Match Preview: Brighton v one point from 13 games Sheffield United

Long standing Brighton & Hove Albion fans do not need this match preview to tell them exactly what is coming with the visit of Sheffield United.

The Blades arrive at the Amex having made the worst start to a top flight season of any side ever in the history of English football. They are yet to win this season and have a solitary point from 13 games having already been beaten by 12 of the Premier League’s 19 other clubs.

All of which means that it is perfectly set up to finish Brighton 0-1 Sheffield United. You just know it.

Sheffield United this season
The most fascinating aspect of the Blades’ terrible start to the campaign is that it is chalk and cheese when compared to how they performed on their return to the Premier League in 2019-20. With their overlapping centre backs, Chris Wilder’s side spent much of the season in contention for a European spot.

When talks were ongoing about how football might resume after lockdown and Brighton were against neutral venues, United fans were some of the most vocal in saying the Albion should be automatically relegated for not wanting football to restart immediately.

They felt Paul Barber and co wanted the season stopped because we were too scared of going down, not because surrendering home advantage would change the dynamics of the competition and threaten its integrity with nine games left to play. Blades supporters said Brighton were trying to derail their bid for Champions League football .

Fast forward 10 months and there is no talk of the Champions League; United have an impossible looking battle on their hands to stay out of the Championship. They did not score many goals last season with their lofty eighth place finish coming largely because of a rock solid defence.

That backline has been hit by injuries and a loss of form, meaning that United are suffering from a fatal flaw of conceding too many at the same time as not being able to score. They have only put the ball in the back of the net seven times so far and two of those have been penalties.

Second season syndrome was always a risk once the rest of the Premier League worked out how to deal with overlapping centre backs, but this goes beyond that. It is a perfect storm of circumstances which has led the Blades to claim that unwanted record.

Recent form
United’s solitary point so far this season came against Fulham on Sunday 18th October. Their last eight games have all ended in defeat, although one of the few positives Wilder and has players can take from that run is that they have not really been hammered in any of those matches.

Only two of their 12 fixtures have seen them lose by more than two goals; a 4-1 defeat away at Chelsea and a 3-0 loss at Southampton. Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Leicester City just slip past the Blades by one goal, so it is not like they are miles worse than anyone else in the division and getting thrashed every week.

Brighton’s form has not been great either. Two wins from 13 and the failure to beat any of the four sides below them in the table. Games at the Amex in 2020 have been about as joyous as getting your testicles caught in a bear trap with Graham Potter delivering just one win this calendar year at home and no victory in 10 since beating Arsenal 2-1 back in June.

Brighton v Sheffield United head-to-head
There have been 29 meetings between Brighton and Sheffield United since the sides first encountered each other in the first round of the FA Cup in the 1921-22 season.

The Albion won 1-0 that day through a Wally Little goal to pull off a huge bit of giant killing, since when games against the Blades have hardly been fruitful – especially in recent times

United have won 13 and Brighton nine matches with seven draws. You have to go back 11 fixtures to May 1987 to find the last time that Sheffield United tasted defeat in Sussex.

Danny Wilson and Terry Connor scored in a 2-0 win for Barry Lloyd’s Brighton, their final three points of the 1986-87 which ended in relegation from the second tier.

Brighton’s head-to-head record with Sheffield United

Last six meetings
• Sheffield United 1-1 Brighton (Premier League, 22/02/20)
• Brighton 0-1 Sheffield United (Premier League, 21/12/19)
• Sheffield United 3-1 Brighton (Championship, 21/01/06)
• Brighton 0-1 Sheffield United (Championship, 13/09/05)
• Sheffield United 1-2 Brighton (Championship, 15/01/05)
• Brighton 1-1 Sheffield United (Championship, 02/10/04)

Looking at this section of our Brighton v Sheffield United match preview and it is mad to think that February game happened just a month before the entire country was put into lockdown.

There were balloons to celebrate the Albion players being caught on camera inhaling something in a Spanish bar, a Neal Maupay goal in one of the better away performances of 2019-20, and a lot of beer drunk and a lot of people spoken to in many of the Steel City’s great pubs. A different world. Hopefully, one day soon we can get back to that.

We will gloss over the rest of Brighton’s recent record against United as it is pretty ghastly, bar Leon Knight’s last minute winner at Bramall Lane in 2005.

Team news
Potter confirmed in the aftermath of Wednesday night’s 0-0 draw at Fulham that Robert Sanchez would keep the goalkeeper’s shirt. Other Brighton related team news we can tell you in our Sheffield United match preview is that Tariq Lamptey is a slight doubt with a knock (bugger) and Jose Izquierdo has suffered a hamstring injury as his nightmare three seasons goes on (double bugger).

Potter has made some bizarre team selection decisions during Brighton’s barren run of home form. Liverpool came to the Amex and he named all of Neal Maupay, Danny Welbeck and Aaron Connolly in the starting XI.

Compare playing three out-and-out centre forwards against the champions to using Ben White as a central midfielder in home games against Burnley and West Bromwich Albion, one of four central defenders Potter crammed into his line up.

What will we see against the Blades? Three right backs and Jason Steele up front probably, even though the obvious thing to do would be to stick with the side who earned a point at Fulham and hope they can take that 20 minute period of dominance at the start of the second half and translate it into 90 minutes.

Sheffield United’s key players
Long time Brighton target Sander Berge has made a real impression at Bramall Lane since signing for United in January. Blades fans seem almost resigned to the fact that he will be leaving by next summer, even if they manager to survive as the big six are taking a real interest in the Norwegian.

The good news for the Albion then is that Berge is a serious injury doubt. So too Oliver McBurnie, who bullied Lewis Dunk and Adam Webster in the corresponding fixture last season.

They are the two players that Brighton would be most fearful of, so their potential absences provide a real boost. United still do have Billy Sharp, who might be out to prove a point at the stadium were he was famously murdered by a Dunk tackle whilst a Doncaster Rovers player in 2011, only to perform a Jesus-like resurrection and be back in the Donny first team six weeks later.

The betting value for Brighton v Sheffield United
Even forgetting for a minute the fact that Brighton have a long and glorious history of losing these exact types of games against sides out of form and the 47/10 on offer on United looks massive.

The Albion have won once at home in 2020 and only five Premier League matches this calendar year. As already noted in our preview, Sheffield United are not being hammered so they are still competitive at least and there is no reason to think that will not be the case against Brighton.

After their draw with Fulham and loss to West Bromwich Albion, you can even make a case that this is their third most winnable fixture of the season so far.

A tenner on Sheffield United and nearly £50 in profit might make the sight of Potter saying he will learn and take the positives after Brighton inevitably end up losing 1-0 a lot more palatable.

An interesting subplot
Most preview pieces ahead of Brighton v Sheffield United will have focussed on the Blades’ record setting run of form. But Potter too is approaching an unwanted piece of history as the Albion trundle towards their longest run of home games without a victory.

Failure to beat United will mean that it is 11 matches without a home win. The club record stands at 12, set during that ghastly 1997-98 season when Brighton only survived relegation out of the Football League because Doncaster Rovers were somehow worse.

Ominously for the Albion and Potter, that particular barren run was only ended once Dick Knight took the difficult decision to sack the popular Steve Gritt. In came Brian Horton and the former club captain oversaw a 3-2 success against Chester City in his first game in charge.

A good WeAreBrighton.com memory of Sheffield United at home
Brighton have never beaten Sheffield United at home in the lifetime of anyone at WAB. The Blades’ 2002 visit to Withdean was a good memory though if you like it when normally sane and reasoned people completely lose their minds.

Take Ivor Caplin, MP for Hove for example. Brighton had just gone down to a controversial 4-2 defeat to Neil Warnock’s United with referee Phil Prosser awarding the visitors two penalties in the final four minutes.

Mr Caplin was so incensed that he took to the airwaves and said that Mr Prosser should be banned from refereeing and placed under investigation for corruption.

Mr Prosser then filed a complaint that he and Sheffield United’s Peter Ndlovu had been racially abused at the full time whistle, something which neither Ndlovu, anyone who was at Withdean or the FA investigation into the event could find any evidence of.

It appeared as though Mr Prosser had made the whole thing up to deflect from his pretty shocking performance. Quite an afternoon at the Theatre of Trees.

A bad WeAreBrighton.com memory of Sheffield United at home
McBurnie v Webster last season. Please, do not let there be a repeat of that.

Sheffield United’s most famous fan
Sean Bean. The greatest actor that England has ever produced.

Prediction
In the past six years, we have seen Brighton lose 1-0 against a Birmingham City side without a home win in nine months. They have lost 2-1 against a Wigan Athletic side without a home win in nine months.

And they became the first opponents Alan Pardew managed to beat as West Bromwich Albion manager after over 20 games in charge at the Hawthorns.

We can all see what is happening here. As we said right back at the start of this preview, it has Brighton 0-1 Sheffield United written all over it.