Brighton 1-3 Chelsea: An error, a worldie and a deflection in a familiar story

New season, same Albion. That was the overwhelming feeling at the end of the opening game of Brighton & Hove Albion’s 2020-21 campaign as they went down 1-3 against big spending Chelsea at the Amex.

Frank Lampard has been a busy boy this summer. He has forked out over £200,000,000 improving his squad and yet for all of Roman Abramovich’s questionably obtained roubles, it took an awful error and a lucky deflection for Chelsea to see off the Albion.

Brighton will play worse than this in their remaining 37 Premier League games of the 2020-21 season and win. If we could cut out goal-gifting mistakes every week and find a striker who can score a free header from five yards out, then whisper it quietly but we might even have the makings of a very good team.

Until that happens though, you sense that the Albion will always take us on this familiar journey, especially against the bigger clubs in the division.

The hope and joy that comes with dominating against a team as good as Chelsea followed by the despair of being masters of our own downfall with a little bit of bad luck thrown in. The final score of Brighton 1-3 Chelsea did not reflect the game at all – how many times did we say that last season?

Brighton had Chelsea worried for the opening 23 minutes, right up until Steve Alzate tried a blind pass on the edge of his own area to gift possession to Jorginho.

Jorginho quickly fed a ball through and seconds later, Chelsea’s £45 million man Timo Werner was being brought down in the box by Maty Ryan.

For one nerve wracking moment, it looked like Ryan might see red, which would have meant Jason Steele entering proceedings. One can only imagine what was going through Steele’s mind at that point; a man who has spent the past year playing golf and drinking in Hove being thrown on with over an hour still to play against Chelsea.

Thankfully, the double jeopardy rule meant that Ryan was not even shown a yellow. He couldn’t get near to Jorginho’s spot kick as Chelsea scored their first, completely against the run of play.

The goal was very clearly Alzate’s fault but in a sign of the popularity of the young Columbian – and perhaps the weird agenda that has built up against Ryan over the past year – some Albion fans decided it was the Aussie goalkeeper who was to blame for a central midfielder playing a blind sideways pass 20 yards from his own goal.

Imagine for a second if Dale Stephens had given away possession in the same position with the same consequences. There would have been demands for him to be publicly hung next to the Clock Tower before 9pm. With Alzate, it is a shrug of the shoulders and a desperate attempt to place responsibility on someone else.

Alzate should at least learn from the error. He is clearly an intelligent footballer and intelligent footballers do not make the same mistake a second time around.

That Alzate started in central midfield was one of the more interesting aspects of Graham Potter’s team selection. A partnership between Alzate and Yves Bissouma offered plenty of youthful dynamism with Adam Lallana sat just in front in what was a 3-4-1-2 formation.

Congratulations to whoever had the 43rd minute in the Lallana injury sweepstake, by the way. The free transfer from Liverpool had displayed some very nice touches before succumbing to some sort of muscle injury which saw him replaced by Aaron Connolly, now repping a hair and beard combination that makes him look like a lorry driver on Ice Road Truckers.

There was enough in Lallana’s brief time on the pitch in the Albion’s 1-3 defeat to Chelsea to suggest that if Brighton can get him fit, then Potter has a real asset on his hands.

One through ball in particular was the sort of pass that very few players in the Premier League could play. Unfortunately, Neal Maupay got it stuck under his feet and the chance went.

Lallana being fit is a very big if though. Players coming back from spells of over a year on the sideline are always susceptible to strains and niggles as their bodies have to get used to the rigours of professional top flight football again. Hopefully, that is all Lallana’s problem was – a slight strain that is days out rather than weeks.

Leandro Trossard dropped into the number 10 role once Lallana had headed for the treatment room and it was the little Belgian who got the Brighton goal early in the second half when beating Kepa Arrizabalaga from 20 yards.

Much of the talk about that strike was Arrizabalaga’s questionable goalkeeping. Trossard though deserves a lot of praise for a finish that zipped into the bottom corner and for actually taking on the shot.

Too many times in 2019-20 we saw Brighton trying to score a perfect, Barcelona-esque goal when it was just crying out for someone to pull the trigger.

With the way that Trossard played post-lockdown, you get this feeling that he could make a real impression on the Premier League this season. He finished 2019-20 as second top scorer and he looks like the type of player who is a second season improver. Watch this space.

Unfortunately, the Albion’s joy was short-lived as within 100 seconds, Chelsea scored the goal of the game. Reece James showed why Tariq Lamptey had to leave Stamford Bridge in search of first team football by netting a stunner which rifled into the top corner from 25 yards.

It was a sucker punch to Brighton but the Albion kept plugging away. Lewis Dunk missed a glorious chance to equalise when he put a free header wide from six yards out after a brilliant Trossard cross.

We love a good conspiracy theory so how about this for one – Dunk deliberately missed because he is a massive Chelsea fan. It’s rubbish of course, but what was not in doubt is that if the Albion had a centre forward who could head a ball getting on the end of that sort of delivery then Brighton 1-3 Chelsea would have been a very different game.

Dunk was not the only player guilty of missing a free header – and at least he managed to head his opportunity. In the first half, Lamptey had put in a perfect delivery right onto the bonce of Maupay who could only succeed in shouldering it harmlessly out for a goal kick.

Potter may keep telling us he is relaxed about Brighton’s current striker situation and that there is not a magical forward who will come in and score 25 goals.

He can surely see though that a half-decent target man buries both those opportunities. If only we had a player on our books like that who Potter could have called upon. A penny for the thoughts of Glenn Murray, sat tweeting his support whilst watching at home.

Chances like those two are going to keep coming thanks to the quality of delivery that Lamptey, Trossard and Solly March provide in wide areas. It seems mad not to try and take advantage of it by signing a six foot plus striker to get on the end of them.

Speaking of March, he was excellent against Chelsea. Left wing back seems to be a role that suits him down to the ground, as does playing in front of an empty stadium as opposed to one where 50 percent of the crowd are screaming “FOR F**K SAKE MARCH” every 10 minutes.

With Lamptey giving Marcos Alonso his most uncomfortable evening since that night he drove his car into a wall and Ben White looking solid on his Premier League debut, three at the back should be Potter’s preferred formation going forward.

Chelsea wrapped up the win with their third goal of the evening with 25 minutes left to play. They say that luck evens itself out over the course of a season, which should mean we get a ridiculously fortunate deflected goal to secure victory in a game we do not deserve to win at some point over the coming eight months.

Kurt Zouma sent a low shot towards goal which Ryan had covered until Adam Webster did a little bit of river dance to deflect it into the opposite corner. Those with a Webster agenda might have tried to blame the defender, but in reality that was pure and simple bad luck.

Brighton tried to keep going although it was very much game over at that point. Chelsea might have even added a fourth were it not for a superb block from White to deny Werner. In making that block, White ended up injuring himself.

Having played every single minute of The Leeds United’s 2019-20 promotion winning season, White was now limping off after 79 minutes of his Brighton Premier League debut. Another one for the list of misfortune.

White’s place was taken by Alireza Jahanbakhsh. The Iranian winger scored THAT overhead kick when Brighton and Chelsea drew 1-1 at the Amex back on New Year’s Day but there was to be no repeat of any such heroics from Prince Ali or his teammates.

The Albion playing well but losing to individual mistakes and misfortune is nothing new. There will be opponents who Chelsea rip apart this season thanks to their astonishing array of attacking talents and yet here, Lampard knew his £200,000,000 squad had been lucky to escape with a 1-3 win from Brighton.

Newcastle United away on Sunday will give us a better indication of where Brighton are against a side who look to have pulled off some very shrewd transfer business in terms of the attacking players they have brought in.

It is the exact sort of business that the Albion clearly need as based on what we saw against Chelsea, we are one striker who can head a ball away from being a very good team. Over to you, recruitment team.