Match Review: Charlton Athletic 1-1 Brighton
We’re getting there slowly. Brighton and Hove Albion gave arguably their best performance of pre-season so far, drawing 1-1 with Charlton Athletic in the squads second game of Tuesday.
In the first, played that morning at the training ground in Lancing, they’d been held by the same scoreline by another League One side, Portsmouth. Reports suggested that Pompey were just about the better side. The visitors from down the South Coast could’ve even won without the intervention of the woodwork.
At the Valley, a strong Albion side dominated proceedings and led 1-0 until the 82nd minute. By that point, Chris Hughton had replaced his entire starting XI with under 23 squad players. So in effect, the Albion’s first choice players won the game 1-0.
Among those first choice players was Leon Balogun, making his debut after his World Cup exploits with Nigeria. He partnered Lewis Dunk at centre back and was rarely troubled as the back four and goalkeeper David Button had a relatively comfortable evening.
The Albion dominated possession in the first half, but neither keeper was overworked. Button probably could have sat down in a deck chair with a good book. In fact, there was only one save in the entire first half. That came when Dale Stephen’s defence splitting pass found Richie Towell, but the Irish midfielder could only shoot straight at Dillon Phillips.
Brighton took the lead with the second half just three minutes old. James Tilley, on for the injured Towell, swung over a cross that was met by a bullet header from Glenn Murray. Phillips managed to save that but the loose ball fell straight to last seasons Player of the Year Pascal Gross who fired home.
It took a piece of brilliance from Button to keep the Albion ahead shortly after. We’d heard from Fulham fans that Button’s shot stopping is excellent but not a lot else is – hello, Michel Kuipers version two – and that was evident here with a fantastic triple save to deny Josh Magennis.
Phillips denied both March and Aaron Connolly, who looked lively again after an exciting cameo at AFC Wimbledon at the weekend. Charlton’s equaliser arrived after some sloppy defending from the young Albion replacements allowed Naby Sarr to turn in the box and fire past Hugo Keto, who’d replaced Button.
Keto, Will Collar, Daniel Mandriou and Viktor Gyökeres all appeared at the Valley having earlier played against Porsmouth. Fair play to them – one pre-season game in a summer is enough to put most people off for life or bore them into a coma, let alone two in one day.
