Match Review – Huddersfield Town 2-0 Brighton
Any opposition managers out there looking to work out the best way to set up to face Brighton and Hove Albion will have learnt plenty from the last two weeks.
We couldn’t live with Liverpool’s pressing game as they sauntered to a 5-1 win at the Amex and now Huddersfield have also knocked off the Albion with a 2-0 victory at the John Smiths Stadium. Add that to last seasons 3-1 defeat up there and it becomes pretty clear that whenever an opponent presses us, we are in trouble.
If a side don’t have the fitness levels to harry and chase like Liverpool and Huddersfield, then you’ve now got corners as well to add to the list. Huddersfield took the lead through Steve Mounie who was unmarked at the far post from a corner. Liverpool went ahead last week from a corner, Manchester United’s winner at Old Trafford came from a corner, Stoke City scored their second from a corner. See the theme?
When you are a team like Brighton who aren’t going to score many goals with a manager like Chris Hughton who prioritises defence over attack, you can’t afford to gift teams a goal from set pieces as we’ve done in recent weeks. With Gareth Southgate in attendance, it was pretty poor timing for Lewis Dunk to have his worst game of the season.
The second was another poor goal to give away, this time on the part of Maty Ryan. Another corner came in, Ryan slapped the ball away to his fellow convict Aaron Mooy who put in a ball that was eventually headed in by Mounie. Ryan really should have done better with both the punch and the final effort which looked like it should’ve been a routine save.
And that was that. We created only two shots on goal all afternoon and David Wagner, twat though he may be, was spot on when he said that in the second half one team was far more likely to score than the other, and it certainly wasn’t us.
Something looks seriously amiss at the minute, the spirit that saw us through last year and fostered that overused #Together seems to be missing. That won’t have been helped by the rumours pregame that Solly March, José Izquierdo and Anthony Knockaert were all going to be dropped due to a disciplinary issue.
March and Izquierdo missing out would hardly have been a surprise given that they’ve been in and out of the team all season. But that rumour gained some crediblity when Knockaert didn’t even make the bench. Hughton suggested afterwards this was because he wanted to rest them, but if that was the case and the decision pre planned, why not have Jamie Murphy and Jiri Skalak available rather than playing for the under 23s? Neither Ezequiel Schelotto or Izzy Brown are what you would call traditional wingers and looked very much like square pegs in round holes – Brown couldn’t cross a ball of his life depended on it and Schelotto was in Alastair John out of his depth territory.
Knockaert not even being on the bench coupled with two players who aren’t wingers on the wing smacked of a late decision. Why wouldn’t you want your most creative player on the bench just in case you need him to come on and unlock a defence? It only adds fuel to the fire to those rumours that all is not well somewhere in the camp.
Whatever the problem is, it needs fixing and soon. December always looked like a bloody difficult month and that’s the way it’s panning out. January and the opportunity to bring in reinforcements can’t come soon enough. Top of that list has to be a striker seeing as we have no goals in open play now for four games. Back up is required in central midfielder as Dale Stephens and Davy Propper have started every match and it Hughton truly thinks that Schelotto and Brown are back up wingers, we could remarkably need to sign a wide player as well despite having 73 of them already at the club.
Its damage limitation between now and the transfer window; try and pick up some points in the next five games before it opens and make sure we aren’t in the relegation zone by the time that new faces have arrived. This season was always going to be tough, but January now looks vital to our hopes of staying up. You’ve got to get this one right, Albion.
