Brighton & Hove Albion 2022-23 Season Review: October
Brave attacking football with plenty of risks is what Robert De Zerbi promised when he rocked up at the Amex. But no Brighton fan seriously thought they would witness it straight off the bat when one of the toughest assignments of the 2022-23 season – a trip to Liverpool – kicked off October.
De Zerbi though was true to his word and then some. This was the Albion playing with a new mentality which, as Guy Mowbray so wonderfully put it during commentary from Anfield, was “Potter football with five added espresso shots.”
Whilst the mentality changed, De Zerbi shrewdly stuck with the same formation and almost the same personnel who had hammered Leicester City 5-2 in the final game of the Graham Potter Era the previous month.
De Zerbi’s trusted 4-2-3-1 could wait to be introduced; why switch from the back three which had Brighton sitting fourth in the 2022-23 Premier League table at the beginning of October?
The one change the Albion did make saw Enock Mwepu miss out with what was described at the time as an illness picked up on international duty.
Little did we know that two October weeks later, The Computer’s immediate retirement at the age of 24 with a hereditary heart condition would be announced out of the blue, representing easily the lowest point of the 2022-23 season for Brighton.
Pervis Estupinan came in for Mwepu at Liverpool, an early indication of De Zerbi’s commitment to attack. And if this new approach caught Albion fans by surprise, it was nothing compared to the shock Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp suffered when they fell behind after only four minutes.
Alexis Mac Allister and Danny Welbeck linked up with some intricate football on the edge of the Reds box. A deft backheel from Welbeck was perfectly placed into the path of Leandro Trossard to drill a left footed effort across Alisson Becker which gave Brighton the lead.
1-0 should have become 2-0, 3-0 and perhaps even 4-0 very quickly after that. Welbeck put a header straight at Alisson from a lovely Solly March cross, followed by the Liverpool goalkeeper making good saves from Dat Guy and Trossard.
This was fast turning into the most impressive performance from an Alisson since Alison Hammond danced the American Smooth with Alijaz on Strictly back in 2014.
There was nothing the Liverpool goalkeeper could do when Trossard did double the Albion’s lead on 13 minutes.
March laid a perfectly weighted through ball from a Welbeck pass into the path of Trossard, who drilled again into the right-hand corner of Anfield Road End he was becoming very fond of.
At one point, De Zerbi could be seen waving his arms and gesticulating to Lewis Dunk, Adam Webster and Joel Veltman to get higher up the pitch. A not unusual request until you consider all three were already positioned 15 yards inside the Liverpool half.
Such commitment to attack comes with risk, of course. In their quest to build upon the 2-0 lead taken inside of 18 minutes, Brighton left themselves vulnerable on the counter.
It was from a breakaway that Liverpool pulled one back. Salah cleverly hooked a ball over the top of the Albion backline away from Robert Sanchez and into the path of Roberto Firmino, who fired into the back of the net.
A second half counter attack then made it 2-2. Moises Caicedo lost possession when attempting a sideways pass when he should have shot himself.
Liverpool broke, Luis Diaz and Firmino were able to get around Joel Veltman and Dunk and that left Firmino to beat Sanchez to level the scores.
Sanchez was at fault when Liverpool took the lead for the first time, punching a corner he could have caught into the back of Webster.
The ball cannoned off the helpless defender and into the back of the net for a third Brighton own goal of 2022-23 by October 1st. Impressive going.
Kaoru Mitoma entered proceedings on the 65 minute mark and he would go onto play a major part in the Albion equaliser with seven minutes remaining.
The Japanese Bullet Train left Trent Alexander-Arnold on the floor and crossed to the back post where Trossard was waiting to complete his hat-trick.
In doing so, the Vampire of Genk became only the third Brighton player to score a top flight hat-trick after Michael Robinson and Peter Ward. Not bad company to be in.
Sales of beta blockers shot up in the Sussex area in the immediate aftermath of Liverpool 3-3 Brighton as Albion fans tried to find ways to cope with the breathless, dramatic and enthralling entertainment provided by DeZerbiBall.
The good news for all our nervous systems is that the next four matches were much calmer. The Albion played relatively well in all of them, but the persistent problem of not being clinical enough which hung over Potter’s Brighton reared its ugly head again.
De Zerbi’s first home game in charge saw Spurs leave the Amex with a 1-0 victory thanks to England captain Harry Kane notching his normal goal past the Albion.
Brentford away brought a 2-0 defeat to two Ivan Toney goals. It says much about that evening at the GTech Stadium that the highlight was a video of Dick Knight shouting: “I’m the president of this ****ing football club” when his ticket would not work at the turnstile.
That whole incident took an even weirder turn when Knight released a public statement saying he was imposing a 10 game ban on himself.
At least that gave the ****ing president of the football club an excuse to miss the 0-0 draw with rock bottom Nottingham Forest, making it no win in four for De Zerbi and no goals in three for Brighton.
Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium was never likely to be where De Zerbi broke his duck. The Albion were already up against it, facing the likes of Erling Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne.
Their task was made that much harder when Craig Pawson decided he was going to slip on a sky blue shirt and do everything he could to help the Citizens to victory.
Mr Pawson had three big decisions to make in the first half and got every one wrong. Haaland should have had a penalty when Sanchez brought him down in the area but the referee waved played on.
When City opened the scoring, it was in controversial circumstances. Haaland rounded Sanchez but it looked like Webster was going to beat the Norwegian forward to the ball and clear.
Haaland though barged Webster out of the way and rolled into an empty net. Incredibly, Mr Pawson did not deem this a foul and neither did VAR.
Even more incredibly, Mr Pawson was then conned by Bernardo Silva going down in the area as if he had been shot after initiating contact with Dunk. Haaland duly put away the resulting penalty and City led 2-0 going into half time.
De Zerbi refused to be drawn on the performance of Mr Pawson afterwards, instead wanting to focus on how good Brighton had played in the second half.
The Brighton head coach deserved the credit for that with a half time tactical adjustment which not only set the tone for the final game of October, but the rest of the 2022-23 campaign.
De Zerbi replaced Adam Lallana with Tariq Lamptey and moved Trossard more central behind Welbeck. It was the first time the Albion had lined up in De Zerbi’s 4-2-3-1 and the impact was instant.
The Albion started knocking the ball around City in one-touch triangles, creating that rarest of sights – a Pep Guardiola side chasing shadows in an attempt to regain possession.
It took just eight minutes of the second half for Brighton to pull one back. Trossard finished off a counter attack launched from a Sanchez save with an early shot which caught Ederson by surprise.
City were rattled and the Etihad quietened as nerves descended, fearing a Brighton comeback. Trossard almost made it so, surging forward on a 40 yard run to within 10 yards of the home goal where Ederson had to stay big and make a crucial save.
The importance of that stop was made clear within 120 seconds. Silva passed to De Bruyne 30 yards out, from where the City captain bent an effortless shot into the top left hand corner of the Albion goal.
Defeat meant De Zerbi had officially made the worst start in the dugout of any manager in Brighton history. That only told half the story, however.
Performances remained good and you sensed that it was not far from clicking. And when it did, the Albion were going to give somebody a pasting.
With delicious irony, that somebody turned out to be Chelsea. Potter, Billy Reid, Bjorn Hamberg, Kyle Macaulay, Bruno, and Ben Roberts made their return to Brighton in the final game of October, yet to taste defeat as the Blues’ coaching staff since slithering off to Stamford Bridge five games into the 2022-23 season.
The reception awaiting them at the Amex was unlike any atmosphere experienced in the 11 years the stadium has been open.
Chelsea visibly wilted and Potter discovered first-hand what Brighton fans booing him really sounded like after that hullabaloo he made over Boogate a year earlier when 50 people voiced displeasure at three months without a win.
Not just booing. 30,000 Albion supporters taunting Potter with “You’re getting sacked in the morning” and “Potter, Potter, what’s the score?”
The score, gloriously, was Brighton 4-1 Chelsea by full time. Potter loved having a history lesson whilst Albion boss, so he no doubt would have been pleased to be the first ever Chelsea manager to oversee a league defeat to Brighton.
De Zerbi went with 4-2-3-1 from the start and crucially, gave Mitoma his full Premier League debut. Roared on by a raucous crowd, Brighton subsequently ran riot.
Thago Silva gave the ball away to Mitoma, who happily ran at the Chelsea defence. An intelligent square pass found Trossard, he dribbled around Kepa Arrizabalaga and fired into the back of the net. Brighton led and delirium broke out around the Amex.
One soon became two. Solly March whipped a vicious corner in with pace which Ruben Loftus-Cheek used his knee to divert it into his own net.
The third goal was made by Estupinan, whose vibrant display was in stark contrast to the ordeal his predecessor as Albion left back Marc Cucurella was going through.
Estupinan galloped forward to collect a pass from Caciedo before crossing low and hard into the box. Trevoh Chalobah stuck the ball past Kepa, making it Brighton 3-0 Chelsea.
Kai Havertz powered home a header from a Gallagher cross to cut the Albion’s lead to two within three minutes of the restart but that provided nothing more than false hope.
Brighton rounded off an incredible, incredible afternoon with their fourth in stoppage time. Edouard Mendy had replaced Kepa in the Chelsea goal at half time and when he parried a Julio Enciso effort, Gross was on hand to sweep home before celebrating in front of the North Stand.
It was a result which sent shockwaves through the Premier League. Potter never recovered and after winning six and drawing three of his first nine games in charge, he delivered just four victories from 16 subsequent Premier League fixtures before being sacked.
The Albion in contrast went the other way. From the moment they beat Chelsea 4-1, Brighton were fully immersed in DeZerbiBall; that run of five October games without a win banished to memory as the Seagulls embarked on the transformation which would take them into Europe at the end of the 2022-23 season.
October 2022 record: P6 W1 D2 L3 F7 A10
Results: 3-3 v Liverpool (A), 0-1 v Spurs (H), 0-2 v Brentford (A), 0-0 v Forest (H), 1-3 v Man City (A), 4-1 v Chelsea (H)
League position at the end of the month: 8th
WeAreBrighton.com Player of the Month: Leandro Trossard
