Brighton & Hove Albion 2022-23 Season Review: November
Dumping the World Cup into the middle of the 2022-23 season and forcing a winter break on the Premier League through November and December did not sit well with a lot of people, but for Brighton it proved a blessing in disguise.
Six weeks without any competitive action gave Roberto De Zerbi a mini pre-season of sorts to verse and train his players in the ways of DeZerbiBall.
Would Brighton have finished in sixth spot come the end of the 2022-23 campaign without that gap through November and December?
It cannot be a coincidence that results and performances stepped up another level in the second half of the season, with the Albion looking more comfortable drawing the press and playing their way out of trouble.
That is not to say they were poor before the World Cup or that results were bad, of course. Brighton won two of their three November matches, building on the 4-1 win over Chelsea which had rounded off October and given De Zerbi his first win as Albion boss at the sixth attempt.
A week after their humiliation of Glow Up Graham Potter and co at the Amex, the Seagulls headed to Wolves. As impressive as that hammering of Chelsea had been, the naysayers could point to the motivation of revenge on Potter for walking out and the febrile atmosphere that day as driving Brighton on.
Could they repeat such a result and showing away at Molineux, where they would presumably not be quite so fired up? That was the test.
It was a test they made a decent start in passing. Adam Lallana was one of the players who most thrived under De Zerbi before injury brought his campaign to an early end in January.
He opened the scoring at Molineux with seven minutes on the clock via his first goal since March 2021. Kaoru Mitoma teased a run at a couple of Wolves defenders, only to hit a succulent pass with the outside of his right boot into Leandro Trossard positioned inside the Wolves box.
Trossard produced a one-touch layoff to Lallana and he took an early shot through a crowd of players to put the Albion 1-0 ahead.
Wolves equalising five minutes later came somewhat out of the blue. Goncalo Guedes got away down the left, made it into the Brighton penalty area and fired past Robert Sanchez.
The Old Gold had only scored three times at Molineux all season prior to that. In Typical Brighton style, the Albion allowed them to go from three goals in 640 minutes to scoring twice in 33 minutes.
Daniel Podence delivered a cross which brushed against the outstretched arm of Lewis Dunk. The Brighton captain’s intervention had no impact on play as the delivery still reached Joao Moutinho, whose subsequent shot was headed away by Pervis Estupinan.
VAR though took a look. The fact it needed six minutes and referee Graham Scott going to the screen summed up the farce and when Mr Scott eventually pointed to the spot, Ruben Neves did the rest.
The final 12 minutes of the first half proved still enough time to fit in plenty more drama. Brighton levelled when Lallana foxtrotted his way around a couple of Wolves defenders and hung up a cross to the back post where Mitoma arrived to head home his first Premier League goal.
Mitoma then had Wolves reduced to 10 men seconds before the interval. Dunk picked out his run with a 70 yard ball down the pitch and when Nelson Semedo grabbed Mitoma around the waist as he bore down on goal, Mr Scott had little choice but to send the home full back off.
Brighton now had 45 minutes to try and find a winner against 10 men. They eventually found it with seven minutes remaining, Pascal Gross rounding off a beautiful team move worked through Solly March, Billy Gilmour, Moises Caicedo, Mitoma and Undav before Der Kaiser applied the finish.
Next came a Carabao Cup third round tie away at Premier League leaders Arsenal. Whereas Potter often treated the competition with disdain, De Zerbi’s desire to win every match and fight for trophies was in evidence as he named a strong side for the trip to the Emirates.
Over 7,000 Brighton fans made the journey on a pleasant November evening and they were treated to a magnificent 3-1 victory and one of the best away days of the 2022-23 season.
It was the first time since 1994 the Albion had tasted a League Cup victory in open play against opponents higher than themselves in the footballing pyramid.
Rumoured Brighton target Eddie Nketiah put Arsenal ahead with 20 minutes played via a high-class effort bent into the top corner beyond Jason Steele.
The Albion’s response to going behind was impressive and they soon levelled. March played in Danny Welbeck but the pass looked like it should have been easier than opening a tin of baked beans for Arsenal third choice goalkeeper Karl Hein to gather.
Unfortunately for Hein, he ended up with tomato sauce all over his face as an unfortunate slip when he attempted to come and collect enabled Welbeck to get to the ball first.
That allowed Welbeck to go around Hein, who brought Dat Guy down in the box. Welbeck channelled his inner Kerry Mayonaise away at Millwall in the 2006-07 Paint Pot by converting a mustard penalty past Hein to level the game.
Mitoma was introduced as one of a series of substitutions pre-planned by De Zerbi at half time. He needed only 13 minutes to make an impact, curling home after a good run and pass from Jeremy Sarmiento to give Brighton the lead.
12 minutes later and victory was wrapped up by Tariq Lamptey. Playing as a left back for the first time in his career, Lamptey went speeding clear to produce a clinical finish.
Gabriel Jesus, Granit Xhaka and Oleksandr Zinchenko all came on as Mikel Arteta sought to avoid elimination but none of the Arsenal big guns could make a difference.
Brighton fans left the Emirates dreaming of Wembley and when the fourth round draw paired the Albion with League One strugglers Charlton Athletic, those hopes intensified. Lol.
De Zerbi provided one of the best quotes ever from a Brighton manager in the aftermath of victory at Arsenal and what it meant to him and his players.
“There is a picture when Mitoma scored the second goal,” the Albion head coach started. “The image I have in my head is of one woman in her 60s, 65 maybe? And the most beautiful part is the enjoyment – for the players, for the fans, and for me.”
Unfortunately, De Zerbi and Brighton were unable to make any more woman in their 60s (65 maybe?) happy in the final game of November, as Aston Villa continued their recovery from a difficult start to 2022-23 by winning 2-1 at the Amex.
This should perhaps not have been a surprise. The Albion had not beaten Villa at home in a league game since 1980, when Maggie Thatcher was in her first term as Prime Minister and a pint cost 47p.
It proved to be a tale of two penalties; one awarded and one not. A totally unnecessary sliding tackle from Dunk on John McGinn gave Danny Ings the opportunity to pull Villa level, cancelling out Alexis Mac Allister’s opener scored after just 49 seconds. The fastest goal the Seagulls have managed in the Premier League.
Ings grabbed what proved to be the winner early in the second half. Mac Allister lost the ball to Douglas Luiz, who played in the striker who loves to score against Brighton.
Dunk went sliding in again, Ings stuck the ball between the legs of Levi Covill and Sanchez was wrongfooted with the shot trickling in at the near post.
The Albion should have had a penalty when March nicked the ball off Lucas Digne. The Villa defender responded by booting March’s ankle as hard as possible to send the Albion winger crashing to the ground.
It looked a stonewall penalty in real time, let alone with the benefit of a slow motion replay. Remarkably, VAR ruled that Digne had done nothing wrong.
In a 2022-23 season in which Brighton were subjected to some ridiculous officiating via Stockley Park, the non-penalty award against Villa in November was up their with the worst.
De Zerbi picked up a booking as his mind gradually unravelled at the standard of refereeing before a frustrated Albion walked off defeated.
They would have to wait until Boxing Day to play a Premier League fixture again. That did at least guarantee the Seagulls would sit seventh in the table on Christmas Day; a remarkable achievement given all the upheaval caused by Potter and his fellow band of snakes slithering off to Stamford Bridge with the campaign only five games later.
Little did we know it was going to get even better once the World Cup was out of the way.
November 2022 record: P3 W2 D0 L1 F7 A5
Results: 3-2 v Wolves (A), 3-1 v Arsenal (A), 1-2 v Aston Villa (H)
League position at the end of the month: 7th
WeAreBrighton.com Player of the Month: Kaoru Mitoma
