Brighton & Hove Albion 2022-23 Season Review: February
16 goals in five matches through January was, frankly, ridiculous form. Brighton were never likely to be anywhere near as free scoring in February and whilst only three goals were plundered, it was still a month in which the Albion strengthened their challenge in both the Premier League and FA Cup as the 2022-23 season hurtled closer to its conclusion.
Plucky Little Bournemouth provided the opposition for the opening game of the month and as seasoned Seagulls observers will always tell you, Brighton historically have a hard time popping the Cherries.
It therefore felt pretty significant when Roberto De Zerbi delivered a 1-0 victory over opponents who had very much been a bogey side to the Albion for the best part of 30 years. From the bizarre to the downright unacceptable, it always tended to happen against Bournemouth.
Mike Dean getting Yves Bissouma and Lewis Dunk confused and issuing a second yellow card to the Brighton captain in 2018.
That 5-0 hammering at the Amex in 2019. Dale Stephens at right back and Solly March and Leandro Trossard crossing balls into the box for Aaron Connolly and Neal Maupay whilst Glenn Murray sat on the bench at the Vitality Stadium in 2020.
All those nightmares came flooding back ahead of Gary O’Neil bringing his strugglers to the Amex. And for 87 minutes, it looked like the Albion were going to experience another of those frustrating afternoons against Bournemouth.
The highlight in that time had been the North Stand singing the Moises Caicedo song at Odel Offiah as he warmed up in response to De Zerbi’s plea for fans to support the Ecuador international on his return to the matchday squad having tried to force through a January move to Arsenal.
It was only when Offiah (did you know he is the son of rugby legend Martin?) did not acknowledge the crowd hailing Caicedo as a future Ballon d’or winner that everyone realised it was a case of mistaken identity.
Confusing Offiah and Caicedo looked was set to provide the afternoon’s major talking point until Kaoru Mitoma belatedly arrived to the party. Not once in the first 85 minutes did the Mitoma dribble the ball past an opponent.
He failed to have a single shot on target in the time. But with the game heading towards a 0-0 draw, Mitoma finally tested Cherries goalkeeper Neto with a effort saved at the expense of a corner.
Said corner went awry but Brighton retained possession. Pascal Gross worked the ball to Jeremy Sarmiento on the left, who checked inside and delivered a curling cross straight onto the head of Mitoma.
The Japanese Bullet Train leapt like the proverbial salmon to produce a powerful header which Neto got a hand to but could not keep out.
A rare victory over Bournemouth was in the bag, providing the perfect preparation for the trip to Crystal Palace and De Zerbi’s first time at the helm of a Eagles versus Seagulls clash.
Whereas Graham Potter refused to ever buy into the significance of the rivalry (and never won a game as Albion manager against Palace in six attempts), De Zerbi seemed to understand it straight away.
“I live for this game. It’s an honour to play this game,” De Zerbi said in his press conference 24 hours before kick off at Selhurst Park. “We must play a bold game, aggressive game, but I don’t want to lose our quality, our style of play.”
“The first part of the season has been fantastic in terms of results, in terms of quality of play, and we have to continue in this way. But this is a different game.”
“The emotions are the most important part of football and we have to feel the emotion in the football. But we have to be clear to the other things, to be focused on the game, on our quality, on our style of play, but we have to feel it’s a different game.”
“We want to beat them for sure. We want to make our fans happy. I love this kind of game. We are ready to play.”
Brighton were ready to play and were it not for a horrific intervention by VAR and an even worse mistake by Robert Sanchez, the Albion would have left Croydon with all three points and a first win over Palace in four years.
Pervis Estupinan would end up voted WAB Brighton Player of the Month for February, somewhat scandalously the only award he won in the 2022-23 season.
Estupinan had the ball in the back of the net at Selhurst with 31 minutes played via a perfectly legitimate goal, latching onto a Gross pass and beating Vicente Guaita.
But in an astounding error, the Sherlock Holmes drawing the offside lines at Stockey Park used the incorrect Palace defender to deem Estupinan in an illegal position, working from the second-last red and blue shirt rather than the last man.
It was an error so blatant and terrible that PGMOL chief Howard Webb had to offer a public apology to De Zerbi. Mr Webb then drove to the American Express Elite Football Performance Centre to hold a meeting with the Brighton head coach and explain just how his officials had make such a spectacular cock up.
Thankfully, there was nothing VAR could do to find a reason for chalking off the 63rd minute Solly March goal which gave Brighton the lead they deserved after dominating the previous hour.
Estupinan came on another charge forward, whipping in a dangerous cross which bounced in front of Tyrick Mitchell. March was left to volley home at the back post.
A glut of other chances were missed by Brighton, mostly from Alexis Mac Allister. It was peak Albion for the first World Cup winner in the club’s history to have one of his worst games in a Seagulls shirt in the match which matters more than most against the old enemy.
Palace duly took advantage of those squandered Albion opportunities and the helping hand from VAR by equalising with their only shot on target all afternoon.
Michael Olise delivered a free kick which appeared to be harmlessly sailing into the arms of Sanchez under zero pressure.
Sanchez though took his eye off the ball and let a routine catch slip out of his grasp straight to James Tomkins, who put the ball into the empty net.
One of the most jaw-dropping errors ever seen from a Brighton goalkeeper – up there with Wayne Henderson at Bournemouth (yes, Bournemouth again) on New Year’s Day 2007 – had arrived in the worst possible fixture. It finished Palace 1-1 Brighton.
The Cherries were not the only bogey side Brighton faced in February; never in the Premier League had the Albion won a game against Fulham, the opponents who inflicted upon the Seagulls the first defeat of the 2022-23 season back in August.
And when the Cottagers visited the Amex, it felt like Brighton fans had been transported from February of the 2022-23 campaign back to the xG nightmare of 2020-21.
The Albion missed a succession of opportunities on a frustrating afternoon where Fulham began time wasting from almost the first minute. Marco Silva’s game plan was clearly to avoid defeat by running down the clock.
Fulham went beyond claiming just a single point, however, with two minutes of normal time remaining. Joel Veltman failed to win a tackle on halfway, enabling Carlos Vinicius to turn and release Manor Solomon into acres of space down the Brighton right.
Solomon was too quick for Lewis Dunk to get across and cover, charging into the box and beating the otherwise totally unemployed Sanchez with a low effort drilled across the Albion goalkeeper and into the bottom corner.
A miserable afternoon was completed when De Zerbi was shown a red card by referee Darren England following the final whistle during a confrontation in the tunnel.
The final game of February gave Brighton the chance to prove that they could do it on a cold, Tuesday night in Stoke with a place in the quarter finals of the 2022-23 FA Cup awaiting the winners.
With the Carabao Cup exit at Charlton Athletic still very much weighing on the mind of De Zerbi, he again opted to name a strong XI for the visit to the Potteries.
That resulted in a first Brighton win away in Stoke since September 1961, when Ian McNeill scored the only goal in a 1-0 success at the old Victoria Ground. The Albion had never previously tasted victory at the Bet365 Stadium.
The scoreline on this occasion was the same as that McNeill-inspired win nearly 62 years earlier. Evan Ferguson got the goal on the half hour mark, converting a tap in into an empty net from Mitoma selflessly squaring.
Mitoma had been released down the left in the build up by a brilliant defence splitting pass from Dunk, who became just the 10th man to make 400 appearances for Brighton.
Other than that moment of quality, the rest of the game was pretty dull. Not that anybody minded. It was often the case that the best teams in Europe used to struggle when visiting Stoke. Brighton certainly would have done if De Zerbi had not treated the competition seriously.
But we were fast learning that De Zerbi is a man who wants to win everything. For fans who dream of trophies and making history, his approach was a breath of fresh air.
“I understand they want to win a trophy and competition,” De Zerbi said post-Stoke. “To win, we need to work and improve. For the moment we have the possibility to arrive in Europe.”
“I can’t promise anything but I can promise we will work hard every day to make the fans happy and proud.” Spoiler alert, but De Zerbi and his Brighton players certainly did that over the three months of the 2022-23 season which were to come following February.
February 2023 record: P4 W2 D1 L1 F16 A5
Results: 1-0 v Bournemouth (H), 1-1 v Crystal Palace (A), 0-1 v Fulham (H), 1-0 v Stoke (A)
League position at the end of the month: 7th
WeAreBrighton.com Player of the Month: Pervis Estupinan
