Match Review – Brighton 1-1 Tottenham Hotspur
Was Brighton and Hove Albion’s 1-1 draw with Tottenham Hotspur our most impressive points of the Premier League season so far? We think so.
There are a couple of other games you could make a case for. The 3-0 win away at West Ham United was hugely enjoyable and as well as the Albion played that day, we were helped by the Hammers being absolutely abject. Likewise Arsenal at home. Big name they may be, but the Gunners this season are a shadow of their former selves. They could yet finish below Burnley – who we were disappointed not to beat at home – and arrived at the Amex having lost their previous three games and with one win in seven league games on the road. Really, it would have been more of a shock if we hadn’t beaten Arsenal.
Spurs though were different. They may have rested a couple of players with one eye on Saturday’s FA Cup Semi Final with Manchester United, but they still sent out a side containing the likes of Christian Eriksen, Eric Dier and Harry Kane. They had the second best away record in the division, second only to Manchester City, and had dropped just nine points from a possible 42 since the turn of the year.
Yet for 90 minutes at the Amex there was little between the sides. This was an intense roller coaster of a game the likes of which you simply don’t get in any other division. Both sides were hammer and tongs for it, hard but fair and both teams could’ve quite feasibly had a claim to all three points.
For Spurs, Son Heung-min was denied only by a world class save from Maty Ryan right at the end of the first half. There are probably only a handful of goalkeepers in the Premier League who could’ve kept the South Korean’s low, hard and venomous strike out but Ryan had both the reactions and the strength of wrist to do it. For all the talk of Lewis Dunk or Shane Duffy attracting offers from bigger clubs, Ryan must be the player we are in must danger of attracting offers for – especially given the goalkeeping issues suffered by teams such as Liverpool and Arsenal further up the food chain. A gentle reminder here that we paid £5m to sign him. Five. Million. Pounds. Outrageous.
The visitors best other chance came from Duffy who nearly succeeded in turning Eriksen’s cross in, the ball flashing just the wrong side of the post. As for the Albion, Dunk went close with a header and a deflected Knockaert effort ended up being more comfortable than it looked for Hugo Lloris. We’ll always wonder what might have been at the end when Ryan claimed a corner and launched a drop kick up field. Substitute Solly March looked set to race away with only the open road between him and Lloris, only for Kevin Friend to blow his whistle with Beram Kayal down clutching his head in our box. A poor decision from a referee who was otherwise excellent and he seemed to acknowledge that at the end.
Kayal’s face was just one part of his body that took a battering, the other being his testicles after he put them to good use to block two second half shots on the space of 30 seconds. Not since there was that bloke on the Jeremy Kyle show who had fathered 18 different children with 13 different women has a pair of bollocks worked so hard.
It was hard work all over the pitch that ground out the result. Kayal covered every blade of grass, Glenn Murray made Toby Alderweireld look like a bloke who hasn’t played since October by outpacing him at one point, Pascal Gross was twisting and turning this way and that in a whirl of blue and white, Anthony Knockaert’s three game ban has not only given him the chance to collect all the toys from his pram but also return at approaching his best and Bruno defied his 37 years on his return at right back. Before kick off, that seemed almost like a token change as something had to be done after the back four’s horror show at Selhurst Park but by full time it looked an inspired move.
The only negative of note was again a completely preventable goal conceded. It started with a sloppy Kayal pass, Bong looking like a man who’d been smoking too much out of his namesake when making a right hash out of retrieving the situation and Ryan then failing to stop the advance of Son who crossed low for Kane. There was another chance to stop the ball on its route to goal but it would’ve been asking a lot for Bruno to keep Kane’s finish out and indeed, he only succeeded in helping it in.
Luckily, the response was instant and virtually from kick off the Albion were awarded a penalty which Gross stepped up to fire straight into the bottom corner. German’s don’t miss from 12 yards.
Against top class opposition, the Albion never let their heads drop and by full time, Spurs knew they’d been in a battle. Had we have played 50% as well as this against Palace on Saturday, we’d have won at Selhurst. That was perhaps the only frustrating thing to come out of last night, knowing that we were so abject and looked so uninterested against our arch rivals, and then the players can deliver a performance like that.
Guess that’s what you call typical Brighton.
