Match Review: Birmingham City 1-1 Brighton

When you are a £15m international midfielder who has been hailed as having the potential to be the next Paul Pogba, a comparison to Richard Carpenter probably doesn’t mean much.

Carpenter spent the majority of his 16 year professional career playing in the bottom two divisions of English football. He also lived in a caravan.

Yves Bissouma is Brighton and Hove Albion’s second most expensive ever signing. At just 21 years of age, he’s already scored the winner in an African Cup of Nations semi final and played in the final.

Yet the comparisons between the two are valid after Bissouma’s performance in the Albion’s penultimate pre-season friendly against Birmingham City.

Carpenter was one of the cleanest strikers of a ball Brighton have ever had in their history. Whether it was shooting from distance or smashing a free kick so hard it nearly broke the net, his thunderbastard shots were as much a staple of the Albion’s rise through the divisions in the early 00’s as Bobby Zamora’s goals, Michel Kuipers’ saves or Danny Cullip’s “LET’S ‘AVE A WINNER”.

At St Andrew’s, Bissouma conjured up a free kick every bit as good as anything Carpenter ever managed to rescue a 1-1 draw for the Albion. Heading into stoppage time, it looked as though a full-strength Brighton side were about to lose 1-0 to a team that survived relegation into League One by the skin of their teeth last season.

Bissouma earned the set piece opportunity himself when he was bought down on the edge of the area in the final seconds. The Mali international dusted himself down, produced a shuffling run up and then rifled the ball over the wall and into the top corner, past Birmingham’s young goalkeeper Connal Trueman .

The quality of Bissouma’s strike shouldn’t have come as a surprise. When we spoke to LOSC Fans Club to get the Lille view on Bissouma, the one thing they were keen to highlight was how powerful his shot was. His YouTube highlight reel tells a similar story. And here we were, just 20 minutes after his introduction in place of Pascal Gross witnessing it for ourselves.

Which was just as well, as there were precious few other positives to take. Maty Ryan looked in good form in his first public appearance since returning from the World Cup and without him, Birmingham would’ve been out of sight and Bissouma’s goal nothing but a consolation.

In the first half, Ryan made a brilliant fingertip stop from Jacques Maghoma and he denied Lukas Jutkiewicz in the second. Ryan could do little about the goal, a 30-yard half volley from Maikel Kieftenbeld that left the Albion goalkeeper clutching at thin air.

Birmingham could’ve been further ahead before the hour mark, which was when the Albion finally managed their first meaningful effort. Jota fired wastefully over Ryan’s crossbar, Jacques Maghoma saw an effort deflected inches wide and Che Adams shot from a Viv Solomon-Otabor knock down flashed past the post.

Antony Knockaert became the first Brighton player to test Trueman when his shot was parried behind in the 57th minute. That at least seemed to encourage the Albion to try and be something of an attacking threat with Dunk aiming a free header straight at Trueman in their best chance before Bissouma’s later leveller.

The result means that the Albion have only won one of their five pre-season friendlies to date and haven’t beaten any side above League Two level. Time to panic? While it is true that the “it’s all about match fitness” excuse loses it’s validity the closer you get to the season and the fact our full strength side from last year couldn’t beat a side that nearly fell out of the Championship, it’s not really the time to go full Corporal Jones.

Two seasons ago, we lost friendlies to Luton Town and Stevenage on the same day. We ended up winning promotion nine months later. And neither of those games threw up an heir to Richard Carpenter. Perspective.