Match Review: Aston Villa 2-1 Brighton
What’s the most effective method of winning a game of football? It’s a debate that is had in homes, workplaces and pubs up-and-down the country every night of every week.
Tika taka or gegenpress? Long ball or play out from the back? False 9s, inverted wingers, overlapping centre backs or sweeper keepers? Sometimes, it can be hard to keep up with all the innovative ideas that modern day manager comes up with.
Cut through all the technical terms though and there are some very basic approaches that can help you pick up three points, whether you are Real Madrid in the Champions League Final or the Dog and Duck in Sussex Sunday League Division Five.
One is don’t pick up stupid red cards. The other is do everything you can to avoid conceding goals in the very last minute. At Aston Villa – and not for the first time this season – Brighton were guilty of both and as a result, we’re once again sat here bemoaning another match in which a good performance hasn’t delivered the points it deserved.
This was the Southampton and Burnley home games rolled into one. Just like against the Saints, the Albion were totally dominant in the opening 30 minutes until a completely avoidable red card changed the complexion of the game.
For Florin Andone back then, read Aaron Mooy this time. The Australian midfielder picked up two bookings in the space of five minutes, the first of which saw him give away a free kick and then deliberately block Villa from taking it quickly.
There was little danger from Villa restarting play with a short pass – in fact, they were trying to go backwards towards their central defenders; this therefore wasn’t a tactical yellow card which was a necessary intervention but a booking born out of petulance.
The second was a little more unfortunate, a clumsy tackle on Jack Grealish rather than malicious. But even so, to go to ground minutes after you’ve just been booked to try and win the ball back is a risky manoeuvre which you have to get right. Mooy didn’t and we paid the price.
Still, at least he had the decency to apologise. Mooy took to Instagram after the game to apologise for “ruining your weekends”, a refreshing piece of honesty at a club where we’ve become accustomed to players basking in acclaim on social media but shying away every time something goes badly – we’re looking at your David Stockdale and Kazenga LuaLua with your constant retweeting of every little bit of praise you get, and the three quarters of the squad who went mysteriously quiet on social media between February and May this year.
It was also a far cry from Andone’s response, who told The Athletic that the red card he received for nearly breaking Yan Valery’s leg was harsh. And that it was all the Albion’s fault for not playing him every week anyway.
Mooy’s reaction suggests we’ve got a player with the right attitude on our hands. And we nearly got away with his moments of madness too, right up until the very last minute of time added on. That’s when it became a carbon copy of the Burnley game, some piss-poor game management presenting the opposition with one last chance in the final seconds, which they duly took.
Another similar aspect to the Southampton and Burnley games was that Brighton missed countless opportunities. This has actually been the case across the season as a whole of course and it was no different against Villa.
The game could have been done long before Matt Targett struck at the death had the Albion displayed a little more composure in front of goal.
In addition to those squandered chances, Targett should never really have been in the position to score in the first place. You’ll struggle to find an Albion fan who isn’t enjoying the boldness with which Graham Potter instructs his team to approach every game and for 55 minutes after Mooy was dismissed, we were brave in continuing to try and win it.
Jonathan Pearce on Match of the Day – incredibly, we were on first – said as much when Martin Montoya hit a shot straight at Tom Heaton midway through the second half. “They’re not sitting back Brighton. It’s really refreshing that they’re going for a winner down to 10 men.
Refreshing it is, Jonathan. But sometimes, it’s okay to not want to go forward – like in the 95th minute of a game you’ve given it your all in and can walk away from with a decent point with 10 men.
If you’re Pascal Gross, you don’t need to smash the ball hopelessly forward into the Villa half for Solly March to chase. You could keep it in your possession for 30 seconds and secure a 1-1 draw.
There’s no need to go for it at that point in time. Yet the Albion don’t seem to have fully grasped that there is a time and a place to be brave and a time and a place to be pragmatic. And just like against Burnley, it’s cost us.
It was strange to see Gross making such a poor decision. The German playmaker is one of Brighton’s most intelligent players and that aside from that moment, he was superb against Villa, especially when delivering a pinpoint free kick from which Adam Webster put the Albion 1-0 ahead with his first goal for the club.
That was the least that Brighton deserved for an enterprising start to which Villa had no answer. Aaron Connolly had fired over in the best chance of the opening exchanges before Martin Montoya was fouled some 35 yards out from goal.
Mooy and Gross stood over the ball, the former shaping up to take the set piece before the latter whipped it in and straight onto the head of the towering Webster who nodded across Tom Heaton and in.
It was a wonderfully well worked free kick from the Albion’s two playmakers, an absolute world away from when we had Jurgen Locadia and Gaetan Bong playing rock-paper-scissors to decide who should shoot from a similar position at Leicester City eight months ago.
Gross and Mooy were running the show at this point. Heaton had to save from Neal Maupay and Connolly to prevent Villa falling further behind as Villa looked nearly as baffled by Potter’s 4-2-2-2 formation as Tottenham Hotspur had two weeks before.
And that’s what made Mooy’s dismissal all the more disappointing. Not only did it hand the hosts a numerical advantage, but it cost us one of our most influential players.
It also meant that Villa’s star man in Jack Grealish came into the game more. Before Mooy headed down the tunnel, the hosts’ captain hadn’t had too many opportunities to display his considerable talents as he’d been too preoccupied trying to work out what to do when faced with four blue and white shirts in central areas.
Once Mooy was off, Grealish had the space he needed to starting working some magic. Villa thought they’d equalised two minutes before half time when Conor Hourihane lashed home but VAR ruled the goal out for a foul on Maty Ryan in the buildup.
The reprieve was short lived. Three minutes into first half stoppage time and there was nothing that the video referee could do to rule out Grealish’s sliding finish from Frederic Guilbert’s cross, which somehow avoided Lewis Dunk, Dale Stephens, Ryan, Webster and Montoya. Not exactly convincing defending.
It was Grealish’s third goal in four career appearances against Brighton, marking him out as the heir to Charlie Austin’s crown as the king of scoring against the Albion – you can stick your mortgage on him netting in the return game in mid-January.
Connolly was hauled at half time for March as part of a tactical tweak in reaction to Mooy’s early bath. Villa had plenty more possession in the second 45 but the Albion were dangerous on the counter and that led to pretty entertaining fare.
Ryan made an outstanding save from Hourihane’s powerful effort from 10 yards out. Up the other end and Maupay fired two more good chances into the Holte End rather than the back of Heaton’s goal.
That was the Albion’s record buy‘s last involvement as he was replaced with Steve Alzate, Potter deciding to finish the game with no recognised centre forward on the pitch as March instead went through the middle.
Villa meanwhile had three strikes on by this point but still couldn’t find a way through, Ryan making a fine fingertip save from Keinan Davis as the clock ticked onto 90 minutes.
The game should have been done at that point, but there was still that cruel blow to come in the final seconds. Gross aimlessly booted the ball down field in one desperate attempt to set up a final attack, Villa collected it, broke and Grealish slipped in Targett for the winner.
Another late goal. Another game ended with only 10 men on the pitch. It’s fairly obvious that we could be a very good team if we start cutting out the stupid mistakes. And with back-to-back home games against fellow strugglers Everton and Norwich City to come, the sooner the better.
