Forest gives Brighton an instant chance to bounce back

You often find out more about a football team from how they recover from setbacks than you do when everything is going swimmingly. Brighton travelling to Nottingham Forest just three days after Wembley heartbreak should therefore be seen as the opportunity it is in terms of getting the Seagulls’ season quickly back on track.

Disappointments have been few and far between in the Roberto De Zerbi era to date. And when they have occurred, they tend to centre around penalty bloody shootouts.

The Carabao Cup cock up at Charlton saw Brighton pass up a brilliant chance to make the quarter finals of the competition for only the second time ever.

Three spot kicks were missed that evening on the way to an embarrassing elimination at the hands of struggling League One opponents, whose previous two home matches had been defeats against Cheltenham Town and Bristol Rovers.

The Albion responded by securing a rare victory at Southampton in their next match, leading into an unbeaten January.

Solly March epitomised the reaction, with all eight of his season goals coming after being the player who missed the decisive penalty at the Valley.

March now finds himself in a similar position, having put an identical effort over the bar against Manchester United to end Brighton’s FA Cup dreams.

Such a cruel elimination one game from the final of the world’s most famous cup competition will obviously be harder to take than losing to Charlton.

Injuries have begun taking their toll and fatigue will too in the coming five weeks, when Brighton will play nine times. Nine cup finals to secure the highest ever finish in Albion history and the European football which De Zerbi and his squad deserve for their efforts.

De Zerbi has to rally the troops and get the big decisions rights. Since his appointment, Brighton have made the third fewest changes to their starting XI of any club in the Premier League.

Part of that is down to how well the Albion have been playing. The likes of March, Alexis Mac Allister, Moises Caicedo, Pascal Gross, Pervis Estupinan and Lewis Dunk are all undroppable.

But it is also down to Brighton having a thin squad beyond the starting XI. Deniz Undav and Billy Gilmour are yet to convince they are good enough in the limited opportunities they have received.

Teenagers like Julio Enciso and Facundo Buonanotte have impressed coming off the bench but struggled to make much impact in the FA Cup games they have started.

To throw such young, raw and inexperienced individuals into English top flight football would be a huge leap of faith. And yet it is one De Zerbi is going to have to take between now and the end of May, not through choice but necessity.

De Zerbi has already confirmed that Buonanotte will make his full Premier League debut for Brighton against Forest.

Presumably in place of Enciso, but Mac Allister and Caicedo will surely run out of gas soon having been two of the first names on the team sheet and gone to the World Cup.

In the case of Mac Allister, he and Argentina survived the whole tournament in Qatar and he returned to the day job earlier than originally planned. For him to still be delivering top class performances in the midfield engine room is quite something.

What then would represent a good evening at the City Ground for the Albion? Four points from the next two games against Forest and when Brighton host Wolves on Saturday steadies the ship ahead of United visiting the Amex next Thursday, when revenge for Wembley will hopefully be a dish best served cold.

Forest have proven formidable opponents on their own patch this season, so anyone expecting an easy evening against the Tricky Trees underestimates them at their peril.

They are only in with a chance of avoiding an immediate return to the Championship because of their home form, winning five and drawing six of their 16 games at the City Ground compared to one win, three draws and 12 defeats on the road.

One of their six away points came at the Amex back in October, of course. Steve Cooper set his side out to defend and with Brighton still adapting to DeZerbiBall, it was a tactic that paid off for Forest as the Albion could find no way through.

With the relegation battle so tight, Forest surely have to go for the win at home. That can play into Brighton’s hands; the Albion’s best performances and results always come against sides who attack them.

The greatest teams are those who do not suffer hangovers, usually aided by elite managers who use defeats and disappointment to fuel their players to even greater heights.

When Manchester United lost the title to that Sergio Aguero moment in 2012, they responded by winning the league by 11 clear points the following season.

Since City themselves saw Liverpool beat them to the championship in 2020, they have won the past two editions of the Premier League and could yet overhaul Arsenal to claim a third consecutive title.

In that period, Liverpool themselves bounced back from missing out on the title on the final day in 2019 by winning it the next year. They did likewise in the Champions League, losing the final in 2018 but returning to lift the trophy 12 months later.

For Brighton to become regular challengers for the top six and De Zerbi to become of the best managers in the world, they have to show they can respond to setbacks with limited damage caused.

Manchester United at Wembley cannot lead to two or three more defeats and the wheels coming off the season, especially when the Albion are so close to achieving something special in the Premier League.

The chance to rewrite the Brighton history books remains, starting at Forest. Nine games to go. European football to secure. Now we see what the Albion are really made of.