WeAreBrighton.com 2018-19 Season Review: March
March 2019 was arguably the most crucial month in the Albion’s 2018-19 season. Three Premier League games with three sides all stationed near the bottom of the table and an extremely winnable FA Cup Quarter Final with Championship strugglers Millwall gave it the look of a make-or-break month.
Huddersfield Town were the first visitors to the Amex. The Terriers had been marooned at the bottom of the table for virtually the entire campaign and three months ago, you’d have said this was a home banker. Brighton simply didn’t lose at home to teams outside the top six.
Well, they didn’t used to. The Albion hadn’t won since December and that meant that beating Jan Siewert’s charges was no sure thing. In fact, given the shocking run of the results that had been served up since Chris Hughton abandoned 4-4-1-1 in favour of 4-3-3, there was a real sense of trepidation around the Amex.
That was owing to the fact that this was a must-win game, not because Huddersfield could catch us in the table but because of what defeat would have done to the morale of both players and supporters
Failing to win would have led to mutiny on the terraces, a poisonous atmosphere among fans and some serious calls for Tony Bloom to consider the future of Chris Hughton.
That it didn’t come down to that was thanks to Florin Andone’s header 10 minutes from time. From the first whistle, it was obvious that Huddersfield’s defence was slower than an Eddie Stobart lorry going up Mount Everest with the handbrake on. In other words, this wasn’t a game in which Glenn Murray’s target man skill set was going to be much use.
Hughton realised that and made a very early change by his standards, throwing on Andone after 57 minutes. It was another one of Hughton’s substitutes who started the move that led to the goal.
Jose Izquierdo had only been on the pitch for 120 seconds when he found Anthony Knockaert who delivered a fine cross which Andone met with a bullet header past Jonas Lossl to spark wild scenes of relief around the Amex. The monkey of a Premier League win was finally off the Albion’s back.
Which was just as well as next up was the trip to arch rivals Crystal Palace. Andone’s impact on the Huddersfield game was set to be rewarded with a berth in the staring line up at Selhurst Park until he got injured in the warm up. This turned out to be a stroke of luck for the Albion.
Murray took Andone’s place as a result and he marked his late call up by opening the scoring with 19 minutes played, capitalising on a terrible error from James Tomkins to score against his former club once again.
Ever since Lewis Dunk made his England debut the previous November, Palace fans have been extremely vocal that it should be Tomkins in the Three Lions squad rather than the Albion captain. That’s what made his contribution to the opener all the more hilarious.
Quite what Tomkins was doing when Dunk smashed the ball 70 yards down the pitch with the assistance of a ridiculously strong wind, God knows. To say it was Sunday League defending would do a disservice to all those blokes who turn up at Waterhall every weekend nursing hangovers.
Essentially, Tomkins ducked his head as if he were finishing a 100m race but only succeeded in completely missing the ball, allowing Murray a free run at Vicente Guaita in the Palace goal.
What happened next seemed to take place almost in slow motion for all of us gathered in the Arthur Wait Stand. From the moment the ball left Murray’s right foot via the sweetest of volleys, time appeared to stop.
The whole ground seemed to go silent as we all waited to see where it would end up… and then the net bulged and it was absolute bedlam in the away end.
Palace equalised from – surprise, surprise – a penalty just after the break when Andros Townsend was brought down by Davy Propper. Luka Milivojević duly converted, as he always seemed to.
Memories of second half horror shows in our last two games in the London area came flooding back. The Albion had thrown away a 2-0 lead at West Ham United in January to draw 2-2 and then went one better at Fulham a few weeks later when a 2-0 advantage at half time ended in a 4-2 defeat at the final whistle.
Similar happening at Selhurst would have been unbearable. Thankfully, it didn’t and instead we were treated to the goal of the season from Knockaert to win the game.
Dale Stephens claimed the assist, playing a superb 40 yard diagonal pass to Knockaert out on the right. The pass was good, but what came next was even better as Knockaert brought it down first time, cut inside and then bent an exquisite 25 yarder into the very top corner of Guaita’s goal.
It was perfect, it was brilliant and it sent the away end crazy. A goal worthy of winning any game, let alone a derby – and made particularly enjoyable by the fact that Knockaert was lucky to be on the pitch at all, his shocking challenge on Milivojevic inside of 28 seconds could have easily resulted in a red card.
Luckily for the Albion and Knockaert, he instead claimed the record for the fastest booking in a Premier League game in over a decade.
“Ole, ole ole ole, six points, six points” rang out from the travelling support after the final whistle as we were held in Selhurst for 45 minutes afterwards by the Met’s finest.
But not even being stuck in an area that makes Damascus look like the greatest city in the world could dampen Brighton fans’ spirits. Which was just as well, seeing as we wouldn’t win another game all season.
That FA Cup Quarter Final with Millwall followed on what was an extremely strange afternoon at the Den. It almost gets forgotten amongst all the euphoria of last minute goals, penalty shoot out wins and trips to Wembley that for 89 minutes in South Bermondsey, Brighton were absolutely woeful.
This was a full strength Albion side playing against a club battling relegation out of the division below. True, the Den is an intimidating place and it was at its very loudest, but even so the amount of money and talent in that starting line up should have been enough to see off the Lions without the use of spot kicks.
That the game even went that far was thanks to one of the most horrific goalkeeping mistakes you’ll ever see. Millwall were 2-1 ahead entering the 96th minute and their fans were singing “Manchester City, we’re coming for you” whilst preparing to invade the pitch when the Albion got a free kick way out on the right.
Solly March stepped up and it looked like he’d hugely over hit the final chance of the game until Millwall number one David Martin caught the ball and then threw it into his own goal. March’s free kick wasn’t even on target until Martin did that.
It was an extraordinary error and from that point on, there was only going to be one winner. Murray smacked his penalty against the bar but the Albion’s four other takers were spot on which, combined with an excellent Maty Ryan save, was enough to book a semi final spot against Pep Guardiola’s galacticos at Wembley. Manchester City, we’re coming for you, indeed.
That date with the Citizens, special commemorative shirts and paying £15 to gain access to a bar at Wembley which is normally free seemed to be the only things anybody could talk about in the aftermath of the Millwall game.
Which was dangerous, as Brighton were still very much in a relegation battle. As were next opponents Southampton, which made this ‘South Coast Derby’ a six pointer.
Somebody probably should have told the players that. Only two Albion players came out of the clash with Ralph Hasenhüttl’s men with any sort of credit and it says much that they were Bernardo and Martin Montoya, the two full backs.
Bernardo in particular shone for dealing with the threat posed by Nathan Redmond, who was by far and away the best player on the pitch.
It was Redmond who set up the only goal of the game, gleefully accepting a terribly sloppy pass from Yves Bissouma to start a devastating counter attack which Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg finished off neatly.
Bissouma wasn’t the only one who was awful in possession. Dale Stephens found a red shirt more often than blue and white, Alireza Jahanbakhsh decided that getting a ball under control wasn’t for him and so tried to flick everything, March was Southampton’s best player when he came on and Knockaert spent most of the game as an isolated figure strutting around with his chest poking out like a pigeon.
The Southampton defeat rounded off a weird March. While six points and a place in an FA Cup Semi Final looks like a good month on the face of it, in reality it just papered over the cracks.
We’d scraped home against Huddersfield who ended up being relegated with six weeks of the season still to play and beat Palace in a derby game when form and league table goes out the window.
As for the FA Cup, well the only reason we weren’t eliminated by a side in the bottom four of the Championship was thanks to one of the most catastrophic mistakes you’ll ever see from a professional goalkeeper in the very last minute. With a mammoth seven games to come in April, Hughton needed to find improved performances and fast.
March 2019 record: P4 W2 D1 L1 F5 A4
Results: 1-0 v Huddersfield H, 2-1 v Palace A, 2-2 v Millwall A, 0-1 v Southampton H
League position at the end of the month: 15th
WeAreBrighton.com Player of the Month: Anthony Knockaert
