Match Review: Brighton 1-2 Tottenham Hotspur
Brighton and Hove Albion could be a very good team if they didn’t give the opposition a two goal head start. For the fourth time in six Premier League games this season, the Albion belatedly started playing at 2-0 down. On this occasion though it was too little, too late.
On Monday night, the Seagulls rallied from two behind to take a point at Southampton. They did the same when Fulham visited the Amex prior to the September international break. Watford stormed into a 2-0 lead on the opening day of the season and held on for all three points.
Conceding two goals a game is becoming a worrying trend this season. Worrying, because we’ve only managed to score more than two on four occasions since winning promotion to the Premier League. If you’re conceding so many goals and unable to score, chances are you are going to struggle.
Spurs are quality opponents but they arrived at the Amex having lost three games in a row and with their third choice goalkeeper playing. France’s World Cup winning captain Hugo Lloris remains out with a hangover from the night he was caught drink driving in a car covered in sick and number two Michel Vorm is out injured.
That meant that Paulo Gazzaniga, a 26-year-old with 20 games in League Two at Gillingham and 21 appearances over six years with Southampton was making only his second start for Spurs between the posts. The Albion should’ve made it their mission to test him as much as possible, yet Gazzinga did not have one shot upon his goal in the first half.
Chris Hughton was far too respectful to Mauricio Pochettino and his side. In the first half, Spurs had 79% of the possession. As already noted, Brighton didn’t manage a shot on target in the first half. Playing at home against opponents out of form and under pressure, it was disappointing that the Albion didn’t do more to force the issue and get the visitors on the back foot.
Hughton said afterwards that had we have got into the break at 0-0, it could’ve been a different game. We nearly managed that too as Spurs mustered just two shots on target of their own in that drab opening 45 minutes. The first saw Maty Ryan pull off a brilliant stop from a Toby Alderweireld header. The second was Harry Kane’s penalty three minutes before the break which gave Spurs the lead.
The decision to award a spot kick didn’t sit well with most of the Amex crowd but watching the replay back there can be little ground for complaints. Glenn Murray goes out of his way to stick his arm out and punch the ball away, a decision made particularly mystifying given that it would’ve smacked Davy Propper square in the face and therefore been blocked anyway. Perhaps Murray didn’t want to see the Dutchman take one on the nose which was very kind of him one one level but bloody stupid on another.
Hughton didn’t have a problem with the penalty being awarded but did wonder whether it was a free kick in the first place. Gaetan Bong was the guilty party, bringing Kane down with a clumsy challenge, even if he did get a nick on the ball. Writing “Bong” and “clumsy challenge” in the same sentence is becoming a recurring theme of late – he did the same for Southampton’s penalty in Brighton’s last game. Perhaps its time to take another look at £9m man Bernardo at left back who was jettisoned after that Watford defeat.
Another man we’d all be keen to have a look at is Alireza Jahanbakhsh. Solly March must have some serious blackmailing material on Hughton to be continually selected over the Iranian. Jahanbakhsh looked lively in the 17 minutes he was afforded and although Manchester City away probably wouldn’t be the ideal place to offer him a first start, he surely has to come into the reckoning for the home game against West Ham United in a fortnights time.
March had a shot deflected over just past the hour mark and Gazzaniga finally had to make a save with 66 minutes played. A great pass from Yves Bissouma found Beram Kayal and he went left to Anthony Knockaert who took one touch too many and then, despite being inside the six yard box with only Gazzaniga to beat, pea rolled an effort with his right foot straight at the goalkeeper. If Knockaert scores that, it’s a different game.
He didn’t though and with 14 minutes left, Spurs added their second. Erik Lamela broke forward with the ball to find Danny Rose. Bissouma was either worryingly unaware that Lamela was continuing his run or just lazy in tracking him and as a result, the Argentinian winger was picked out by Rose on the edge of the box from where he swept the ball low and hard past Ryan.
At least 10,000 Albion fans thought that was that as the Amex emptied, which was clearly exactly what the team needed at that point. They might have made it home in time to perve over Ashley Roberts in the second half of Strictly Come Dancing, but they missed an excellent finish from Knockaert with a minute left. Ryan made a fine save from Kane with Duffy leathering the loose ball 70 yards up the pitch for Knockaert to chase, cut inside and then finish.
Remarkably, the Frenchman then had another chance in the remaining 60 seconds for the equaliser. Jurgen Locadia seemed to fall over his own leg when playing a back heel but it worked, sending Jahanbakhsh away and his pass found Knockaert but the shot from the edge of the box didn’t have the required power on it and it was an easy save for Gazzaniga again.
That left everybody wondering what might have been. What might have been had Murray not decided to become Michael Jordan for five seconds. What might have been had Knockaert buried that chance first time with his left rather than shifting it onto his right. What might have been had we tested Spurs’ rookie goalkeeper before over an hour had elapsed.
But most pertinently, what might have been had we not given the opposition a two goal head start. Again. Hopefully, that’s a question we won’t have to ask too many more times this season.
