Brighton 0-0 Burnley: Same old story at the Amex for goal shy Seagulls

We are going to start our Brighton 0-0 Burnley match review with what happened 67.6 miles down the road at St Mary’s, where Southampton beat Newcastle United 2-0 to move to the top of the Premier League table.

Cast your mind back to autumn 2019. Ralph Hasenhüttl had been Southampton manager for a little over a year and was trying to instigate a change in style and culture which did not appear to be going too well.

After 13 games, the Saints were 19th with only Norwich City below them. They had also been hammered 9-0 by Leicester City, the heaviest home defeat the Premier League had seen since Sky Sports invented football in 1992.

Southampton looked doomed and there were numerous calls for Hasenhüttl to be sacked. The Saints board kept the faith, it clicked, Danny Ings suddenly started scoring most of the chances that came his way and now they find themselves leading the way in one of the most open starts to a season there has been for some time.

The parallels with what is going on at Brighton are there for all to see. Graham Potter is a year into the job and undertaking a similar overhaul of playing style. Just as with Southampton, performances have been decent but results nowhere near good enough.

There is no reason why it will not suddenly click for Potter and Brighton in the same way it did for Hasenhüttl and Southampton. One convincing win and Neal Maupay or Danny Welbeck to suddenly start scoring as Ings has and the Albion could start flying up the league. The football played has certainly been good enough so far in 2020-21.

Potter’s trouble is that he is starting to run of time, among supporters at least. The aftermath of Brighton 0-0 Burnley was the first occasion in which we genuinely sensed that even some of the more sensible Albion fans out there were beginning to ask questions of the manager.

Which is hardly a surprise. We had just failed to beat the team rock bottom of the Premier League at home. Brighton have now won just twice at the Amex in 370 days.

In 2020, there have been double the number of people murdered in EastEnders (Leo and Chantelle) as there have been Albion home wins (Arsenal) and as many people have won the jackpot on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (one).

When you compare Potter’s record of four wins from his last 26, then he is historically in sacking territory. Of his predecessors in the dugout, Chris Hughton was fired for five wins in 26; Sami Hyypia four wins in 22; Gus Poyet He Who Must Not Be Named 11 wins in 26; Russell Slade eight wins in 26; Dean Wilkins 12 wins in 26; Mark McGhee five wins in 26; and Micky Adams four wins in 26.

Potter is obviously doing a different job to those guys in terms of dramatically altering the way the Albion play. The top flight of English football in 2020 is also a world away from League One in 2009, where Adams lost his job as the last man to have such a comparable poor record to Potter’s.

But even so, most managers would be under a little pressure for overseeing such a disappointing run of results. Is Potter? Probably not. Despite the doubts beginning to creep into a lot of supporters’ minds about his suitability for the job, Tony Bloom values long term stability.

He is loathe to fire any manager as it is an admission of a mistake – he rejected Hyppia’s resignation when the whole world could see the Finn was out of his depth – let alone sack a boss he gave a new six-year contract to less than a year ago.

Having thought long and hard about Potter’s future and recent form over a delightful dinner of chicken nuggets with feta cheese last night, the WAB opinion is that we would not sack Potter yet either, citing Southampton as the reason.

The late September start means that the Premier League season is only eight games old; the Saints were still struggling 13 games into 2019-20 before things suddenly started going right for Hasenhüttl.

There is enough time for Potter to turn results around with matches against Aston Villa, Southampton, Fulham and Sheffield United all to come before Christmas.

If the Albion do not have results in the board and are marooned in the bottom three by the time Santa is readying his sleigh, then it might be the time to consider making a change. The next six matches between now and Boxing Day are make or break for Potter.

In amongst the doom and gloom surrounding the final score of Brighton 0-0 Burnley, there was plenty to like about the Albion’s performance. The Seagulls had 19 shots and were it not for two excellent Nick Pope saves from Welbeck, then things might have turned out very differently.

One of those stops was so good that it left Welbeck looking on with shock and awe on his face, as if he had told his missus he was just popping out for a quick pint only for his mate to return from the bar with a round of Jägerbombs.

At the heart of all Brighton’s incisive football was Adam Lallana, completing back-to-back 90 minutes for the first time in an Albion shirt. There are shades to Vicente about Lallana in the way that he is very clearly a class above anything else Brighton have in their squad – and he seems to be getting better and better as each passing week puts more minutes in the tank.

The Albion will be hoping that the same is true of Welbeck. He looked a lively presence in his first start for Brighton, offering something different to Potter’s existing pool of strikers in the 0-0 draw with Burnley. Get him fit and the link up between Lallana and Welbeck could be what turns results around.

Those who can see past their anti-Pascal Gross would have appreciated an excellent performance from the German playmaker. Deploying him and Lallana in tandem gave Burnley a lot of problems; no mean feat given that the Clarets possess one of the best defences in the league.

Tariq Lamptey was his normal positive self out on the right, the only thing letting him down being when he put an easy chance off target within 30 seconds of kick off. Lamptey seemed to be caught by surprise to have such a clear sight of goal so soon. Where’s Maheta Molango when you need him?

Aside from those Pope saves and that Lamptey miss, there were squandered chances from Gross, Maupay, Lamptey again, Dan Burn and Adam Webster over the course of the 90.

Lallana and Alrieza Jahanabakhsh both had penalty appeals turned down which you suspect would have been given if Brighton were a big six club.

Maty Ryan did not have much to do on his return to the side, save for nearly getting caught out when Matt Lowton’s cross rattled the bar in the first half.

The goalkeeper situation had been one of the main talking points beforehand when the teams were announced. Robert Sanchez had not put a foot wrong in the previous week’s 2-1 to defeat to Spurs and many expected him to keep his place – especially as his height would have been useful to counteract Burnley’s threat from set pieces and crosses.

Instead, Potter jettisoned him completely from the matchday squad. Sanchez had gone from third choice last Friday to first choice on Sunday to third choice again this week.

It made absolutely no sense to name Steele on the bench ahead of Sanchez after such a promising debut. As Warren Aspinall said on BBC Radio Sussex, there is little point trying to understand why Potter does what he does as quite often there appears to be little obvious logic behind it.

We might not be able to understand Potter, but he surely understands that he needs results to come soon. There are only so many weeks where you can come away from a game saying: “Performance-wise, I’m really happy. We’re always looking to improve. It’s disappointing to only get one point.”

If the Premier League gave bonus points for possession and pleasing performances, Brighton would be near the top of the table. Unfortunately for Potter, they do not. Which is why he needs results.

Brighton 0-0 Burnley is not good enough for a club who want to survive in the Premier League, let alone push for the top 10 as Bloom has stated is his ambition. Brighton need to find a way to become Southampton under Hasenhüttl.