Match Review: Cardiff City 2-1 Brighton
Chris Hughton is normally one of the calmest managers in the entire Football League. Very rarely will he blame the match officials when Brighton and Hove Albion lose, instead focussing on his sides own shortcomings and appreciating that referees have a difficult job. In short, he is a class act and honest to go with it.
You know a referee has had a shocker then when Hughton comes out after a game and says he isn’t happy. That’s the verdict that he had for Martin Atkinson and his assistants Stephen Child and Peter Kirkup following a string of contentious decisions in the Albion’s 2-1 defeat at Cardiff City.
The first of those arrived in the 34th minute with the dismissal of Dale Stephens. With over 200 Brighton games under his belt now, we all know that Stephens can tend to be overzealous in the tackle. He likes to go thundering into challenges and four times out of five gets away with it.
He didn’t on this occasion as his two footed lunge at Greg Cunningham was met with a straight red card from Atkinson. Contact was minimal but it was the reckless manner in which Stephens went flying in with studs up that convinced the referee to end Stephens’ afternoon with just over half an hour played.
For his part, Hughton admitted that he wasn’t particularly unhappy with the decision, saying that you expect some referees to give it. Watching in real time at the Cardiff City Stadium, it looked all day to be a red. With the benefit of a slowed down replay with multiple camera angles, it’s less clear cut but you can make a case that Atkinson got that one right.
The one that was a million percent wrong as Louis Walsh might have said was Cardiff’s winning goal, scored in the last minute by Sol Bamba. Bamba was so far offside that he might as well have been stood on the good side of the Severn Bridge, yet neither Atkinson nor his assistant could spot the eight-foot-tall, 25 stone Bluebirds player at least six yards deeper than Lewis Dunk. Even Stevie Wonder could have seen it.
That proved costly as Bamba produced a bicycle kick that hit the post, Maty Ryan pulled off an outrageous save to tip Callum Patteron’s rebound onto the bar before Bamba smashed home the loose ball. A shocking piece of refereeing that denied the Albion what would have been a battling point – but you can’t put all the blame at the referee’s door.
For this was a real battle. Cardiff may have come into the game with only one win all season, but you wouldn’t expect Brighton to come away from a trip to face Mile Oak with a victory given our terrible record away from home over the last year.
Atkinson for example wasn’t responsible for the fact that we allowed Cardiff to register 20 shots. Everton had 14 at Goodison Park. Wolves had 25 in their 1-0 defeat at the Amex, Newcastle 27 when we escaped from St James’ Park with all three points and West Ham 17 on their trip to Sussex at the start of October.
That’s 103 shots from our opposition in the past five games at an average of 20.6 per match. When you are doing that, a team only needs to convert 10% of the chances they create in order to score twice, and given that we’ve only managed to score more than one goal in three games so far this season, that makes taking points very difficult.
Atkinson wasn’t responsible either for the alarming regularity with which the men in green gave the ball away. It’s hard to recall a situation in which we strung more than five passes together, which tells you just how important Davy Propper actually is. Beram Kayal, outstanding throughout October, was the main culprit.
Atkinson wasn’t responsible for Gaetan Bong deflecting Kadeem Harris’ cross straight into the path of Paterson to head home. He didn’t pick the starting line-up either, 4-5-1 away from home looking like it would invite a pretty poor Cardiff side who could’ve been there for the taking to have lots of the ball and apply plenty of pressure even before the Albion were reduced to 10 men.
Ah yes, Hughton’s tactics came under the spotlight again. Thankfully, there was no glue sniffer like Ben to phone up BBC Five Live’s 606 and demand Hughton’s sacking this week, but there were plenty of grumbles about conservatism and settling for a draw again.
Could the Albion manager have been more positive in his approach? Possibly, but at the end of the day he knows that winning your home games and sneaking a point here and there on the road will be enough to keep us up which fulfils his remit.
We’ll always go to support the team no matter what (and for the beer, obviously), but it doesn’t come as a surprise that some supporters are questioning what the point in going to away games is when we don’t have the intention to win. It’s a lot of time and money spent to be rewarded with one goal and if we’re lucky, a draw every couple of weeks.
Solly March was the sacrificial lamb once Stephens had been dismissed with Yves Bissouma coming on in his place. It was a shame for March as, despite the extreme amount of criticism he is attracting at the minute, his delivery from set pieces looks to be our best route to goal currently.
A week after claiming an assist for Lewis Dunk with a delightful delivery after a short corner routine in the 3-1 defeat at Everton, it was his free-kick that was again headed home by the Albion captain after only six minutes. Two in two for Dunk, meaning he’ll go into the latest international break full of confidence having been called up to Gareth Southgate’s England squad again.
One man yet to be called up for England is Glenn Murray and he went off injured just past the hour mark. That gave Florin Andone an extended run out and again the £5m signing from Deportivo La Coruna looked lively. It will be interesting to see whether Hughton hands him a start after the international break but on his short cameos so far, he already looks a step up in class on Jurgen Locadia. Not that that is particularly difficult.
A tough afternoon but there was one small positive with the Cardiff City Stadium offering bottles of Smirnoff Ice for £1 with any other purchase. It must be the only football ground in the world that takes inspiration from a student night in Pryzm to offer drinks deals on alcopops, with pre-game and half-time turbo shandies at least softening the blow of another poor showing on the road.
Perhaps every away team could offer something similar as, without a serious change in approach, it’s going to be harder to justify travelling the length and breadth of the country for the football for much longer. Especially when referees take decisions that make it even harder for the Albion to take anything.
