Brighton 0-2 Aston Villa: Home isn’t where the heart is for Potter’s Albion
There was much doom and gloom at full time of Brighton 0-2 Aston Villa. One shot on target for the second home game running, one win in 10 at the Amex and what might still be a record-breaking top flight season is viewed by some as petering out into dullness.
And then there is what is going on in Ukraine right now. A peaceful, democratic nation is under attack from a dictator who cannot stand that the people and government of a neighbouring country dares to have a different view on who they want to be.
Civilians are taking up arms to defend Ukraine from the Russian army. Innocent people are dying. Homes are being destroyed. Kind of puts losing a game of football into perspective, doesn’t it?
For some people of course, football is an escape from the pressures and goings on of the real world. As Gus Poyet He Who Must Not Be Named said when Brighton lifted the League One title in 2011: “You don’t realise how happy you can make people. They forget about everything today. They forget about health problems, about family problems, about financial problems. That’s football.”.
Right now though, there is little joy in watching the Albion at the Amex. You find rocking horse dropping more frequently than Brighton win at home.
Three home successes so far this season, four in the whole of 2020-21 and five the year before means that Graham Potter has been victorious 12 times from 41 outings at the Amex. Chris Hughton managed more Premier League home wins from 13 less games than Potter.
Compare that to away days. The Albion are brilliant on the road, capable on their day of going toe-to-toe with the best clubs in Europe. Late goals and drama are commonplace and the support the team receive is superb.
Everyone with a Newcastle United ticket is guaranteed to have a better day out than is currently possible when Brighton are in action in the Falmer area.
This feeds into a quiet Amex atmosphere. With little to cheer on the pitch, supporters struggle to get excited in the stands.
Not helping the situation are empty seats caused by rail replacement buses and stupid kick off times – this was only the third Saturday 3pm game of the season at the Amex.
Whisper it quietly for fear of being accused of clickbait, but the season ticket sharing scheme is having an impact too.
Good luck finding a non-Brighton fan willing to pay £25 to become a MyAlbion+ Member for the privilege of being able to fill a regular’s seat on the occasions they cannot go.
Albion supporters were not the only ones facing an arduous journey to the Amex for Brighton 0-2 Aston Villa. The visitor’s coach was caught up in the traffic chaos caused by a crash on the A23, meaning that kick off was delayed by 30 minutes.
The game could have gone on for another three hours beyond the late 5.20pm finish and the Albion would still not have scored, such was the toothless nature of the performance.
Potter opted to blunt the attacking threat of Tariq Lamptey and Marc Cucurella again, using Cucurella as a centre back.
What we have seen in Brighton 0-2 Aston Villa and Brighton 0-3 Burnley is that when the Albion do not deploy their flying wing backs as flying wing backs, they struggle to create much at all.
Suspension and injuries have denied Potter the services of Lewis Dunk and Adam Webster over the past fortnight. That in turn has put the decision to sell Dan Burn to Newcastle United in the spotlight.
The Albion have willingly left themselves light of centre backs. Potter is seemingly not convinced that Haydon Roberts is ready yet, the gabble of out-on-loan defenders have been left in their temporary homes and the one who did return – Leo Ostigard – was then immediately sent to Genoa.
At the time of the Burn sale, £13 million for him looked like good business. It might still have been had Brighton found a way to replace Burn with another body. Not so much now. Hindsight really is a wonderful thing.
Compelling the problems caused by Lamptey and Cucurella having their wings clipped is the loss of form being suffered by Yves Bissouma.
Ask Siri to show you a player who is struggling because he knows he will not be at his current club next season and a picture of Bissouma would pop up.
His agent is angling for a move, knowing that any reduced fee owing to Bissouma entering the final 12 months of his contract means a juicy signing on bonus.
No Brighton fan will begrudge Bissouma a move this summer as his talents are deserving of a bigger stage. But if he is reigning his performances in because he is confident that he has only 12 matches left as an Albion player, then that is likely to piss off a lot of people. Judging by some comments on social media, it already is.
Villa are one of the clubs known to be keen on Bissouma. They had a £35 million bid for his services rejected in January and are certain to come back this summer.
Many Brighton fans would view a move to Villa Park as a sideways one; Villa supporters can now point to the fact that they have completed a double over the Albion as justification that they under Steven Gerrard are a step up for Bissouma.
The Premier League table might suggest otherwise. The Seagulls are 10th, three points ahead of Villa in 12th who do have a game in hand.
Brighton’s lofty position serves as a reminder that we cannot be too downhearted by the season so far, even with this post-January slump.
The prospect of bettering the club’s highest ever finish of 13th remains on the cards. That too should be remembered by those who feel there is nothing left to play for over the final two months with European football too far away, the relegation zone even further and the FA Cup done and dusted.
Brighton started well enough against Villa without ever testing Emiliano Martinez. Villa punished that by taking the lead on 18 minutes, Matty Cash drilling a clinical volley from 25 yards across Robert Sanchez into the bottom corner.
Cash revealed a message in support of his Poland international teammate Tomasz Kedziora, who plays for Dynamo Kyiv. Kedziora is still in the Ukrainian capital currently being attacked by the Russians.
Referee John Brooks was not in a charitable mood, upholding the letter of the law by flashing a yellow card to Cash.
Alexis Mac Allister had the Albion’s best chance a few minutes later. Cucurella released Solly March who made into the box to lay back to Mac Allister. His rising effort was a little too high and clipped the top of the Villa bar on its way into the stands.
The game became very stop-start after that, not helped by Mr Brooks wanting to be the centre of attention. He ended up flashing six first half yellow cards and three more in the second in a match that became increasingly fiery. You know it has become a little ridiculous when Leandro Trossard enters the book.
Philippe Coutinho thought he had doubled the Villa lead five minutes into the second half. A perfectly struck free kick looked destined for the left hand corner of the Albion goal until Sanchez pulled off a magnificent save at full stretch.
Usually dependable Joel Veltman was at fault when the visitors doubled their lead on 68 minutes. Tyrone Mings had been booed by sections of the Albion crowd for the crime of being picked for England ahead of Lewis Dunk.
Mings silenced some of his detractors with a long ball over the top of the Brighton defence.From it, Veltman got in a mess and that allowed Ollie Watkins to get in behind before beating Sanchez to make it Brighton 0-2 Aston Villa.
There seemed little prospect of one Albion goal, let alone two to level things up. Substitute Danny Welbeck headed off target from a March cross and Neal Maupay registered the only shot on target managed by Brighton which was kept out by Martinez.
By full time, many of the “record Amex crowd of 31,475” had departed their seats. As one fan posted on Sunday morning: “I have never left early before but went on 80 minutes safe in the knowledge there was no hope of an equaliser.”
Disappointing? Yes. But there are far more important things going on in the world right now than football. Glory to Ukraine.
