Match Review – Brighton 4-1 Swansea City
Glenn Murray, England striker? That prospect doesn’t seem so ridiculous as he added another two goals to his seasons tally in Brighton and Hove Albion’s 4-1 win over Swansea City, taking him onto 10 so far.
Only Harry Kane, Jamie Vardy and Raheem Sterling have more among the top flights English qualified contingent. If Gareth Southgate is watching, he should be looking very closely at getting Murray on the plane to Russia.
Murray is in the form of his life and he quite rightly took the sponsors man-of-the-match award for our biggest win in the Premier League so far. His first came from the spot after Mike Dean made it two penalties in his last two Albion games after Murray was bundled over by Mike van der Hoorn in the box. It’s almost like Magic Mike keeps giving us these big decisions to make up for one catastrophic costly one a couple of years ago or something?
Murray’s second arrived in the second half when he linked up with the outstanding Jose Izqueirdo. Anthony Knockaert added the third after another assist from Pascal Gross with Jurgen Locadia scoring the fourth to make it two goals in two appearances for the Albion’s record signing.
Swansea’s consolation came after Lewis Dunk deflected in Tammy Abraham’s shot, moving Dunk on to four goals of his own this season. He has more than recent England call ups Abraham, Dominic Solanke and Jermaine Defoe. If Southgate fancies some truly out the box thinking, he’ll be taking Dunk as a centre forward as well. He is now tied with Martin Skrtel for the Premier League record of own goals in a season. One more will see him break it outright and given we still have Liverpool to play, it’s pretty likely he will write his name into the history books.
It was unfortunate for Dunk and the difference in quality between the Albion’s back four and the Swansea back line was marked. As early as the fifth minute, Murray was outpacing the Swans defence which is never a good sign given he makes an Eddie Stobart lorry going uphill look like Usain Bolt. It wasn’t just pace Swansea lacked at the back but organisation, composure and any sort of ability which is hardly conducive to staying in the top flight.
Gross, Izquierdo, Knockaert and Murray carved their way through with ease at times and this was the most in control we’ve been of any home game so far this season. It could have been more than four – Murray had a goal disallowed for offside and Shane Duffy hit the bar from a Gross corner while Maty Ryan only had to make one save of any note, doing brilliantly to turn away a Ki Sung-yueng shot from the edge of the box early in the second half.
Carloa Carvalhal was bold in his use of substitutions, he threw on an attacker for a midfielder as early as the 35th minute and had used all his replacement by the time the clock had worked its way to an hour, making Chris Hughton physically sick in the process. Not that it made much difference for Swansea as on this showing they look doomed to relegation, which was all the more strange given they arrived at the Amex on a 10 game unbeaten streak, conceding only three times in the last five of those combined.
We are now on an unbeaten run of our stretching back six games to when Chelsea visited in mid October. The table shows the Albion in 11th spot but really, it is congested in that bottom half that position is irrelevant – its all about points on the board. That’s all the more vital given our ridiculously tough run – we need as many points as possible before the start of April as it is tough to see where many are going to come from after that.
The current total of 31 means we are just three wins away from the magic 40 mark. In terms of teams below us, the victory lifted us 11 points ahead of West Bromwich Albion which, with 10 games remaining, means there will be at least one team below us come the end of the season barring an absolute miracle at the Hawthorns. Its then five points to Stoke City in 19th and four points to Swansea so although we may nearly be in the top half of the table, the relegation zone is still only a defeat or two away.
Beat Arsenal next week – something we are more than capable of doing against a side who will have one eye on their Europa League tie four days later given that that looks their best route into the Champions League – and we’ll nearly be there. It’s about time we knocked off one of the big six (seven games played, no goals from open play scored so far) and a side as notoriously flaky as the Gunners probably represents our best chance yet.
