Match Review: Brighton 0-1 Liverpool

There cannot be a more detestable set of football supporters in the world than those who follow Liverpool.

They are of course the fans who famously set up a petition asking for Sergio Ramos to be banned for having the nerve to tackle Mo Salah in the Champions League Final.

They were at it again a week ago, starting another petition demanding a review of the accuracy of goal line technology after John Stones made a brilliant clearance just 1.12cm before the ball crossed the line in the Reds’ 2-1 defeat to Manchester City.

When Liverpool lose, it’s always someone else’s fault. Never is it because they’ve played badly or because they are up against better opponents or because their goalkeeper is not very good. Loris Karius making two catastrophic mistakes against Real Madrid? Must have been because a nasty Real player gave him a concussion and nothing to do with the fact he’s shit.

Conversely, if Liverpool win via luck or having every decision go their way, there’s no acknowledgement that they’ve had a helping hand from the referee. It’s just a mad rush to justify how the officials did in fact get every single decision right and how the Reds 100% deserved victory.

Liverpool fans take being blinkered to a whole new level. Most football supporters can admit when their side has got lucky. They can hold their hands up and say, “Do you know what, the referee made some terrible decisions in our favour today.”

We’ve had it this season. Whisper it quietly, but Crystal Palace were on the end of some pretty terrible refereeing when they visited the Amex, even if it was the Albion who had to play for over an hour with 10 men.

Every time Brighton have played Fulham over the last three or four years they’ve been far and away the better side but we always seem to take something. No shame in admitting that – actually, it’s quite funny. Keith Hill was so biased against Watford when the Hornets visited the Amex in the 2013-14 season that he was actually voted into second place in our WeAreBrighton.com October 2013 Player of the Month poll.

There’s more chance of Shergar turning up alive and well than there is of Liverpool fans admitting they’ve had a helping hand. We saw that on Saturday as Reds supporters failed to acknowledge that every little 50-50 decision went their way, including an astonishing four handballs given against the Albion in the first half alone.

Shane Duffy gets taken out by a late challenge and it is get up and play on. Liverpool player feels a slight breeze against his back and falls over, free kick. On and on it went all afternoon, Craig Friend – ironically the referee we had for the 3-1 win over Palace – giving every 50-50 the way of the visitors.

It was particularly frustrating as every time the Albion made inroads into the Liverpool half, Mr Friend would find some offence that we’d apparently committed to halt the move and stop any attacking momentum that might have been building. You know it’s bad when Chris Hughton, one of the more reflective managers who rarely criticises referees, felt the need to highlight the inconsistencies in his post match interview.

Ironically, one of the few decisions that Mr Friend did get right was the penalty from which Mo Salah scored the only goal of the game. Salah may have gone to ground like a cartoon character who has slipped on a fruit peel, but Pascal Gross had his arms all over him and if you do that in the box, you’re playing a risky game.

That was one of only three shots on target all afternoon and all those efforts came from Liverpool. The Reds also had over 71% of possession which can be looked at two ways – either the Albion weren’t positive enough in their outlook or we did brilliantly in a defensive sense to go down to only a penalty against the league’s best front three.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Liverpool arrived at the Amex in the middle of a defensive crisis with one time-Brighton target Virgil van Dijk their only fit centre back. As a result, Jurgen Klopp had to play Fabinho out of position as an emergency defender alongside the Dutchman.

Hughton quite rightly set up to play on the counter, but if you play on the counter you need pace in the final third.

Glenn Murray’s selection ahead of Andone was a strange one then and it was little surprise that it was only once the Romanian was introduced that the Albion looked something of a threat, Andone’s teasing cross that was just about flicked away by Trent Alexander-Arnold with Jurgen Locadia lurking in the box being one of Brighton’s better chances.

Murray managed just seven touches in the first half and it was a real shame that we weren’t able to put more pressure on a Reds defence with such unfamiliarity in it. There is obviously a balance to be struck between going forward and leaving yourself open against opponents who stuck five past us at the Amex last season, but with Andone leading the line we’d have stood a greater chance of testing a makeshift defence.

At the other end, Duffy and Lewis Dunk were again magnificent, Martin Montoya and Gaetan Bong gave solid performances in the full back positions and David Button in goal didn’t put a foot wrong. The potential Cuban Missile-size crisis many of us envisioned with Maty Ryan away at the Asian Cup of Nations is yet to materialise.

The fact that over the course of 180 minutes against Liverpool so far this season, Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mané and Salah have managed just one goal from open play tells you everything you need to know about the Albion’s defensive qualities.

Watching those three and the rest of Klopp’s brilliant attack-minded side should be a joy, but it’s all rather tempered by those fans of theirs. They were unbearable on Saturday after a 1-0 win via a penalty against opposition whose entire starting line up collectively cost less than Allison, their goalkeeper. God only knows what they will be like if they win the league. The rest of the footballing world will probably have to go into hiding to escape it.

And if they don’t manage to win the title and blow a seven point lead in the process? It will be someone else’s fault. Obviously.