Brighton 1-2 Aston Villa: A tale of two penalties

Brighton 1-2 Aston Villa should not have come as a surprise. The Albion have not beaten Villa at home in a league game since 1980, when Maggie Thatcher was in her first term as Prime Minister and a pint cost 47p.

Michael Robinson scored the only goal that December day at the Goldstone in front of 16,245 fans. An early yuletide present of the sort Seagulls supporters will not be getting this year thanks to the World Cup taking place through the winter.

Brighton 1-2 Aston Villa was the Albion’s final Premier League fixture before Christmas. Who felt weird offering season’s greetings to those you sit around at the Amex on November 13th?

We can at least though say that the Seagulls will be flying high in seventh spot in the Premier League when Santa does his rounds and everyone sits down for a turkey dinner on Christmas Day.

That is no mean feat. Had you offered Brighton fans seventh place going into the winter break at the start of the season, most would have bitten your arm off.

Throw in the departure of Glow Up Graham Potter and the chaos caused by the entire first team coaching staff walking out to join Chelsea, and it is even more impressive.

Roberto De Zerbi, his assistants and the players all deserve a lot of credit for not only keeping the campaign on track, but somehow delivering performances and results that have been an improvement on Glow Up.

This though was not one of those. Brighton played below the high standards they have set themselves in recent weeks. De Zerbi got a crucial early substitution wrong. And then there was the performance of referee Chris Kavanagh and the bloke watching on VAR, Jarred Gillet.

With such a woeful home record against Villa, Brighton needed all the help they could get. Nothing was forthcoming from either Mr Kavanagh or Mr Gillet, especially when it came to the game’s key moment midway through the second half.

Solly March nicked the ball off Lucas Digne, who responded by booting March’s ankle as hard as possible to send the Albion winger crashing to the ground.

It looked a stonewall penalty in real time. You could though excuse Mr Kavanagh missing it; his line of sight might have been blocked or it could have happened all too quickly for him to make an accurate judgement.

What you cannot excuse is that VAR took a look and decided there was nothing wrong with it. What incredibly strong stuff had Mr Gillet been smoking to come up with that assessment and where can I get some?

The whole point of VAR is to correct clear and obvious errors, right? To help out referees who have missed something.

You will not see a more clear and obvious error than Mr Kavanagh waving play on after March was booted to the ground, so if VAR does not advise him that he has made a mistake at that juncture, what is the bloody point in it?

With the score set at Brighton 1-2 Aston Villa, a penalty awarded and converted (no guarantee of that obviously, this is the Albion we are talking about) could have changed the game.

The Seagulls would have been level. Momentum would have swung in their favour. Villa were already determined to defend whatever they had by that point, and so the least Brighton would have come away with is a point.

And with 20 minutes still to play and renewed confidence given by the equaliser, who is to say they would not have found a third goal?

What made the non-award of the March penalty doubly hard to take was that Mr Kavanagh got the first half decision correct to award Unai Emery’s side a spot kick, making Brighton 1-2 Aston Villa a tale of two penalties.

If any journalist were to take Gareth Southgate to task over why Lewis Dunk is not at the World Cup, the England boss can now point to Dunk conceding three penalties in his past four Premier League outings.

John McGinn appeared to be running the ball out of play when Dunk came in with a completely unnecessary sliding tackle.

That gave McGinn the excuse he needed to go to ground and Mr Kavanagh the excuse he needed to point to the spot. No complaints about the award, just the complete lack of consistency in the Albion not getting the same treatment with the March penalty an hour later.

Danny Ings struck the spot kick down the middle and although Robert Sanchez got a hand to it, the Albion goalkeeper could not keep it out. That maintained his fine record of never having saved a penalty for the Albion.

Villa deserved their equaliser having been dominant for the 10 minutes preceding it. Brighton had been miles the better side in the opening 10 minutes before that, which included taking the lead with the fastest goal the Seagulls have managed in the Premier League.

Straight from kick off, the Albion pressed Villa. Alexis Mac Allister led the charge, dispossessing Douglas Luiz before firing first time past a startled Emiliano Martínez.

The shine was taken off that positive start slightly when Adam Lallana limped off injured. De Zerbi opted to give an extended Premier League runout to Julio Enciso, which with hindsight was the wrong decision.

Enciso won a couple of free kicks but otherwise looked a little lost against old, wise and experienced Villa. Billy Gilmour replacing Lallana with Mac Allister pushed forward into the number 10 role or Joel Veltman coming on and Pascal Gross going into midfield would have given the Albion a better chance of replicating the control of possession which Lallana offers.

The Villa penalty arrived on 20 minutes, five minutes after the Amex had treated Tyrone Mings to a chorus of “You’re just a shit Lewis Dunk.”

Mings no doubt would have enjoyed the irony of Dunk subsequently conceding a needless spot kick. Not to mention he is now unbeaten against Brighton in his past four matches, including an assist when Villa won 2-0 at the Amex in February and a goal in victory by the same score at Villa Park last November.

Martinez clawing out a March corner which threatened to swing straight into the Villa goal was the closest the Albion came to retaking the lead before half time.

Leandro Trossard had the ball in the back of the net shortly after the restart but only after Mr Kavanagh had blown for a foul against the Vampire of Genk.

Then came what proved to be the winner. Emi Buendia hit the post with a header, giving March, Pascal Gross and Mac Allister the chance to try and play their way out of trouble in the way De Zerbi demands.

Unfortunately, Villa were able to highlight the risks which come with such a strategy. Mac Allister lost the ball to Luiz leaving Ings in. Dunk went sliding in again, Ings stuck the ball between the legs of Levi Covill and Sanchez was wrongfooted with the shot trickling in at the near post.

De Zerbi responded by hauling Enciso 54 minutes after the teenager had replaced Lallana. Danny Welbeck also made way as Deniz Undav and Veltman entered proceedings, the latter taking over at right back with Gross belatedly pushed further forward.

Villa managed the game expertly from there, frustrating the hell out of the Albion. There was timewasting, play acting and seven bookings for the away side.

It was not pretty to watch but when you have not won an away game all season, nobody could really blame Villa for resorting to such desperate ploys to take the three points back to Birmingham.

De Zerbi too picked up a yellow card as he became increasingly animated. De Zerbi wearing his heart on his sleeve and sharing the same emotions as fans has already seen him forge quite the connection with the Albion support.

His reaction when Brighton missed a glorious chance to equalise late on spoke for everyone bar the 3,000 visiting supporters inside the Amex.

Colwill had a free header front and centre of the goal from eight yards out. All he had to do was put it either side of Martinez and Brighton would be level.

Instead, Colwill got his connection on the ball all wrong and it sailed out for a goal kick with Martinez completely untroubled.

Villa had wasted so much time by the point the clock ticked to 90 that even eight minutes being added on seemed woefully inadequate.

Brighton could find no way through in that time and so the Albion’s winless run at home to Villa will extend into a 43rd year.

Disappointing, yes. But seventh at Christmas? We will take that all day long.