Aston Villa 6-1 Brighton: If you don’t laugh, you’ll have to cry

We all know the deal by now with the way a team managed by Roberto De Zerbi plays football. And just in case you don’t, Aston Villa 6-1 Brighton was a pretty sobering reminder.

When DeZerbiBall works, it is brilliant. Not many teams in the world can deal with it. But when it does not work, it tends to go more wrong than the Titanic trying to navigate an icefield.

Sink or swim. Feast or famine. There is rarely a happy medium. And at Villa Park, it was very much the latter. A poor performance and a terrible defeat which was the Albion’s heaviest on the road since losing 6-0 at West Ham United in April 2012.

It also represented the first time Brighton have conceded six in their six-and-a-bit seasons in the Premier League so far.

A quick glance at the Premier League table is quite telling of the nature of DeZerbiBall. Brighton are sixth, with five wins and two defeats. It therefore delivers success more often than not.

Leaders Manchester City are only three points ahead. The Citizens suffering a shock 2-1 defeat at Wolves meant that despite the shambles at Villa Park, Brighton have not lost any ground in the title race. (Please note, the preceding sentence may have been laced with irony).

Most instructive though are the goals for and against columns. With 19 goals plundered in seven matches, the Albion remain the Premier League’s top scorers.

At the same time, they have the fourth-worst defensive record having shipped 14. Only Sheffield United, Plucky Little Bournemouth and Burnley have conceded more and those are the bottom three clubs without a single win between them.

Perhaps on Sunday evening after the first Strictly Come Dancing results show of the year, WAB will sit down with a nice bottle of red and dissect what has happened to Brighton defensively this season. The Albion were not so leaky in 2022-23 and there are multiple reasons behind it.

In Aston Villa 6-1 Brighton, the issue largely appeared to be in midfield. Billy Gilmour and 18-year-old debutant Jack Hinshelwood were too lightweight a partnership to afford the back four the sort of protection it needed.

Villa were therefore able to carve through the Albion like a knife through warm butter. Every time they came forward, it felt like they were going to score.

The first goal on 14 minutes set the tone. Gilmour and Hinshelwood were nowhere to be seen, Pervis Estupinan was miles further forward than the rest of the back four and that allowed John McGinn to feed in Matty Cash down the channel.

Cash crossed, Lewis Dunk slid in but could not intercept and that left Ollie Watkins to tap home. Watkins was scoring against Brighton for the fourth successive game, including when Villa beat the Albion 2-1 on the final day of last season.

Even with that impressive track record, nobody could have predicted the carnage the England international was going to unleash over the next 76 minutes.

It was of course Watkins who doubled the lead seven minutes after the opener. Joel Veltman gave the ball away inside the Villa half, from where the hosts launched the sort of lightning counter attack Brighton are always susceptible to because of the high line they play.

Adam Webster and Dunk looked like they were running up a hill with an Eddie Stobart lorry attached to their backs compared to the speed with which Watkins broke after being fed by Moussa Diaby.

Watkins duly advanced 50 yards down the pitch, cut inside Veltman as the Dutch defender tried to recover the situation and drilled an effort which beat Jason Steele at his near post.

VAR took a look as Nicolo Zaniolo had strayed offside when Watkins shot and there might have been an argument he was blocking the view of Steele. The goal though stood.

More controversial was Villa’s third, which arrived on 26 to make it three goals in 12 minutes. Douglas Luiz won possession in a tangle with Solly March which would not have looked out of place over in France at the Rugby World Cup.

Luiz and March went to ground, allowing Watkins to pick up the loose ball. A few passes later and Diaby saw a shot saved by Steele, the rebound fell kindly back to the Villa man and his second effort was turned into the back of the net in comical fashion by Estupinan for an own goal.

Had VAR decided there were strong enough grounds to rule either goal out, then it merely would have spared the Albion’s blushes.

Aston Villa thoroughly deserved to lead going into half time. The real question was what would De Zerbi do to try and spark a reaction from Brighton?

The answer was to make a treble change. On came Tariq Lamptey, Ansu Fati and Joao Pedro, the latter two replacing Evan Ferguson and Danny Welbeck.

Hopefully, Aston Villa 6-1 Brighton was the afternoon when De Zerbi realised what most Albion supporters have for some time now – that Welbeck and Ferguson in the same starting XI does not work.

It did not take Pedro and Fati long to get into their groove as they combined to pull a goal back within five minutes of the restart.

Kaoru Mitoma fed Pedro down the left and the Brazilian’s low cross at the second attempt was tapped in at the back post by Fati.

Was the mother of all comebacks now on? Your correspondent certainly thought so, sticking £5 on the draw/Brighton win double chance.

Maybe that jinxed it and was what led to it finishing Aston Villa 6-1 Brighton? The hope lasted all of 15 minutes before Watkins completed his hat-trick with the goal which ultimately killed the game.

McGinn had too much time in midfield, picking out Watkins with a chipped pass. Watkins took a touch, opened up his body and then hit a shot which took a wicked deflection off Webster to fly over Jason Steele.

Still, at least the officials gave us another piece of controversy to go berserk about before Villa added their final two goals late in the day.

Fati and Ezri Konsa embarked on a spot of handbags which was very much six of one and half a dozen of the other. Whilst Fati was booked for his part in the fracas, Konsa got away Scot-free.

The only possible reason for the different treatment meted out could be that Konsa was already on a yellow and neither referee Andy Madley nor VAR wanted to send him off.

It was an absolutely shocking decision. Howard Webb has more chance of growing an afro by Monday morning than he does of coming up for a reasonable explanation for it.

A miserable afternoon was then completed in the final five minutes plus injury time. Jacob Ramsey was allowed to dribble 20 yards up the pitch to the edge of the Brighton box totally unchallenged.

Even Ramsey seemed surprised by how much time and space he had with the Albion midfield worryingly absent. Ramsey duly picked out the bottom corner with a curling right footed effort.

Every Brighton fan by this point just wanted to be put out of their misery. The last thing anybody in the away end wanted to see was eight minutes of time added on.

The hosts made it Aston Villa 6-1 Brighton in the seventh of those minutes, again playing far too easily through the middle.

Watkins escaped a Webster lunge and Dunk could not get close enough to prevent the Villa man going for his fourth of the day.

Steele kept it out with a parry but Luiz was on hand to guide the ball back beyond the Albion goalkeeper and into the empty net.

How to sum all that up then? Instagram user marcos891 did it rather nicely, uploading a photo he had taken with perfect timing of a man in Villa Park either hysterically laughing or screaming in anguish.

Incredible Instagram caption here which sums up Aston Villa 6-1 Brighton absolutely perfectly #BHAFC pic.twitter.com/LqY13b58px

— We Are Brighton (@wearebrighton) September 30, 2023

“Either would be justified to be fair” read the caption. Which was true. Because if you didn’t laugh, you would have to cry.

Still, could have been worse. At least the M40 wasn’t blocked on the way home by a pile up or anything…