Brighton & Hove Albion 2020-21 Season Review: September
The 2020-21 season kicked off in September 2020 with Brighton & Hove Albion fans quietly confident about what the year ahead had in store following an encouraging end to the previous campaign.
When that little thing called Covid-19 had brought football to a three month halt back in March 2020, the Seagulls were in big relegation trouble.
Graham Potter had overseen a run of only two Premier League wins from 18 matches, the exact same form that had cost his predecessor Chris Hughton his job. Brighton could not buy a win for love nor money and nobody could see where the next three points was coming from.
Potter though put lockdown to good use. He went away, analysed what was going wrong and the Albion came back for the final nine matches of 2019-20 season playing a slightly different style of football. They were less possession obsessed and more concerned about what they did with the ball.
Rather than having 60 percent of possession in matches that were either drawn or lost, Brighton had less of the ball but began picking up points.
That resulted in three wins and three draws from those last nine fixtures, leaving the Albion a long way clear of the relegation zone in the end and with their highest Premier League points tally to boot.
Potter appeared to have found a successful formula. The shrewd addition of a couple of experienced internationals for an outlay of only £900,000 – Adam Lallana from Liverpool and Joel Veltman from Ajax – coupled with this new brand of Potterball fuelled optimism that 2020-21 could see the Albion push on into the reaches of upper midtable. Equalling or bettering the club’s highest ever finish of 13th did not seem out of the question.
Albert Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. Having seen what Brighton were capable of when they did not dominate possession, Potter still decided to revert back to having as much of the ball as possible for the 2020-21 season – although it was later in the campaign than September when it became evident what a mistake this was.
Big spending Chelsea provided the first opposition of the season. Frank Lampard had forked out the best part of £200 million on attacking reinforcements over the course of the summer and yet for all Roman’s Russian roubles, it took a Brighton error, a worldie and a deflection for the Blues to secure victory at the Amex.
The error came from Steve Alzate, whose blind pass on the edge of his own box with 23 minutes played gifted possession to Jorginho. One quick pass later and Chelsea had a penalty, expertly tucked past Maty Ryan by the same player who had gleefully accepted the ball from Alzate.
Lallana’s Brighton career did not get off to the best of starts when he limped off after only 43 minutes. Leandro Trossard dropped into the number 10 role once Lallana had headed for the treatment room and it was the Belgian international who had returned from his summer holidays looking suspiciously like a vampire who got the Brighton goal early in the second half, beating Kepa Arrizabalaga from 20 yards.
Unfortunately, the Albion’s joy was short-lived as within 100 seconds, Chelsea scored the goal of the game. The worldie came from Reece James, showing why Tariq Lamptey had to leave Stamford Bridge in search of first team football by netting a stunner which rifled into the top corner from 25 yards.
Ah yes, Lamptey. We had seen in those nine post-lockdown matches at the end of 2019-20 what a talent Brighton had managed to pick up for only £5 million from Stamford Bridge.
He was the second-best player on the pitch against his former club after James, giving Marcos Alonso his most uncomfortable evening since that night Alonso drove his car into a wall.
In one brilliant Lamptey moment, he was part of a first half move which presented Neal Maupay with a free header from no more than two yards out.
It was a glorious opportunity which Maupay only succeeded in shouldering harmlessly out for a goal kick. Lewis Dunk put a near-identical effort off target in the second half.
Chances like those going begging were already making a mockery of Potter’s claims that Brighton did not need a new striker for 2020-21. And those misses proved costly when the visitors made it Brighton 1-3 Chelsea via the deflection, Kurt Zouma sending a low shot towards goal which Ryan had covered until Adam Webster did a little bit of river dance to send it into the opposite corner.
It was that man Lamptey who took all the headlines in the Albion’s second Premier League outing of September when a first win of the 2020-21 campaign was delivered thanks to the stunning scoreline of Newcastle 0-3 Brighton.
Lamptey was only on the pitch for 58 minutes before Potter had to withdraw him at St James’ Park. The Toon Army had long since realised the only way they could stop the teenager was by trying to kick him to pieces and so the Albion boss hauled Lamptey for his own protection.
The game was already over by that point, thanks to Lamptey giving one of the best individual performances seen from an Albion player, on a par with when Vicente would rock up and single handedly destroy the hopes and dreams of 11 opposition players.
Within three minutes, Lamptey had gone charging into the Newcastle box where Allan Saint-Maximin tripped him to concede a penalty. Maupay stepped up and smashed the kick down the middle to make it 1-0.
Lamptey was involved again when the Albion added a second three minutes later, slipping Trossard away down the right. Trossard’s low cross was flicked home by Maupay, who with two goals to his name had already notched a quarter of his entire 2019-20 total from just 95 minutes of football in 2020-21. Maybe Potter was right and Brighton didn’t need that silver bullet striker?
Jonjo Shelvey and Jamal Lewis both entered the book for crude challenges on Lamptey after that. It was the ultimate complement to Lamptey that players of their ilk were resorting to kicking lumps out of him.
Nothing summed up Lamptey’s first half better than when he was making a brilliant challenge on £20 million man Callum Wilson to prevent the new Newcastle forward getting a shot on goal, followed by Lamptey popping up at the other end end to draw a great save from the legs of Karl Darlow.
The post put in a strong claim to be Newcastle United’s man-of-the-match following Lamptey’s substitution when it denied Aaron Connolly and Trossard before Brighton made it 3-0 six minutes before the end.
Connolly was the scorer and it was a stunning team goal which swept from back to front. Maupay played a crucial role, running at the home defence before feeding Connolly on the left who bent an effort past Darlow. The perfect goal to round off what might have been the perfect afternoon.
That it wasn’t quite perfect was because Brighton ended the game with 10 men, Yves Bissouma picking up a strange red card for kicking Lewis in the face.
The Albion’s final Premier League fixture of September was the most extraordinary Brighton match of 2020-21. It finished Brighton 2-3 Manchester United at the Amex but that goal-filled score line only tells of half the drama.
In fact, it wasn’t a game of football – it was a daylight robbery. The robbery took place over a time frame of 100 minutes, despite the fact that a game of football is only meant to last for 90 plus stoppage time, which on this occasion was signalled as being five minutes.
94 minutes and 23 seconds of football had elapsed when Solly March scored for Brighton to make it 2-2. This was the least that Brighton deserved as, despite their starting line up having cost a fraction of the Manchester United XI, they were superior to their visitors in every department.
There should have been 37 seconds left to play after March levelled the tie, but referee Chris Kavanagh was either a cheat or did not know how to tell the time and so the action continued for another two minutes.
With 97 now played, Mr Kavanagh eventually blew the final whistle. The laws of the game state that once this action has happened, the score at that time is final. Hence why it is called the final whistle. The official cannot go back and resume play.
And yet that is exactly what Mr Kavanagh did. He blew the final whistle with the score at Brighton 2-2 Manchester United, before deciding that he wanted to award a penalty to Manchester United for a handball by Maupay.
Not only was this illegal, but the Manchester United corner from which Maupay handled should have been a goal kick to Brighton. United had very clearly ran the ball out of play before winning the corner.
Brighton were conned twice in a matter of minutes by Mr Kavanagh and the video assistant Simon Hooper, who magically noticed Mr Maupay’s handball whilst watching back on television but completely ignored the fact that the replay also highlighted it should have been a Brighton goal kick in the first place.
Bruno Fernandes converted the penalty, by which point 100 minutes had passed. Mr Kavanagh then instantly blew his final whistle for the second time. One might have called it the final final whistle.
Prior to all that drama right at the death, Brighton had contrived to hit the woodwork five times. This set a new Premier League record for number of times the post and bar have been hit by one club in a single game and fed in a total of 18 shots on goal. An extraordinary total against the side who would end the season as Premier League runners up.
Trossard was responsible for rattling the frame of the goal on three occasions, Webster once and March once. There was earlier VAR drama too, Mr Kavanagh having awarded Brighton a penalty for a foul on Connolly only for Mr Hooper to overrule the decision from Stockley Park.
March and Lamptey were outstanding once again in the wing back roles, Lamptey earning another penalty which Maupay converted via a cheeky Panenka to give Brighton the lead with the first goal of the game.
Just like against Chelsea however, an Albion strike was swiftly followed by one for the opposition. Terrible marking from a Nemanja Matic free kick allowed Harry Maguire to head the ball across goal where the unfortunate Dunk turned it past Ryan.
There was nothing fortunate about United’s second. Marcus Rashford took time out from shaming the government into performing a u-turn on their plans to stop giving free school meals to children living in poverty, leading Ben White on a merry dance by twisting and turning his way to goal before scoring via a deflection off Dunk.
Those three Premier League games in September were supplemented by three outings in the Camila Cabello Cup, a competition Brighton actually took semi-seriously in 2020-21.
Potter gave his fringe players run outs as part of three strong sides compared to the previous season when he had named a team of children to take on eventual finalists Aston Villa in a 3-1 third round defeat at the Amex.
A South Coast ‘Derby’ with Portsmouth was easily navigated in round two, Brighton winning 4-0 through goals from Alexis Mac Allister, Alireza Jahanbakhsh, Bernardo and Viktor Gyokeres.
Dale Stephens made his final appearance in an Albion shirt against Pompey, the end of an era as the midfielder departed for Burnley after over 200 appearances for the Seagulls.
A little bit of history was made in the third round when Brighton won away at Preston North End for the first ever time. Jahanbakhsh and Mac Allister making the most of their opportunities by scoring again to set up a fourth round tie with Manchester United of all people.
The Red Devils came to the Amex just four days after they had committed their daylight robbery in the Premier League. Compared to the drama and controversy of that 3-2 game, this ended up being a placid affair in which United’s second string proved too good for Brighton’s, leaving Sussex with a 3-0 win and a place in the quarter finals.
There were no prizes for guessing the identity of the WAB Brighton September Player of the Month, Lamptey a landslide winner of the first award of the 2020-21 season.
Whilst three points seemed like a disappointing return from three fine Premier League performances in September, the way Brighton had torn Newcastle United apart and gone toe-to-toe with Chelsea and Manchester United added even more fuel to the optimism fire for what 2020-21 might hold.
Little did we know that a difficult autumn would give way to a challenging winter with only one more league victory to come over the next three months…
September 2020 record: P6 W3 D0 L3 F12 A9
Results: 1-3 v Chelsea (H), 4-0 v Portsmouth (H), 3-0 v Newcastle (A), 2-0 v Preston (A), 2-3 v Manchester United (H), 0-3 v Manchester United (H)
League position at the end of the month: 11th
WeAreBrighton.com Player of the Month: Tariq Lamptey
