Match Review: Brighton 2-1 Valencia

All things considered, it’s been a relatively successful pre-season campaign for the Albion. Three wins for the first team, one defeat and some promising, positive football played. There are still some glaringly obvious areas of improvement, but it’s been a pretty impressive first month at the helm for Graham Potter.

The visit of Valencia gave the Amex crowd its first look at Potter’s Albion. The Spanish giants finished fourth in La Liga last season, making them the best foreign opposition to visit Sussex for a friendly other than Atletico Madrid who rocked up two years ago.

That Atletico line up was, frankly, ridiculous. Fernando Torres led the line alongside Antoine Griezmann. Jan Oblak was in goal, Lucas Hernandez and Juanfran filled the full back positions and Koke ran the show in midfield.

Valencia don’t pack anywhere near as much star power as Atletico, but they’re still one of the best clubs in Spain. They played what many would consider to be their strongest line up at the Amex, so for the Albion to win 2-1 offers plenty of reason for encouragement, even if we are a couple weeks ahead of them in terms of preparation for the new campaign.

Before kick off there was a rousing reception for Bruno, in whose honour this game was being played. The Albion were donating a percentage of the gate receipts to charities chosen by El Capitan, a great gesture and with over 16,000 coming through the gates at £15 a pop, a significant amount should have been raised.

The club’s generosity wasn’t restricted to money either. Each seat had a complimentary Bruno mask left on it for supporters to wear. Depending on your viewpoint, this was either a brilliant tribute or the stuff of nightmares.

Don’t get us wrong, Bruno is a great looking chap. He wouldn’t have won Sexiest Player of the Year in our WeAreBrighton.com End of Season awards if he wasn’t.

But there’s something very horror movie-esque about 16,000 people all having the same face consisting of a balding head and a bushy beard.

We’ve had reports on our Facebook page (give us a like if you don’t already) of people coming home after the game on Friday night and scaring relatives with these masks.

If you’re of a nervous disposition, the last thing you want at 1am in the morning is to investigate what that noise in your kitchen is, only to be confronted by a Bruno attempting to drunkenly make a cheese sandwich. Realising very quickly that it’s just your partner wearing a mask after one too many San Miguels makes it no less frightening.

Bruno of course isn’t the only link between the Albion and Valencia. The great Vicente played for both clubs and Martin Montoya and Maty Ryan have both made the move from the Mestalla to the Amex in the last two years.

Ryan was beaten against his old club after 28 minutes, although it wasn’t one of his former teammates who scored, but Lewis Dunk with an own goal.

Somebody in the Albion Propaganda Department clearly doesn’t want to lessen Dunk’s value in the eyes of Leicester City as the club have point blank refused to acknowledge that it was the Albion captain who put past his own goalkeeper.

They’ve reported it as being a Rodrigo strike that beat Ryan, but there’s no doubt that it was Dunk’s touch that ensured it ended up in the back of the net.

We’re not sure what the point in denying that fact is. Leicester are hardly likely to turn around and say, “Oh, we saw Dunk scored an own goal in a friendly against Valencia, we’re only willing to pay £35m now”.

Especially as his penchant for scoring own goals – he holds the joint-record for most scored in a Premier League season after all – isn’t exactly unknown.

Another thing that the Albion Propaganda Department seem very keen to get us believing is how Jurgen Locadia has turned into Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo combined over the summer.

“Locadia is thriving under Potter” has become almost as worn-out a phrase as “The undisclosed fee is substantially less than being reported” and “Breaking news brought to you by eToro” over pre-season as the club desperately try to paint him as a player who has suddenly become worth the £14m paid out 18 months ago.

The big question is has he? He certainly looks more lively than he did under Chris Hughton, but then again a rasher of bacon had more life in it than Locadia did at times.

The Dutchman still has much to prove in the Premier League and the jury will be out until he has a run of games under Potter in which to impress.

One man who has nothing to prove is Glenn Murray and it was he who equalised for the Albion seven minutes before the break, earning and then scoring a penalty.

That took Murray’s pre-season haul to three goals in four games and means he finishes the friendly campaign as joint top scorer with Shane Duffy.

It seems remarkable that so many of our fans – particularly the younger ones – continue to write Murray off, even believing Florin Andone to be a better option up front.

Perhaps it’s because Murray is old, perhaps it’s because he doesn’t post exciting updates on Instagram or perhaps it’s because he is a £300,000 signing from Rochdale rather than a multi million pound purchase from abroad announced as breaking news sponsored by eToro.

Whatever the reason, this small section of supporters must be pretty upset that it’s Murray still banging in the goals and Murray who seems to have earned Potter’s trust as his number one forward going into the campaign.

With Potter seemingly favouring a more positive approach, they could be in for a pretty rude awakening as well should the veteran go onto beat his total from last season of 15 goals. Play like he has done when netting against FC Liefering, Birmingham and Valencia and he could well do so.

Especially as he already seems to be developing a good understanding with Locadia and Leandro Trossard in Potter’s 3-4-3 formation.

Trossard in particular looks a real find and if the reception that he got upon his withdrawal was anything to go by, then he’s already well on the way to becoming a firm fan favourite.

For all the talk of how Potter is going to introduce a brave new era of attacking football, it was from our old friend, the set piece, that the Albion’s winner arrived.

Pascal Gross swung over a corner which was met by a bullet header from Duffy. The Albion were one of the best sides in the Premier League last season when it came to attacking set pieces, with the goals we scored from corners and free kicks going a huge way towards keeping us up.

Potter has already stated he’s keen to build on that and the early signs are good, this being Duffy’s third goal. Dunk has also registered one at the right end in that convincing win over Liefering.

We all know just how good Gross’ delivery is and Trossard looks like he can fire in a mean ball as well. With Potter’s new formation offering three burly centre backs to throw forward every time we win an attacking set piece, the prospects of scoring from such situations look good.

Potter’s desire to make the most of set pieces sums up his approach to the job so far really. He’s mixing the most successful aspects of the Hughton era – goals from corners, a solid defence – and trying to add to it with his own ideas – better use of the ball and a back three to allow us to be a little more positive going forward.

Up until this point, it’s worked. But all the excitement garnered by pre-season will count for nothing unless the Albion follow it up in the Premier League.

That starts next week away at Watford. We’re a little bit excited now. Are you?