Match Review: Brighton 1-1 Newcastle United
Well, we’re nearly there. Brighton’s 1-1 draw with Newcastle United means that Cardiff City now have to win their final two games of the season against Crystal Palace and Manchester United in order to stay up. Premier League football next season for the Albion is within touching distance.
In some ways, that is a reason to celebrate. The aim of the game at the start of the campaign was pure and simple survival. Finishing outside of the bottom three therefore represents a successful season and means that Chris Hughton has fulfilled the targets set for him by Tony Bloom.
But let’s not kid ourselves. If we end up playing top flight football in 2019-20, it’s going to be only because Cardiff, Fulham and Huddersfield Town have been a little bit worse than us. Based on a second half of the season in which we’ve won just two league games and scored only 11 goals, even OJ Simpson’s defence lawyer would struggle to make a case for the Albion deserving to stay up.
The first half against Newcastle was as bad as anything we’ve seen at the Amex all season – and let’s be honest, there is no shortage of competition for abysmal halves of football so far. The Albion set the tone for what was to come when they won a free kick in a dangerous position on the edge of the box inside of the opening 10 minutes.
Pascal Gross and Bernardo stood over the ball, but it might as well have been Paul and Barry Chuckle. Rather than test Martin Dúbravka with a shot on goal, they tried some overthought short free kick routine which ended with the ball being passed aimlessly across the Newcastle box to absolutely nobody in blue and white. Here we go again, everybody inside the Amex thought.
With the passing of the 14th minute, the Albion broke new territory by failing to score for 11 hours and 13 minutes for the first time in the club’s history. Four minutes later and Newcastle took the lead, some absolutely woeful defending giving the in-form Ayoze Perez the time and space he needed inside the box to beat Maty Ryan convincingly.
There were so many opportunities to stop the goal happening that it’s hard to know where to start. Paul Dummett picked up the ball at left back and had 30 yards of open space in front of him with no Brighton player feeling the inclination to go and shut him down.
Dummett took full advantage of this and was virtually allowed to walk to the edge of the Albion area, from where he delivered a cross to the back post to Salomon Rondon. Rondon had been left completely unmarked with time to chest the ball back into the middle of the box where Perez – also completely unmarked – arrived to fire home.
You can take your pick of who to apportion blame to for that one. Duffy and Dunk’s marking was non-existent, Dale Stephens could’ve pushed across to stop Dummett advancing and goodness knows where right winger Gross was at that moment in time, but it certainly wasn’t preventing the Newcastle left back from coming forward and crossing.
Ah yes, Gross on the right wing. Before kick off, it looked like an interesting selection. By half time, it had become an absolutely shocking one. In fairness to Chris Hughton, you could see the method behind the madness. Gross is an excellent deliverer of the ball and as David Beckham proved, you don’t need to be quick to play on the right side of a midfield four to be a success, as long as you can pick a pass.
Gross though couldn’t pick a pass for toffee. He’d basically been shoe horned into that position as there was nowhere else for him to go in Hughton’s new 4-4-2, which lasted all of 45 minutes. Florin Andone picked up a typically ridiculous booking in the first 20 minutes and it was only once he was hauled at the interval for Solly March that we did anything going forward.
March’s introduction meant a return to the 4-4-1-1 formation that proved so successful last season, Gross playing off Murray with two out-and-out wingers with Jose Izquierdo the other side to March. Not that the Colombian was much use. The rumour goes that he requires knee surgery this summer and he certainly played like a man whose leg is made of marshmallow.
The Albion squad that won promotion to the top flight 40 years ago were paraded on the pitch at half time and you’d say that despite all of them being in their 60s or 70s now, they’d be more mobile than Izquierdo was. Even manager Alan Mullery at the sprightly age of 77 would have been a better option.
Hughton belatedly realised this in the 66th minute but rather than calling on Mullery, he summoned Anthony Knockaert who was available again after serving a three game ban for that ridiculous red card in the 5-0 defeat to Bournemouth. The game could have been gone by this point, Bruno somehow getting away with a shove in the box on Rondon in the first half which looked like it should have been a penalty. Maty Ryan saved superbly at the feet of Fabian Schar and the Albion’s cause was certainly helped when Perez limped off injured.
Brighton mustered their first shot just after Knockaert’s introduction when March’s low close was nearly flicked on by Gross before Dúbravka gathered. An effort on target seemed like a worthwhile cause for celebration but things got even better shortly after when, after 12 hours and 15 minutes, the Albion finally scored a goal.
Whisper it quietly so as not to upset all the Stephens haters out there, but it was a brilliant raking pass from the midfielder that started the move as he switched the play out to the right. Bruno and Knockaert interchanged passes with the Albion captain delivering a cross which Murray rose highest to head goalwards towards Gross.
There was still a lot to do, but do it the German playmaker did, nipping between Dummett, Federico Fernandez and Dúbravka to head home. The relief in the home sections was palpable at ending a run without scoring that was nearly as long as a Leonard Cohen song. The question now was, could the Albion go on and win the game to all but guarantee safety?
No was the answer to that, but they really should have done in the very last minute. Knockaert sent a teasing cross in for Murray who, four yards out from goal, had two options. He could either head it into the empty net with Dúbravka stranded at the front post or duck out the way and let Dunk head in from an even better position.
Instead, he took the third option which was to head over the bar. It was a glaring miss and one that hopefully won’t come back to haunt a man who has done more than most with his goal scoring exploits this season to ensure that we’re in a position to potentially stay up, despite stinking the shop out since January rolled around.
“Brighton have rediscovered their identity. It’s been something like the old Brighton from the first half of the season,” Jonathan Pearce said on the Match of the Day commentary. There’s absolutely no coincidence that was because Hughton went back to 4-4-1-1 with Gross off Murray and March and Knockaert wide. No Alireza Jahanbakhsh. No Jurgen Locadia masquerading as a winger. The blueprint that kept us up comfortably last season proved to be the blueprint that won us the point which might keep us up this time around.
Serious, serious questions need to be asked about what has happened in this second half of the season, whether Hughton is the right man for the job and just how the recruitment team have managed to find less value in the transfer market than shares in a care home fronted by Harold Shipman would be worth.
Right now though, we’re close to that pre-season target of survival. Get there and we can raise a smile and a big sigh of relief. Then the real business starts.
