Match Preview: Brighton travel The Leeds United in Ben White Derby
It was hard not to become overrun with emotion whilst writing this match preview for The Leeds United v Brighton & Hove Albion.
The first Ben White Derby of the season gives us Seagull supporters the honour and thrill of seeing our small team take on the might of the world’s biggest football club.
How lucky, lucky we are to get the opportunity to see the Seagulls go toe-to-toe with the 1992 Division One champions.
The Leeds United this season
This is The Leeds United’s first campaign in the Premier League for 16 years. Their supporters were as down-to-earth and realistic as you would expect before the season got underway, with a large number genuinely believing that a top six finish ahead of much more established top flight clubs was a formality.
Things haven’t worked out quite as well as those The Leeds United fans hoped as, unsurprisingly, the Premier League does not care that Leeds won the league title 29 years ago or that they can now nearly sell out Elland Road after many years of it being half empty in the Championship and League One.
The Leeds United have won just seven of the 17 games, sit 12th in the table and have conceded an alarming 33 goals – only West Bromwich Albion have let in more.
They are however the first ever team to play attacking football, judging by the way that pundits go crazy about the approach Marcelo Bielsa takes to matches.
I nearly choked on my hummus last Sunday lunch time watching The Leeds United against Crawley Town when Jermaine Beckford said that The Leeds United had become English football supporters’ second-favourite team because of their swashbuckling approach. It was the biggest amount of nonsense anyone has spoken since Boris Johnson’s world leading test and trace system.
Recent form
Bielsa’s achievements in winning promotion from England’s second tier and having The Leeds United in the bottom half of the Premier League were recognised back in December when he finished in the top three at the FIFA Coach of the Year Award.
Since that day, the Peacocks have won two and lost three of their five matches with the third best manager on the planet being hammered 3-0 in the FA Cup last weekend by Crawley and their boss, John Yems. The one-time Horsham player-manager must surely have put himself in contention for FIFA Coach of the Year 2021 with that victory.
Brighton do not exactly come into the Ben White Derby in the best of form themselves. The Albion are now the proud owners of the longest winless run in the Premier League, although the last two league matches have been decent enough.
Graham Potter picked a surprisingly sensible team against Manchester City, which then gave their oil-rich hosts a bit of a fright before losing 1-0.
Coming back from 3-1 down at half time to draw 3-3 with Wolves in the previous game showed that the Seagulls do still possess some fight after several weeks in which a lack of desire was more troubling than poor performances.
Brighton v The Leeds United head-to-head
Now you might want to sit down before reading this section of our The Leeds United v Brighton preview. The Peacocks may be the biggest club in the world and all that and they did finish runners up in the 1996 League Cup, but in 45 games against the Albion they have only managed two more victories than Brighton.
Leeds have won 18 times with the Seagulls on 16 and 11 matches ending in draws. Games between the two have only become a regular thing this century across the Championship and League One and in the Amex Era, the Ben White Derby has become of the most entertaining fixtures around.
There are always goals and usually late drama. Six of the last 12 have featured last minute strikes to either wrest a point or take all three and red cards have become commonplace with four across the same time period.
Brighton’s head-to-head record with The Leeds United
Last six meetings
• The Leeds United 2-0 Brighton (Championship, 17/03/17)
• Brighton 2-0 The Leeds United (Championship, 09/12/16)
• Brighton 4-0 The Leeds United (Championship, 29/02/16)
• The Leeds United 1-2 Brighton (Championship, 17/10/15)
• Brighton 2-0 The Leeds United (Championship, 24/02/15)
• The Leeds United 0-2 Brighton (Championship, 19/08/14)
What has happened in the last six meetings between Brighton and the Champions of Europe may also come as something of a shock. The Albion have been victorious in five of them, part of an impressive run of form which reads eight wins, two draws and just two defeats against The Leeds United in the last 12.
Even Sami Hyypia managed to lead Brighton to three points over the biggest club in the world with a 2-0 success back in the 2014-15 season. Sami Hyypia!
Team news
Potter made several changes for the game at Manchester City, which pointed to him having one eye on the much more winnable trip to Elland Road. Neal Maupay and Solly March were rested at the Etihad and Brighton will also be boosted by the return of Yves Bissouma from suspension.
The way in which the Albion approached their game with City should provide a blueprint for playing against The Leeds United. Brighton were content to have less of the ball but try and do more with it when they had opportunities to play on the break.
Everyone knows that The Leeds United under Bielsa pour forward, almost recklessly at times. If Potter is again willing to abandon his obsession with possession and adopt a more pragmatic approach, then the pace of Percy Tau in particular running into the wide open spaces which the Peacocks leave could give Brighton a lot of joy.
This is Potter though that we are talking about. Tau will probably be benched, Jason Steele will be on the right wing and he will play Pascal Gross as a lone striker.
The Leeds United’s key players
One thing you can say about Bielsa is he has found away to get the best of Patrick Bamford. The striker has always been talented, but nobody thought that he would thrive in the Premier League to the point where he has 10 goals already this season.
The Leeds United have a fine track record when it comes to producing homegrown players and Kalvin Phillips is the latest off their production line to become a full England international.
He is one of Bielsa’s most trusted lieutenants and epitomises what this Peacocks side are all about, although we are old enough to remember him having a shocker and getting sent off inside of 23 minutes when The Leeds United last came to the Amex.
The betting value for The Leeds United v Brighton
You have to go back nine matches to find the last time that The Leeds United v Brighton ended in a draw and the Peacocks have been involved in just two stalemates all season – so guess what our preview is advising betting on?
The draw. Nobody needs any reminder how difficult Brighton have found it to win matches this season. They are the division’s draw specialists and have come away with a point from similar away games against the likes of Crystal Palace, Fulham and West Ham United.
Strangely, the bookies have a Seagulls win down as more likely than a draw, which you can back at 14/5. The Lion of Judah to score anytime is 3/1 for anyone after a licence to print money.
An interesting subplot
The Ben White factor is not so much a subplot as likely to dominate the entire coverage of The Leeds United v Brighton – this is the Ben White Derby Match Preview after all.
Brighton sent White to The Leeds United last season so that he could gain experience of the Championship. It was all part of a carefully planned development path after similar spells learning the ropes in League Two with Newport County and League One with Peterborough United.
Not that The Leeds United fans could grasp this concept. They thought that they had some sort of divine right to keep White and that it was a formality for Brighton to sell to them, which made the inevitable of Tony Bloom turning down three bids for the defender all the more hilarious as the protests and dismay from Yorkshire became more hysterical with each failure.
Amazingly, not even the hashtag #FreeBenWhite could convince Bloom to sell, nor was White willing to go on strike or try and sue Brighton as some Peacocks fans thought he should in order to move to the world’s biggest club.
A good WeAreBrighton.com memory of The Leeds United away
Despite The Leeds United being the greatest team the world has ever seen, Brighton have enjoyed a fair amount of joy at Elland Road in the last decade as part of their impressive record against the Peacocks, which we have already covered in the preview.
Both the 2011-12 and the 2012-13 seasons saw the Albion snatch injury time winners in 2-1 victories. The former is probably bettered remembered as it saw Alan Navarro score the only goal of his Brighton career, but we actually preferred the following year’s win.
It was an astonishing game which had it all. Brighton went 1-0 up inside of 10 minutes through Will Buckley, Rodolph Austin was sent off after just 13 minutes and Inigo Calderon then joined him when bringing down El-Hadji Diouf in the box with 15 left to play.
Diouf dusted himself down, scored the penalty to make it 1-1 and then produced a ridiculous celebration as he ran towards the Brighton fans grabbing his testicles and pointing to his bottom.
He was sent off as a result, paving the way for a Leonardo Ulloa winner with just 60 seconds remaining. Not only was the football entertaining, but the three points confirmed Brighton’s place in the Championship playoffs and we had a bloody incredible night out in Leeds afterwards.
A bad WeAreBrighton.com memory of The Leeds United away
Our last visit to Elland Road resulted in a rare defeat as a double from ex-Albion striker Chris Wood looked like it had blown the promotion race wide open with a month of the season left to play.
The Leeds United’s supporters certainly thought so as 29,767 sang “You’ll **** it up” at the end of the game in reference to Brighton’s chances of becoming a Premier League side.
Instead, Chris Hughton’s Albion won their next five games in a row to secure promotion with three matches still to play. Leeds meanwhile won just won of their last eight, blowing an eight point gap to tumble from fourth to finish outside of the playoffs. Lol.
The Leeds United’s most famous fan
Russell Crowe is the man who most people think of when naming the most famous fan of The Leeds United, but an equally good actor who has become a big part of British culture is Sid Owen, best known for playing RICKAAAAAAAAAAY in EastEnders.
Prediction
We nailed our betting colours to Brighton drawing with The Leeds United and that is what we will stick, rounding off our Ben White Derby preview by predicting a 1-1 draw.
