Brighton & Hove Albion 2022-23 Season Review: December
After the winter break for the World Cup in Qatar, Brighton returned to action in December having had six weeks to be versed in the ways of Roberto De Zerbi before the resumption of the 2022-23 season.
Not that there was much indication of the scintillating football and incredible results which would fill the next six months in their first game back.
But before we talk about that, to the Lusail Stadium. Sunday 18th December 2022 is a day that will go down in Albion history as Alexis Mac Allister became the first ever Brighton player to win the World Cup.
And when we say win, we literally mean win. Without Mac Allister, Argentina lost their opening game of the tournament to the might of Saudi Arabia.
With Mac Allister, they were undefeated in their next seven matches culminating in a penalty shootout win over France and Lionel Messi holding the famous gold trophy aloft.
The World Cup final attracted a global television audience of 1.5 billion people. That means that, thanks to Mac Allister, 1.5 billion people around the world heard the name “Brighton & Hove Albion”.
How do you follow up your introduction to a worldwide population through a player participating in the best World Cup final of all time?
What do you give those Googling who the hell the Albion are in response to Mac Allister helping Messi win the one medal missing from the glittering collection of the greatest of all time?
Brighton being Brighton, the answer is elimination from the Carabao Cup at the hands of Charlton Athletic. Three days after Mac Allister became a world champion, his Albion teammates were losing on penalties to a side for points off the relegation zone in League One.
Things did not get off to the best of starts when more than 900 Brighton fans had to queue for two hours around the streets of south London to collect their match tickets from a hut at the Valley.
The Queue was caused by a combination of poor planning from the Albion and Royal Mail strikes. And in a metaphor for the football which was to come, it was something of shambles.
Some supporters got to the turnstiles, only to find their duplicates did not work. Inside the Jimmy Seed Stand and seats had two owners with rows oversubscribed.
There were fans who realised the carnage it was going to be and simply stayed at home. Others got to the Valley, saw The Queue and sacked it off.
Some missed the whole of the first half (which could be argued was no bad thing). Others spent longer in The Queue than the game actually lasted.
Those who did make it in for the entirety of the tie saw Brighton miss countless opportunities, as if fans have been transported from December of the 2022-23 season back to the xG nightmare Graham Potter inflicted on the Albion in 2020-21.
With the scores locked at 0-0 after 90 minutes, spot kicks were needed to decide who advanced to the quarter finals. Lewis Dunk won the toss and so the shootout took place in front of the Albion supporters behind the goal.
Not that this made a blind bit of difference. Pascal Gross missed the first Brighton penalty, hitting the post after taking a stuttering runup like a granny on ice.
Leandro Trossard followed suit by hitting the bar. Young Evan Ferguson showed his more senior teammates how it was done by converting. Lewis Dunk did likewise.
Jason Steele then denied George Dobson and Jes-Rak Sakyi with two saves low down to his right, giving Brighton a chance to win it from what had seemed a hopeless position after squandering those first two penalties.
Solly March stepped up and produced a kick which would have been deemed perfect had it taken place the other side of London at Twickenham.
Unfortunately, this was a Football League Cup tie and not a Rugby Union Cup tie and so the ball clearing the bar and ending up amongst the travelling Albion fans was not much use.
Charlton converted their next two penalties. Tariq Lamptey scored but Addicks goalkeeper Ashley Maynard-Brewer kept out Moises Caicedo’s effort for a third missed Albion penalty of the night.
When Sam Lavelle converted, Charlton were through and Brighton out. Defeated by a side whose previous two home matches saw them lose to Bristol Rovers and Cheltenham Town.
Whereas most managers would brush off such an embarrassment by saying the Carabao Cup did not matter, Roberto De Zerbi took a different approach. He was livid and not afraid to show it – including by apologising to the travelling support.
Whereas the Albion could not bring themselves to say sorry for the fiasco of The Queue, De Zerbi said afterwards: “I’m sorry for the result and sorry for our fans. We wanted to win the game and play in the quarter finals.”
This anger at squandering a genuine opportunity to challenge for a trophy lit a fire under De Zerbi and that rubbed off suitably on his players.
De Zerbi brought up that night at the Valley on several occasions throughout the remainder of the 2022-23 season after December, normally when Brighton overcame banana skin ties against lower division opponents on their FA Cup run.
Five days after Charlton and the Albion returned to Premier League action in style with a 3-1 win at Southampton, described by De Zerbi as the first time he felt Brighton had played to his true style.
Adam Lallana opened the scoring with a quarter of an hour on the clock, playing a one-two with March and meeting the return pass with a header which he refused to celebrate against his old club.
The Albion doubled their lead 10 minutes before half time. Pervis Estupinan went on a charge forward from left back of the sort which marked him out as one of the most exciting players in the group stage of the World Cup.
Gavin Bazunu should have gathered Estupinan’s low cross but he made a right Horlicks out of it. Saints defender Romain Perraud was under pressure from March and he turned the ball into his own net from a yard.
March himself added the third with his first Premier League goal for more than two years. You had to go from December of the 2022-23 season all the way back to November of the 2020-21 campaign to find the last time he had struck for Brighton in a 2-1 win at Aston Villa.
For it to come just five days after that penalty miss against Charlton made it particularly timely. Cutting inside from the right flank, March hit an unstoppable drive from 25 yards into the top corner of Bazunu’s goal.
Not even three keepers would have kept it out. You could see from the joy on the terraces and on the pitch just how much it meant to Albion players and fans for March to break his duck and in such style.
It was game over at that point, although Robert Sanchez did his bit to make the final 20 minutes more tense than necessary. Southampton won a penalty which Sanchez received a booking for when delaying its taking.
To the surprise of everyone, the Albion goalkeeper kept the spot kick out; the first ever penalty save of his Brighton career. Unfortunately, it did not matter as James Ward-Prowse converted the rebound for the Saints’ consolation.
New Year’s Eve brought Premier League leaders Arsenal to the Amex and although the Gunners opened up a seven point gap at the top thanks to a 4-2 win, it was a night when we saw the bright future in store for the Albion.
Brighton ended the game with three players aged under 21 in their front four. 18-year-old Evan Ferguson became the Seagulls’ youngest ever top flight scorer and 20-year-old Jeremy Sarmiento and 19-year-old Julio Enciso were lively presences behind.
Kaoru Mitoma found himself as the elder statesman at the ripe old age of 25, continuing the red hot form which saw him voted as WAB Brighton Player of the Month for December by scoring his third of 2022-23 and first at the Amex.
Both Brighton goals came after Arsenal had sauntered into a 3-0 lead within an hour. With Mac Allister not yet back from celebrating his crowning as a world champion and Caicedo suspended, the Albion looked lightweight in midfield and found themselves overrun.
Bukayo Saka made it 1-0 inside of 72 seconds, meaning any supporters who deliberately turned up late to miss the pre-game light show also ran the risk of missing the opening goal.
The Gunners added their second seven minutes before the break. Billy Gilmour could not get enough purchase on his clearing header from an Arsenal corner, the ball fell to Martin Odegaard and he lashed home via a deflection off Lallana.
Two minutes into the second half and Arsenal had their third. Sanchez fumbled a Martinelli shot and Eddie Nkeitah slid in the loose ball.
De Zerbi’s introduction of his three young pretenders came next, changing the complexion of the game and finally making Brighton a willing participant for the final third.
Mitoma struck when Gilmour and Gross combined to play him in, leaving the Gunners looking more than a little worried. The next goal would be crucial and unfortunately for Brighton, it was Arsenal who scored it.
Gabriel Martinelli outpaced Lamptey to find himself one-on-one with Sanchez, poking the ball through the wide open legs of the Brighton goalkeeper. Arsenal had their three goal lead restored against the run of play.
Ferguson’s goal was a good one as he showed remarkable strength for an 18-year-old, shrugging off the attentions of William Saliba before beating Aaron Ramsdale.
Mitoma thought he had reduced the deficit to one when he put a Gross pass beyond Ramsdale. VAR took a look, however, and found Mitoma to have put a toenail offside in the build up, ruling the goal out.
After December, the Japanese Bullet Train would go onto become increasingly influential over the rest of the 2022-23 season for Brighton. So too Enciso and Ferguson, and March whose goal and assist numbers were about to go through the roof.
The future looked bright, even after defeat to Arsenal. January would go onto show us just how bright.
December 2022 record: P3 W1 D1 L1 F5 A5
Results: 0-0 v Charlton (A), 3-1 v Southampton (A), 2-4 v Arsenal (H)
League position at the end of the month: 8th
WeAreBrighton.com Player of the Month: Kaoru Mitoma
