Brentford 0-0 Brighton: Verbruggen tops ratings for second game running
“Everybody gets a six, dull,” was one of the simple yet effective submissions for our Brentford 0-0 Brighton player ratings. It was also an assessment which was hard to disagree with.
Nobody played badly. Nobody played particularly well. It was just all a bit tedious, as reflected by all but four players scoring in the sixes. Bang average, in other words.
Three managed to push above a seven, with Bart Verbruggen at the top of the tree closely followed by Carlos Baleba and Lewis Dunk.
At the other end of the scale, Simon Adingra SCORED only a five as he looked jaded following a blistering first half performance against Liverpool on Easter Sunday.
Here are your Brentford 0-0 Brighton player ratings.
BART VERBRUGGEN – 7.25
Four starts in a row now for Verbruggen and two consecutive matches at the top of the player ratings must surely mean the days of Roberto De Zerbi rotating his goalkeepers are over. Made a couple of routine saves, displayed solid handling and looked comfortable with the ball at his feet.
Joel Veltman – 6.88
A good showing defensively as you would expect and he got forward to threaten at the other end on a couple of occasions, including one decent second half chance posing more danger to aircraft taking off from Heathrow than Mark Flekken in the Brentford goal.
Jan Paul van Hecke – 6.50
Unusual to see Van Hecke as the lowest scoring defender. He got lucky in the first half when tangling with Ivan Toney that the England international first stayed on his feet rather than looking for a penalty and then put a weak shot into the arms of Verbruggen.
Lewis Dunk – 7.00
Nightmare on international duty, what nightmare on international duty? Having shone at Liverpool on Easter Sunday, Dunk gave another good display against Brentford to ensure that Toney was kept relatively quiet.
Igor Julio – 6.88
Igor! Igor! Igor! The fluid formation De Zerbi opted for meant him playing as a centre back, left back and even left wing back at times. It also gave him greater freedom to get forward, which he seemed to enjoy by going for goal with ambitious efforts from distance.
Pascal Gross – 6.50
Gross having a quiet game = Brighton struggling to create chances. That was once again very much the case here.
Carlos Baleba – 7.13
The best player on the pitch in the first 10 minutes of Brentford 0-0 Brighton and that feeds into him securing the second highest score in the player ratings. De Zerbi has had plenty of praise for Baleba recently, hopefully meaning we see more of him between now and the end of the campaign.
Facundo Buonanotte – 6.75
Started brightly before fading ahead of his withdrawal in the second half. A frustrating evening really, but he was not the only forward-thinking player to find it hard going.
Adam Lallana – 6.00
His one-touch passing remains a joy to watch but in a game where Brighton were clearly crying out for greater pace, it was not really his night. Dragged a couple of shots wide, which should at least silence the conspiracy theorists amongst Arsenal and Manchester City followers who thought Lallana deliberately missed a chance to equalise on Sunday because he wants Liverpool to win the title.
Simon Adingra – 5.50
One contribution of note was to put a first half shot wide. His chances of getting a rest appear to have reduced with De Zerbi revealing Ansu Fati and Valentin Barco were both left out of the matchday squad because of concerns over their fitness levels.
Joao Pedro – 6.75
Unable to mark his return after six weeks out injured with a goal but he certainly looked lively. One header and one shot provided rare tests for Flekken and he did some good stuff linking the play as well.
Julio Enciso – 6.13
One ghastly finish in a promising position has seemingly impacted on his rating. He was though involved in creating two late chances for fellow substitute Danny Welbeck as Brighton looked to come on strong in the final 20 minutes.
Tariq Lamptey – 6.63
Introducing Lamptey brought the speed Brighton needed and offered a different route through the Brentford defence other than pass, pass, pass. The Albion responded by hardly getting him into the game.
Danny Welbeck – 6.50
The best chance Brighton had fell to Welbeck, whose drive looked like it might cause problems for Flekken until it was kept away by a fine sliding block from Kristoffer Ajer. Wasteful from another header and whether his late outside of the boot ball past Flekken and the post was a shot or an attempted cross to Jakub Moder, it didn’t work.
The WAB Player Ratings are formulated using marks out of 10 given by Brighton fans via Twitter. To have your scores included, follow We Are Brighton on Twitter and look out for the player rating thread after each game.
