Match Review: Brighton 1-0 Everton
Home is where the heart is for Brighton and Hove Albion. Chris Hughton’s side signed off a tremendous 2018 with a 1-0 win over Everton at the Amex, meaning that of the 43 points we’ve collected in this calendar year, 33 of them have come at home.
With a manager as cautious as Chris Hughton, the Albion are never going to be a constant threat on the road. We saw that in the 2015-16 season when, despite clearly being one of the best three sides in the Championship, we still went away from home and prioritised taking a point over winning a game.
All the time our form in Sussex remains this good, it is an approach that works. On paper, beating Everton looked a far-fetched proposition before kick off. In reality, they only really threatened in the final half hour when Marco Silva ended up with four strikers on the pitch and the Albion were somewhat overwhelmed.
Why was beating Everton far-fetched? Well, just eight weeks ago the Toffee’s had destroyed Brighton 3-1 at Goodison Park, giving one of the best attacking displays we’ve seen from an opponent so far this season.
The Albion also had to contend with the absence of Maty Ryan, who is now unavailable until the second week of February while representing Australia at the Asian Cup of Nations.
Ryan has been outstanding since he joined the club from Valencia in the summer of 2017 and hasn’t missed a minute of Premier League football so far. Having David Button – a man who was only a number two in the Championship with Fulham last season – take his place looked a real downgrade.
But we needn’t have worried. Bar one spill of a routine cross in the first half from which he was bailed out by an outrageous block by Shane Duffy after Richarlison shot the loose ball goalwards, Button was excellent.
He made one first half save from point blank range that denied Everton’s Richarlison shortly after that mistake and then produced a magnificent stop in the second half to push the same player’s close-range effort onto the post. On this showing, Brighton look to be in safe hands until Ryan returns.
Button wasn’t the only goalkeeper on form. Jordan Pickford, who received a nice round of applause from the North Stand for his efforts as part of the England side that reached the semi finals of the World Cup this summer, produced an equally impressive reaction save to tip push over Florin Andone’s powerful header from a Pascal Gross free kick.
The only goal of the game arrived on the hour mark and it came from Jurgen Locadia. Initially, the Dutchman’s strike was ruled out for offside by the linesman but eagle-eyed referee Andy Madley spotted that it had taken a deflection off Andre Gomes and so overruled his assistant with the goal standing. One for those on Twitter who ridiculously reckon there is some sort of conspiracy among officials when it comes to giving every possible decision against the Albion.
That was Locadia’s second goal in his past three starts. If he carries on in this sort of form, then we might well need to advertise for a new figure of fun for 2019.
He did of course score in his first two appearances in the stripes before becoming anonymous for the next 10 months so this could yet be another false dawn, but there is no doubt that he looks much more comfortable now he has been pushed out to the left wing by Hughton.
Clearly, Locadia is not a centre forward of the type that the Albion play with, but if he can keep contributing like this from out wide then he might finally begin to justify the tag of the club’s third-most expensive player ever. Makes you wonder why Hughton didn’t shove him out there earlier.
Locadia’s place in the side has come at the expense of Anthony Knockaert, who despite the absence of the injured Jose Izquierdo and Alireza Janhanbakhsh being away with Iran didn’t even make the matchday 18.
After seeing him storm down the tunnel after the 1-1 draw with Arsenal three days previously, something is quite clearly up with Knockaert and if it’s further mental health problems then we can only wish him the best. Given the way that the Albion handled the issue last season, we know they’ll do exactly the right thing by the Frenchman.
Everton piled forward after Locadia’s strike but couldn’t find a way past Button, Duffy or Lewis Dunk. Duffy in particular was excellent, making 11 clearances which was double the next-best total on the pitch. On the one occasion they did manage to beat Button, they couldn’t beat the woodwork as Kurt Zouma’s header rattled the bar.
The visitors frustration at not beating the Albion was evidenced at the final whistle when there were some fantastic handbags. Solly “too weak” March was the man who remarkably started the problems, getting in an altercation after we’d refused to kick the ball out for Bernard to receive treatment as the game entered the final 15 minutes.
That carried on when Mr Madley blew for full time as both Bernard and Richarlison threw their toys out the pram, clearly aggrieved at failing to beat “a team like Brighton.”
It’s been a good year in that regard. Arsenal, Manchester United (twice) and Tottenham Hotspur have all come to the Amex and failed to beat “a team like Brighton.” Everton aren’t the first to not beat “a team like Brighton”, and they won’t be the last.
Roll on 2019.
