Brighton & Hove Albion 2021-22 Season Review: March
There was precious little to cheer for Brighton fans in March as the Seagulls’ 2021-22 season appeared to be meandering towards a disappointing conclusion.
Three games. Three defeats. Only one goal scored. By the end of March, there were genuine concerns amongst Brighton fans that the Albion would not win another game in 2021-22. The football had been that bad.
Nothing summed it up better than Kaoru Mitoma being voted as WAB Player of the Month despite the fact he could not even work legally in the United Kingdom.
Mitoma’s two goals from the bench to qualify Japan for the 2022 World Cup via a 2-0 victory over Maty Ryan’s Australia proved enough to earn him 27.84 percent of the vote.
Mike Dean was just behind on 25.94 percent. Once public enemy number one in Brighton, Mr Dean claimed second place for deeming that Robert Sanchez nearly decapitating Liverpool forward Luis Diaz was not a sending off offence when the Reds visited the Amex.
The only good moment of March vaguely involving the Albion took place at Cheltenham, as in the racecourse rather than Whaddon Road. Tony Bloom saw his horse Energumene win the Queen Mother Champion Chase to be crowned the best two mile chaser in Britain and Ireland.
Bloom had been due to travel via helicopter straight from Cheltenham to watch Brighton v Spurs later that evening. The horrific weather over the Cottswolds however put paid to that, a stroke of luck for Bloom perhaps as the Albion were well beaten by Harry Kane and co.
March had begun with Brighton making the trip to Newcastle United, now the richest club in the world following their takeover by Saudi Arabia a couple of months into the 2021-22 season.
The Toon’s new owners wasted no time in spending their blood money, paying more in transfer fees than any other club during the January window.
That transformed Newcastle into one of the form teams in the second half of the campaign. When Brighton arrived at St James’ Park, the Saudi Sportwashers had won four and drawn two of their previous six matches. The Albion in contrast had lost three in a row.
Graham Potter made some bold selection decisions in an attempt to shake his side out of their slump. Yves Bissouma and Neal Maupay were both jettisoned in favour of Steve Alzate and Danny Welbeck.
Alzate would be one of the few bright spots, giving his best display of the campaign alongside Pascal Gross in midfield.
Gross had sat on the bench for the previous two matches when Brighton mustered just two shots on target in 180 minutes at home against Burnley and Aston Villa.
Needless to say, with Gross back in the side the Albion were a lot less impotent at Newcastle. Kaiser Pascal weighed in with an assist for the Brighton goal, sending a pinpoint delivery onto the head of Lewis Dunk to power home.
That came 10 minutes into a much improved second half showing from the Seagulls. The first half had seen Brighton go 2-0 down before the 15 minute mark as some horrific defending helped Newcastle to score twice in the space of 120 seconds.
The opener came from a rare mistake from Marc Cucurella. The wild-haired Spaniard had gone charging forward from left back, only to give the ball away on the edge of the Toon box.
Newcastle were able to break at pace, exploiting the space now left by Cucurella who was desperately trying to get back. He could not get near Jacob Murphy, whose subsequent shot past Robert Sanchez hit the post with Ryan Fraser following up to score.
Fraser turned provider next, swinging over a corner which Fabian Schar headed towards goal having been left totally unmarked by the Albion.
Sanchez was far from convincing in getting a hand to the ball but failing to keep it out, leading to calls from some Seagulls supporters for Jason Steele to take over in goal for the rest of the month. Things were bad, but they weren’t that bad…
Dunk’s goal gave Brighton a much needed boost and by the end, Newcastle were hanging on. Dunk, Leandro Trossard and Maupay once introduced from the bench were all guilty of squandering good chances as Martin Dubravka earned his keep to ensure it finished Newcastle 2-1 Brighton.
The Albion had worn their yellow and blue third choice kit at Newcastle to show support for Ukraine following Russia’s invasion.
With said yellow kit considered unlucky as Brighton had failed to win a match whilst donning it across the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons, the decision to again sport it at home to Liverpool in the second game of March made a likely defeat against the Redmen certain.
Brighton actually made a decent start against Jurgen Klopp’s title chasers. The recalled Maupay was inches away with a low drive that had Alisson Becker worried and Alexis Mac Allister earned applause from all corners of the Amex with an utterly outrageous Maradona turn which took two Liverpool players out of the game.
All that counted for nothing however when Liverpool took the lead on 19 minutes in the incident which saw Diaz almost beheaded and Mr Dean secure his runners up spot in WAB Player of the Month.
The Albion defence was caught flat footed to a Joel Matip ball over the top and Diaz raced through to head past the advancing Sanchez, who decided to jump 20 feet into the air and smash the goal scorer in the face with his knee.
It was reckless, dangerous and as a clear a red card as you are likely to see. Miraculously, Dean and VAR concluded that Sanchez deciding to go full Shawn Michaels was not even worthy of a booking.
Liverpool taking the lead resulted in a change in momentum as the Reds pinned Brighton into their own half for the 26 remaining minutes before the break.
Potter sought to gain control of midfield for the second half by introducing Adam Lallana from the bench against his former club.
Anyone who took a little too long to drink their half time pint or Amex Stadium wine would have missed Lallana’s contribution entirely as within seven minutes of coming on, he was walking off injured.
It was a case of deja vu for Lallana, whose contribution last time Liverpool came to town was to wander onto the pitch and promptly wander off again.
On that occasion, Lallana lasted no more than two minutes so we were at least seeing some progress with seven on the clock this time around. And he got a tap on the back from Klopp which he seemed to enjoy.
The Reds got their second on the hour mark, killing the game off. Bissouma made a good save with his arm from a Naby Keita shot but seeing as he was not the goalkeeper, Mr Dean had little choice but to point to the spot. Salah duly converted the penalty to make it Brighton 0-2 Liverpool.
It was exactly the same result four days later when Spurs came to the Amex. Cristian Romero put the visitors in front when deflecting a Dejan Kulusevski shot into the opposite corner of the goal from where it had been heading, leaving Sanchez with no chance.
Kane had one of those nights where he is unplayable. The England captain secured the three points when racing past a static Brighton defence and onto Rodrigo Bentancur’s pass to drive a low effort past Sanchez.
Brighton failed to register a single shot on target all evening, meaning they had now not scored at the Amex since the 1-1 draw with Chelsea on January 18th.
A sixth consecutive defeat meanwhile was worst run any Albion team had embarked on in 16 years, when Mark McGhee oversaw relegation from the Championship in the 2005-06 season.
Elimination from the FA Cup the previous month combined with the March international break did at least give Brighton two-and-a-half weeks between the Spurs defeat and hosting rock-bottom Norwich to regroup.
Having slumped to 13th in the Premier League table during March, Brighton were in danger of turning a potentially record-breaking 2021-22 season into a campaign where they once again finished in the bottom six.
The Albion had to improve in April. And they certainly did that…
March 2022 record: P3 W0 D0 L3 F1 A6
Results: 1-2 v Newcastle (A), 0-2 v Liverpool (H), 0-2 v Spurs (H)
League position at the end of the month: 13th
WeAreBrighton.com Player of the Month: Kaoru Mitoma
