Beat Marseille, top group, avoid two more matches aim for Albion

And then there were two. Both Brighton and Marseille are already guaranteed to progress from Group B to the knockout stages of the Europa League, with the only issue needing settling being the identify of who tops the table.

This is no trivial matter. The group winners progress straight to the round of 16, where they then have home advantage.

The runners up have to face one of the eight third place finishers from the Champions League group stage in a two legged tie to decide who goes into the Europa League round of 16.

Beat Marseille and Brighton top the group. They will have two less fixtures to navigate and not end up facing the likes of Benfica, Feyenoord, Shakhtar Donetsk, AC Milan and Galatasaray in the knockout round playoffs.

Avoiding the last of those potential opponents is particularly pertinent. Can you imagine anything worse than Wilfried Zaha being the man to end the Albion’s European adventure, just when we thought we had finally escaped him after Croydon’s answer to Tom Daley joined the Turkish giants in the summer?

Lose or draw with Marseille and it will be second spot in Group B for Brighton, additional matches on Thursday 15th and Thursday 22nd February and the prospect of more Zaha inflicted misery.

For the Albion to even be in this position is impressive given where they stood after 135 minutes of Europa League action. A 3-2 home defeat to AEK Athens was followed by a poor first half away against Marseille, after which the trailed 2-0.

Their hopes of playing in Europe beyond Christmas hung by a thread during the interval at the Stade Velodrome on October 5th. But then something rather magical happened.

Not many teams find what Roberto De Zerbi would term as the “big balls” needed to come from behind in one of the most hostile stadiums in Europe. Yet that is precisely what Brighton did, rescuing an unlikely point.

After that, the Albion went from looking very much like a club playing Europa League football for the first time to a team with the confidence and expertise to compete at this level.

Two victories over Ajax and three points from a tricky tie in Athens mean that whilst Brighton have won only twice in the Premier League since the end of September, they have three successive wins to their name in Europe.

We have long said that finishing lower mid table this season would be an acceptable price to pay for an extended run in the Europa League.

Based on that, only drawing with Burnley on Saturday becomes much more palatable if it is followed by victory over Marseille.

What chance of that then? Marseille were plunged into crisis at the end of September when boss Marcelino quit after less than five months in charge following an angry exchange with some of Marseille’s notorious ultras.

Oh to have been able to see the reaction of football fans terrifying enough to force a manager’s resignation when receiving the email telling them they cannot take bottle tops, flasks of tea or homemade sandwiches into the Amex Stadium.

In Marcelino’s place came Gennaro Gattuso and after something of a slow start, results have picked up under the fiery Italian.

Since the Albion headed home from the South of France with a point in their baggage, Marseille have won seven and drawn two of their subsequent 11 matches.

Central to this has been the red hot form of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. The former Arsenal and Chelsea striker has seven goals in his past four appearances.

His European strike rate has been equally hot, tying him as the competition’s leading scorer with a certain Joao Pedro.

Beyond Aubameyang and Pedro topping the goals charts, there is an argument to be made that Group B is by far and away the strongest in the Europa League this season.

Brian Owen rounded up the numbers in a piece on The Argus website. Amongst the highlights, Group B also has two of the leading assisters with Jonathan Clauss and Amine Harit having contributed four apiece of Marseille.

Clauss has created the most big chances in the competition this season. Pedro has forced the most penalties. Lewis Dunk has made the most successful passes and Bart Verbruggen has the best save percentage of any goalkeeper.

Food for thought for De Zerbi if he is considering this to be a game Jason Steele starts as part of the goalkeeper rotation policy?

To underline the challenge Brighton face, Marseille also have the best xG (although Glow Up Graham Potter can tell you that often means very little), the most shots on target and the the most big chances.

The Albion’s average of 477 accurate passes per match is bettered by only Bayer Leverkusen and Liverpool. What a couple of games it would be if Brighton were to draw Leverkusen later in the competition, by the way.

All these numbers suggest that neither Brighton nor Marseille have much to fear moving forward in the competition, even from the Champions League clubs dropping down.

But for the sake of skipping two more matches – and the Albion’s sanity in avoiding Zaha – both will be doing all they can to ensure they finish top.

The best group in the 2023-24 Europa League is to be decided by a straight out winner-takes-all clash at the Amex. This is what European nights are all about.

Let us hope there are many more to come… but not until March.