interventions, 0-1 would have been 0-3 and it would have been game over. Instead, 10 minutes before half time Brighton equalised. Locadia was able to take full advantage of a mistake from Stefan Lichtsteiner who headed Davy Propper’s hoof over the top straight into the path of the Dutch striker. He coolly rounded Bernd Leno to net.

That was Locadia’s first league goal in 10 months. The wait for his next one was slightly shorter as it arrived
three days later when scored what proved to be the winner in the Albion’s 1-0 win over Everton, thanks to some eagle-eyed refereeing from Andy Madley.

Locadia’s initial strike past Jordan Pickford had been ruled out for offside by the linesman but Mr Madley spotted that it had taken a deflection off Andre Gomes on its way through and so overruled his assistant with the goal standing.

Pickford pulled off one sensational stop to tip over Andone’s powerful header from a Gross free kick but England’s World Cup hero was outshone by the man at the other end, David Button marking his Albion debut in place of the absent Ryan with a man-of-the-match showing.

He made one first half save every bit as good as Pickford’s, denying Richarlison from point blank range and then produced a magnificent stop in the second half to push the same player’s effort from five yards onto the post.

Everton’s frustrations at not beating the Albion were evidenced at the final whistle when there were some fantastic handbags. Known troublemaker March was the man who started the problems, getting in an altercation after the Albion had refused to kick the ball out for Bernard to receive treatment as the game entered the final 15 minutes.

That carried on when Mr Madley blew for full time as both Bernard and Richarlison threw their toys out the pram, clearly aggrieved at failing to beat “a team like Brighton.”

It had been a good year in that regard. 2018 had seen Arsenal, Manchester United (twice) and Tottenham Hotspur all come to the Amex and fail to win. With the results like that and the relegation zone a long way away as 2019 arrived, the future looked bright with Hughton at the helm.

Little did we know that it was all about to change.

December 2018 record: P7 W3 D1 L3 F8 A8
Results: 2-1 v Huddersfield A, 3-1 v Palace H, 0-1 v Burnley A, 1-2 v Chelsea H, 0-2 v Bournemouth A, 1-1 v Arsenal H, 1-0 v Everton H
League position at the end of the month: 13th
WeAreBrighton.com Player of the Month: Bernardo