Brighton 0-1 Wolves: Albion set records… and none of them good
An hour before kick off in Brighton 0-1 Wolves, the Albion’s social media accounts put out a mock starting XI graphic. It eluded to the current injury, suspension and Covid-19 crisis at the Amex which left Graham Potter with a threadbare squad.
Michel Kuipers was in goal. A back four of Bruno, Guy Butters, Gordon Greer and Gully. Fatboy Slim, Media Intern, Andrew Crofts and Royal Blood made up the midfield. And up front… Bobby Zamora and Glenn Murray.
The caption accompanying the graphic read: “Thanks to the hard work of our coaching, medical and academy staff, as well as the players, you’ll have a team to get behind tonight! Thankfully it won’t look like this……”
Three hours later and Brighton fans were left wishing it had looked like that. Zamora and Murray might be retired and rattling towards their 40s but they still would have offered more in attack than Aaron Connolly did. So would Fatboy Slim, the Media Intern and Gully for that matter.
Bruno, Butters and Greer would never have allowed the sort of slack marking which presented Wolves with the only goal of the game. Royal Blood would have created more in the midfield engine room and Jakub Moder and Solly March did not beat the first man with a set piece all night.
It was reminiscent of Dean Cox at Withdean, who incidentally filled the bench of the fantasy team alongside Gary Hart, Brian Horton, Joffra Archer and Steve from Security.
If Steve is one percent as good at scoring goals as he is at spotting a smuggled in bottle lid from 20 paces, then he would have been a decent shout to start ahead of Connolly as well.
The Albion gave one of their worst performances of the season in Brighton 0-1 Wolves. In the process, they set a new club record of 11 consecutive top flight games without a victory.
When Graham Potter said he needed an Albion history lesson after a smattering of boos greeted the full time whistle of the 0-0 draw with The Leeds United in the previous home match, we wonder if that is the sort of history he was after? Nice one Graham, you have just written your own.
It felt more like a pre-season friendly. Another record was set as this was easily the lowest attendance at the Amex of the Premier League era, despite the club laughably announcing that 30,362 were present. The biggest lie since “There was no Christmas Party and if there was a Christmas Party, all the rules were followed.”
The lack of fans led to a lack of atmosphere. The majority of those who stayed away did so because they felt uncomfortable about travelling to and from the stadium when Covid-19 infections are at an all-time high.
Test positive after attending Brighton 0-1 Wolves and you will find yourself isolating on Christmas Day. Clearly, a huge number of season ticket holders felt that was not a risk worth taking.
There would not have been so many empty seats if the club were not determined to make money out of supporters passing tickets on to friends or family.
If those who did not want to go were able to give their season ticket seat to any friend rather than a £25 MyAlbion+ Member, then the Amex would have been fuller, the atmosphere potentially better and that may have translated to a less flat performance on-the-pitch.
Paul Barber will no doubt tell us again at some point in the coming weeks that the controversial season ticket sharing scheme is a wonderful invention which is immensely popular. And some will buy it.
Barber though is hardly likely to turn around and say: “You know what? We have cocked this right up.” The proof of the pudding is in the eating and the number of gaps in the stands seen with our own eyes – not just at Brighton 0-1 Wolves but at every home game this season – does not chime with Barber’s claims or the attendance figures pumped out by the Albion propaganda machine.
Should the Amex remain open and Albion fans continue to worry about Covid-19 transmission, then the club need to recognise the current system does not work.
Allow season ticket holders to transfer their seats to anyone with a membership, whose details the club have and maybe there will then be a crowd capable of making enough noise to inspire the team to a win.
Because lord knows, they need it. To not win for three months is not good enough at any level of football, be that the Premier League where Brighton find themselves now or League Two.
And even when the Albion were in League Two operating with the worst set of players the club have ever had, they did not go so long without victory.
Potter in contrast possesses the best (and most expensive) squad Brighton have ever had. When the real team was announced, it was still packed with Premier League quality despite an absentee list including Lewis Dunk, Adam Webster, Shane Duffy, Pascal Gross, Neal Maupay and Danny Welbeck.
It should have been good enough to give a Wolves side without a win in four and who had not scored for over seven hours a run for their money.
This was an Old Gold without their only goal threat too, Raul Jimenez missing out through suspension after achieving the hugely impressive feat of picking up two yellow cards in the space of 31 seconds during defeat to Manchester City at the weekend.
Brighton dominated the first half without ever really threatening. It is no coincidence that the Albion’s attack has looked its most toothless this season when Maupay has been absent.
Maybe now his detractors will begin to realise that the way he links play, stretches defences, makes spaces and brings others in outweighs the simple chances he misses? Brighton are a far poorer team attacking wise without Le Petit Shithouse Français.
The Albion earned a succession of corners and free kicks which they did nothing with. As well as the Maupay detractors, maybe the pAsCAl gRoSS iS A sEt pIEcE mErcHAnT crowd might appreciate that pinpoint deliveries which more often than not lead to goals are a commodity not to be sniffed at?
Wolves showed the value of doing something with a corner when taking the lead on the stroke of half time, although it required help from some suspect traditionally suspect Brighton defending.
Yves Bissouma made a hash out of clearing the initial delivery into the box, succeeding only in looping it to Ruben Neves.
The Portuguese playmaker had a worrying amount of time and space to clip a ball back over an Albion defence who were all over the place.
Nobody in blue and white seemed to know whether they should be pushing up to catch Wolves offside or marking an Old Gold opponent.
In the end, they did neither and Neves’ return was clinically volleyed home by Romain Saiss to end Wolves’ barren run in front of goal.
Saiss’ opener came in the first minute of first half stoppage time. Somehow, there was still time for Brighton to waste a glorious opportunity to equalise before the players trudged off for their half time oranges.
A rare free kick from Moder that actually made it in the vicinity of the Wolves area was only half cleared to Leandro Trossard.
The Vampire of Genk hit a stonking volley well saved by visiting goalkeeper Jose Sa. The rebound found kindly to Enock Mwepu who was no more than six yards out and with an entire empty goal to aim at.
Rather than hit the many, many square metres of vacant net in front of him, Mwepu managed to scoop the ball up and over the bar with a leg so rigid that it may as well have been embalmed.
The Computer suffered a catastrophic malfunction, a Millennium Bug in the system just the 22 years after technological meltdown was supposed to occur.
Wolves should have killed the game off in the first 15 minutes of the second half. Robert Sanchez might have been spotted upsetting staff at Tesco Holmbush by not wearing a mask this week, but nobody could have any complaints about his goalkeeper as a string of fine saves prevented the scoreline becoming embarrassing.
Sanchez saved from Francisco Trincao, Saiss, Joao Moutinho and Daniel Podence. When Sanchez was beaten, the frame of the goal denied Fernando Marçal.
Connolly was replaced on the hour mark and did little to endear himself to an Albion crowd whose patience is already wearing thin.
With the score Brighton 0-1 Wolves and the Seagulls chasing the game, he sauntered off the pitch like he was leaving Shoosh at the end of the night.
No rush Aaron mate, it is only our time to find an equaliser you are wasting. Connolly was jeered by the crowd for taking his time, something that Potter did not seem to find perplexing for once.
An even bigger delay than Connolly making his way off was to come when referee Tony Harrington had to have his communications headset seen to.
The game was stopped for a combined total of around 10 minutes whilst this took place, much to the crowd’s displeasure. Turns out the human race can put a man on the moon but a Premier League match official cannot tape a microphone pack to his arm.
With so much stoppage time due to be played, it looked like Brighton might get the opportunity to test out the well-worn phrase “We could be out there until midnight and we still wouldn’t have scored.”
11 additional minutes were eventually decreed by the fourth official, meaning the game finished at around 9.40pm. Not quite midnight and so predictably, the Albion did not manage to score as it finished Brighton 0-1 Wolves.
One final unwanted record for you to jot down – Brighton have now not scored a goal from open play at home in their past five matches.
490 minutes have elapsed since Welbeck found the back of the net in the 2-1 win over Leicester City back in September. And if you want to play by the letter of the law, technically that came from a free kick so you could argue it was not open play.
In which case, take yourself back to Maupay scoring the second in the 2-0 win over Watford on August 21st, 619 minutes or 10 hours and 19 minutes ago. Ouch.
Zamora, Murray and the Media Intern up front next time, please.
