Leicester 3-0 Brighton: Albion outfought and Potter outthought by Foxes
Leicester 3-0 Brighton. On the face of it, defeat at the King Power Stadium should not have come as a surprise. The Foxes came into the weekend sitting fourth in the table and three points off the top of the Premier League whilst Brighton are a side who have won only five games in a calendar year.
What made this such a concerning and disappointing evening from an Albion point of view was the manner of the defeat. All Leicester’s three goals came in the first half as Brighton were outfought on the pitch and Graham Potter outthought in the dugout.
It almost felt like the players had lost the will to live at points as the hosts carved through them. Potter meanwhile wore a look of confusion on his face as his side fell apart as if he were a man who has lost his dog in Preston Park as opposed to a Premier League football manager.
Brighton are now very much in the relegation battle, make no mistake about it. Two wins from 12 games is our worst ever start to a top flight campaign, including the 1982-83 relegation season. Not a piece of history Potter wants to be making.
With Fulham drawing at home to Liverpool and Burnley winning at Arsenal, we can no longer rely on the few teams below us being rubbish whilst we sit at home and say after every game “the performance was good, results will come.”
That excuse is wearing thin now. It is unfortunate to play well in 10 games and not get results. For it to happen consistently over 50 matches means there to something more than bad luck at play. Dare we call it poor management on the part of Potter as he reached his half century at the King Power?
You certainly could not use the performance being good excuse as Brighton lost 3-0 against Leicester, anyway. The first 10 minutes were promising but once Brendan Rodgers switched formations, the Albion fell apart and the scoreline somehow flattered the Foxes.
With Tariq Lamptey not risked ahead of two massive games against Fulham and Sheffield United, Potter abandoned his back three for the first time this season in favour of something which was approaching a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-2-2-2.
Adam Webster was dropped as many Albion fans have been crying out for with Ben White slotting in at centre back. The decision to play two central defenders in Joel Veltman and Big Dan Burn as full backs looked questionable given the pace Leicester possess in wide areas and with grim predictability, Burn in particular endured a torrid evening.
Even with White back in his natural defensive berth, there was no room for Steve Alzate. Potter’s continued overlooking of the young Colombian midfielder who had forged such a promising partnership with Yves Bissouma in the opening weeks of the season can only lead us to conclude that Alzate accidentally ran over Potter’s cat or something.
Pascal Gross instead lined up alongside Bissouma as a holding midfielder, a complete waste of the creative talents of a player who came into the Leicester game with two assists and two goals from his past five matches.
Solly March, Neal Maupay and Alireza Jahanbakhsh sat behind Danny Welbeck and it was Jahanbakhsh and Welbeck who spurned two glorious opportunities to put Brighton ahead in the opening nine minutes.
Kasper Schmeichel saved both and you have to wonder how different things might have been had one of those gone in. Instead, Rodgers very quickly identified that Potter was fielding two makeshift full backs who, in such a narrow formation, were not receiving much protection from the players in front of them. Leicester were also being outnumbered in midfield.
Rodgers switched to 4-2-3-1 as a result and the game swung completely. Brighton went from being in the contest to conceding three times in 17 minutes whilst Potter simply watched on, either unable or unwilling to make any changes of his own to prevent the carnage from unfolding.
We are constantly told about what an innovative coach and tactical whizz kid Potter is. Rodgers showed us what that really looks like.
The Leicester boss knew the exact moment to adjust his side’s shape to offer maximum impact on the game, a far cry from Potter’s approach which often appears so random as to be likened to spinning a roulette wheel.
One of the most bizarre decisions that Potter has taken this season saw him drop Maty Ryan for Robert Sanchez for the 2-1 defeat at Tottenham Hotspur, followed by ditching Sanchez after that one game.
Sanchez performed reasonably well against Spurs having been promoted from third choice to first overnight. And yet since then, we have seen neither hide nor hair of the young goalkeeper who has subsequently reverted back to number three with Jason Steele playing backup to Ryan.
Ryan was dropped because his form had tailed off and he needed a kick up the arse after a couple of seasons without a challenger for the number one shirt.
It does not seem to have worked unfortunately as there were questions to be asked about his role in Leicester’s opener. James Maddison’s effort took a bit of a deflection but it still looked like Ryan should have done better with it.
The reaction of Brighton fans on Twitter left no doubt that Ryan has been crowned the boo boys new king following Dale Stephens’ summer sale to Burnley.
Comments ranged from Ryan being shit to supporters telling him to get out of the club. Ryan is not a bad goalkeeper; he has won Brighton far more points than he has cost over the past four seasons.
His recent form however has been poor. Even the best goalkeepers in the world go through dips in performance. If it can happen to David De Gea, then it can certainly happen to Maty Ryan.
Potter’s problem is that he does not have anyone to realistically replace Ryan on a long term basis. The way some fans are talking about Sanchez, you would think he is the second coming of Christ but he has played one game above League One level in his life in which he made one save which looked like it was going off target anyway. Chuck him into a Premier League relegation battle and if he struggles, you sap his confidence and potentially ruin his career.
Christian Walton’s pre-season injury was untimely. Had he remained fit, you would have to think he would be starting by now. Once he gets fit again, then perhaps Ryan can be taken out of the firing line and given the chance to rediscover his form. Whatever happens with Ryan, he deserves more respect than Brighton fans are giving him right now.
Ryan did make an excellent stop from Ayoze Perez after Leicester’s opener but it was not long until the Foxes had their second. Justin James was one of the beneficiaries of Rodgers’ formation change as he tore Burn apart down Brighton’s left flank, delivering a low cross which Jamie Vardy swept home.
Leicester made it 3-0 just before half time with more questions to be asked about the defending from Brighton. Vardy and Maddison had far too much time and space to work an opportunity, which Maddison beautifully bent into the top corner. Game over and the Strictly Come Dancing results show over on BBC One had not even finished.
The last time Leicester had led 3-0 at half time of a Premier League game, they went onto beat Southampton 9-0. Thankfully, Rodgers again changed formation at the break, switching to a 4-3-3 as he favoured controlling the game and seeing it out with minimal effort rather than inflicting anymore trauma on the Albion’s full backs.
Games like Leicester away are not where Brighton’s fate this season will be decided. It is what happens in the next two that is crucial. There are only four teams below the Albion in the table and they face two of those in the next week with Wednesday’s trip to Fulham and the Sheffield United home game on Sunday.
Fail to win either of those and we are in big trouble. The 3-0 defeat to Leicester is the first time we have sensed Brighton supporters starting to openly question whether Potter is the right man for the job.
Once doubts begin creeping in amongst a fanbase, a manager need to turn things around and quickly to avoid an avalanche of pressure building.
Potter managed to avoid using his favoured “learn and take the positives” phrase in his Leicester 3-0 Brighton post match interview. He cut a bit of a dejected figure and instead said “we will remain humble in our fight”, as if he were a character in a Charles Dickens novel.
We do not want to remain humble, Graham. We want points on the board to avoid being a Championship club in 2021-22 and the undoing of years of hard work to get us into the Premier League in the first place.
We want results, starting with the not-too-ambitious expectations of beating teams below us in the standings over the next seven days. It is crunch time for the Potter Project.
