5 things we learned from Brighton 0-1 Brentford
Hands up, who was looking forward to spending a Tuesday afternoon watching Brighton 0-1 Brentford on a live stream? It certainly would have filed the void before that evening’s episode of Neighbours as we hurtle towards the emotional end of life on Ramsay Street.
Unfortunately though and with no notice, the Albion were unable to provide coverage of their clash with the Bees. Instead, we had to settle for tweets from those watching, match reports and delayed highlights.
Despite the problems, we still managed to lean five things from Brighton 0-1 Brentford. And here they are…
Brighton need to improve their communication with fans
The Albion had said that this game would be streamed live. It was only when the match kicked off and somebody asked the club on Twitter where the stream was that they revealed it would be highlights only afterwards.
Apparently, the reason for this was because of a late change of venue from the American Express Elite Football Performance Centre to the Amex.
A lot of Brighton fans questioned how a 30,000 seater state-of-the-art Premier League stadium did not have the facilities to live stream a game, even at such short notice.
The rumour mill believed it to do with the branding from the Women’s European Championship still being up and some sort of licencing issue with UEFA.
Which is fair enough. But how about this for a radical idea? Tell fans it will not be streamed as soon as you know, rather than only when asked once the game has kicked off.
It does not take 30 seconds to send out a Tweet saying that unfortunately, the game would not be available to watch live.
That way, everyone who was planning to watch can get back to filling in Excel spreadsheets, cold-calling people about insurance, watching reruns of 2010 EastEnders whilst eating cold baked beans straight from the can, or whatever else they were meant to be doing with their afternoon.
Manchester City fans are thick
The disappointment of not being able to watch a live stream of the Albion’s stiffs take on Brentford on a Tuesday afternoon at 3pm was made up for slightly by the entertaining ramblings of Manchester City fans.
Our not-so-wise glory hunting friends were falling over each other with glee that Marc Cucurella was not playing for Brighton.
This apparently was a sign he had gone on strike in an attempt to force through a move to the Etihad Stadium, confirming transfer oracle Fabrizio Romano’s insistence that Cucurella was very upset at not being allowed to talk to City.
If their theory were correct, then the Albion are in big trouble. Lewis Dunk, Adam Webster, Tariq Lamptey, Joel Veltman, Solly March, Moises Caicedo, Pascal Gross, Alexis Mac Allister, Leandro Trossard and Danny Welbeck were all absent too.
12 first team regulars all refusing the play in Brighton 0-1 Brentford? Put your mortgage on Brighton to be relegated this season.
Alternatively, Cucurella’s absence could be explained by the fact this was an Albion reserve XI. Of those who started, only Adam Lallana and Neal Maupay played frequently last season. And both of those players look to be further down the pecking order in 2022-23.
Keep clutching at those straws about Cucurella’s unhappiness, City fans.
Brighton cannot sell Robert Sanchez
There remains the distinct possibility that City might yet meet Tony Bloom’s valuation of Cucurella, in which case he will be off.
One player Brighton cannot afford to sell this summer no matter what anyone offers is Robert Sanchez. The bad news is that an offer might be forthcoming from the King Power Stadium.
Leicester City have had a long-standing interest in the Spanish goalkeeper. The Foxes may act upon it sooner than expected with Kasper Schmeichel set to complete a surprise move to Nice.
Selling Sanchez would be borderline suicidal when the in-house alternatives are Jason Steele and Kjell Scherpen, the Premier League season is less than two weeks away and the transfer window for signing a replacement shuts in one month.
This was hammered home by Scherpen being responsible for the only goal of the game in Brighton 0-1 Brentford. He had only been on the pitch for 18 minutes when a poor pass went straight to Halil Dervisoglu.
Dervisoglu set Ivan Toney up to finish into an empty net despite a despairing full length dive with arms outstretched from Shane Duffy, who seemed to forget he was not the goalkeeper for a minute.
Scherpen has done little to suggest he is capable of playing at Premier League level since signing for £4.2 million from Ajax a year ago.
He spent the second half of last season on loan at Oostende and although he managed to earn a first call up to the Dutch national squad for June’s Nations League games, another temporary switch away from the Amex seems most likely this season.
Steele meanwhile is Steele. He mixes good saves and solid goalkeeping with looking like someone who has won a cornflake competition to don the gloves.
You would not want either him or Scherpen having an extended run in the team. Which is why Brighton have to keep Sanchez for at least another year, even if the Foxes come sniffing.
Julio Enciso can deliver a good ball into the box
In virtually every pre-season friendly roundup so far, Julio Enciso has featured heavily. Brighton 0-1 Brentford was his first appearance at the Amex and in it, we saw another side to his game.
Enciso so far as been a mix of pace, trickery and daring. Not as much has been made about his final ball, which against the Bees was excellent.
Gross, March, Trossard and the rest all going on strike for the Brentford game meant set piece taking duty largely fell on the shoulders of the young Paraguayan.
An early free kick from Enciso was headed home by Matt Clarke, only for Clarke to be flagged offside. Jan Paul van Hecke next had a header from an Enciso corner cleared off the line.
Another Enciso delivery was flicked on by Clarke to Van Hecke, whose effort was saved by David Raya. You may have spotted a theme here; almost as good as Enciso’s whipped deliveries were Clarke and Van Hecke’s ability to get on the end of them.
Brighton had other chances beyond those fashioned from dead balls. Maupay – wearing the number 29 shirt rather than his usual nine – hit the post and Kaoru Mitoma was denied from the follow up by a smart Raya stop.
Deniz Undav saw an effort blocked and then fired wastefully over when well positioned. With finishing like that, it looks like the German will fit in well at the Albion.
Florin Andone still exists
Who thought they would ever see Florin Andone in a Brighton shirt at the Amex again? The last time he was here he famously tried to break the legs of Yan Valery after 28 minutes of Brighton 0-2 Southampton, which seemed to have ended his Albion career.
Or not. The madcap Romanian played for 21 minutes, poked just wide in a goalmouth scramble and managed to injury, maim or kill anyone. Which was nice.
