Liverpool 3-3 Brighton: Potterball with five shots of espresso
The Roberto De Zerbi Era is here and heart surgeons across Sussex are quaking with fear. For if every game is as breathless, dramatic and enthralling as Liverpool 3-3 Brighton, then there are going to be a lot of bypasses needed by Albion fans over the coming years whose tickers are frayed by the stress of it all.
Not that we weren’t warned. Upon taking the job, De Zerbi said he always wanted his teams to be brave. To take risks. To attack. We saw all of that and some in Liverpool 3-3 Brighton.
That is where differs from Graham Potter. Under Potter, Brighton would often take the safe option. The sideways pass rather than shoot. Keeping possession for possession’s sake.
Between 50 percent possession but no goals was something Potter would consider a good day. Something to learn and take the positives from.
De Zerbi has a very different viewpoint. His primary aim is to score goals, even if that means trying things that may not come off and leaving yourself very open at the back.
It is fast-paced and frenetic. As Guy Mowbray brilliantly put it after Liverpool 3-3 Brighton: “It’s like Potter football with five added espresso shots.” You will never hear De Zerbi saying that Brighton fans shouting shoot is a problem.
Still, it is one thing having such a positive philosophy as De Zerbi. It is quite another being bold enough to deploy it in your first game in charge away from home against opponents who are amongst the best in the league.
Watching the Albion rampage through a shellshocked Liverpool defence in that first half was like stepping back in time to November 2009.
Brighton were meant to have no hope against big-spending, exceptionally talented Southampton when Gus Poyet He Who Must Not Be Named sat in the dugout for the first time.
Poyet You Know Who though did not care for the Saints’ status or reputation. He sent a side out to attack and get a result. That they did, surprising Southampton 3-1. It was the start of one of the best and most enjoyable 18 months periods there has ever been watching Brighton.
An Albion team who scored goals for fun on their way to winning League One. A charismatic manager in the dugout who spoke the language of football and, despite coming from foreign lands, just seemed to understand what it was to be an Seagulls supporter from the moment he arrived. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
When the teams came out at Anfield, it appeared initially as if De Zerbi was going to copy Potter’s playbook by going with the same formation and pretty much the same starting XI.
There was just one change from the 5-2 win over Leicester City three weeks ago. Enock Mwepu had been hospitalised during the international break with a mystery illness. His place was taken by Pervis Estupinan.
De Zerbi’s more attacking approach was evident from the first whistle. It took only four minutes to bear fruit when Leandro Trossard opened the scoring with a wonderfully worked goal.
Alexis Mac Allister and Danny Welbeck linked up with some intricate football on the edge of the Liverpool box. A deft backheel from Welbeck was perfectly placed into the path of Trossard to drill a left footed effort across Alisson Becker which gave Brighton the lead.
1-0 should have become 2-0, 3-0 and perhaps even 4-0 very quickly after that. Welbeck put a header straight at Alisson from a lovely Solly March cross, followed by the Liverpool goalkeeper making good saves from Dat Guy and Trossard.
This was fast turning into the most impressive performance from an Alisson since Alison Hammond danced the American Smooth with Alijaz on Strictly back in 2014.
There was nothing that the Liverpool goalkeeper could do when Trossard did double the Albion’s lead on 13 minutes. March laid a perfectly weighted through ball from a Welbeck pass into the path of Trossard, who drilled again into that right-hand corner of Anfield Road End which he was becoming very fond of.
A penny at his point in time for the thoughts of Graeme Souness, who thought Brighton appointing a Johnny Foreigner like De Zerbi was too much of a risk because he didn’t know English football?
Here were the club Souness made his name at being dismantled by a Brighton side less than 15 minutes into De Zerbi’s time in charge.
Brighton were not letting up. De Zerbi could be seen on the touchline, waving his arms to the back three to push them 20 yards higher up the pitch.
They were inside the Liverpool half, ready and waiting to collect any loose passes and return them back into the attack, if the Reds smashed clear in a desperate attempt to avert the pressure being built by the Albion.
Having your defence positioned so high of course comes with the danger that you might be picked off on the counter. Which is where Brighton under De Zebri are going to cause so much excitement and stress in equal measures.
Robert Sanchez made a big block to deny Mo Salah and a combination of Sanchez and Lewis Dunk then kept out another effort from the second-best Egyptian footballer of all time after Adam El-Abd.
When Liverpool did find a way through, there was no surprise it came from playing on the break. Salah cleverly hooked a ball over the top away from Sanchez and into the path of Roberto Firmino, who fired into the back of the net.
An offside flag initially went up but a quick VAR check cleared the hosts of any wrongdoing and the goal stood, cutting the Albion’s lead to one with 12 minutes of the first half remaining.
Brighton managed to see things out to the break, before flying out the traps again after the restart to create a good chance to make it 3-1.
Moises Caicedo tried to square to Welbeck and Trossard in the middle when he should have gone for goal himself. Something De Zerbi will no doubt be working on with the future Ballon d’Or winner over the coming weeks.
To make that squandered opportunity doubly disappointing, Liverpool broke straight up the other end and equalised. Luis Diaz and Firmino were able to get around Joel Veltman and Dunk, leaving Firmino to fire into Trossard’s favourite first half corner.
Anyone Googling where the 2024 Champions League final is to be held (Wembley) when Brighton sauntered into that 2-0 lead was now quickly looking up where the 2024 Europa League final is to be held (Dublin).
That search became replaced with where the 2024 Europa Conference final is to be held (Athens) when Liverpool took the lead just past the hour mark.
It was a terrible goal for Brighton to conceded. Sanchez dropped one of those massive clangers he seems to produce once a game and this time it was punished.
The Albion number one punched a corner he could have easily claimed straight into the back of Adam Webster for an own goal. The Reds suddenly led and there was a rare bit of noise from home fans around Anfield.
Brighton were clearly starting to tire by this point. That hardly came as a surprise with the intensity that they had played at. Now we know why De Zerbi takes two specialist fitness coaches with him wherever he goes.
On came Karou Mitoma and Adam Lallana to inject fresh legs. The former produced another lively cameo down the left, tormenting Trent Alexander-Arnold.
Mitoma released Estupinan on the overlap, whose cross was met by a powerful Welbeck header brilliantly kept out again by Alisson.
Brighton kept plugging away and they eventually got the goal they deserved with seven minutes remaining, silencing the Liverpool crowd by making it 3-3.
Mitoma left Alexander-Arnold on the floor and crossed to the back post where Trossard was waiting to complete his hat-trick.
In doing so, the Vampire of Genk became the first Brighton play to score a top flight treble since Gordon Smith away at Coventry City 42 years ago.
No visiting player had managed a Premier League hat-trick at Anfield since Andrey Arshavin for Arsenal in that crazy 4-4 draw from April 2009.
Somewhere in West London, Potter and Todd Boehly were watching and plotting a £60 million January bid for Trossard. Brighton need to tie the Belgian maestro down to a new contract as a matter of urgency as he prepares to enter the final 18 months of his current deal.
Sanchez redeemed himself for his part in the third goal with an excellent save from an Alexander-Arnold free kick in the final minute, ensuring it remained Liverpool 3-3 Brighton.
Had that gone in, it would have been harsh on the Albion. They were worthy of at least a point from Anfield for both their performance and their approach, having the confidence to go to Liverpool and take the game to Jurgen Klopp’s side in a manner few other opponents will.
The De Zerbi Era is here. Strap yourselves in and buy some beta blockers, because it is going to be quite the ride.
