Sheffield United 1-0 Brighton: The most predictable result of the season
Are you even a Brighton fan if you were not expecting anything other an inevitable 1-0 defeat for the Albion away at Sheffield United?
The Blades have long been doomed to relegation, rock bottom of the Premier League with 26 defeats from 32 matches. Caretaker boss Paul Heckingbottom had failed to take a single point from five games in charge since replacing Chris Wilder, part of a desperate run of six consecutive loses with only one goal scored and 15 conceded.
Brighton in contrast had lost just one of their last five, including an historic first ever point away against European Super League founders Chelsea in midweek.
That little run had put a bit of breathing space between the Albion and the relegation zone, to the point where victory at Bramall Lane would pretty much guarantee another season of top flight football.
To fail to grasp such an opportunity against the worst team in the league was classic Brighton. The Albion can take points off Chelsea and Everton, they can beat Spurs and Liverpool, and yet a Sheffield United side who came into the game with only 14 points on the board proved too good.
We might laugh it off as typical Brighton and fully expect the Albion to get something from The Leeds United, Arsenal and Manchester City over the coming weeks. But for Graham Potter, beating sides lower the down the table is becoming a real Achilles heel in his management.
Brighton have taken one point from Sheffield United, one from West Bromwich Albion and two from Fulham. Thanks to some unhelpful weekend results, those are now the only three teams below the Albion who sit 17th.
At risk of getting a lot of egg on face here, the opinion at WAB Towers is that we will survive. The gap to Fulham and then West Brom should be, barring a remarkable turnaround in either of those sides’ fortunes, too big to bridge.
So Brighton stay up. Potter has five games left to collect at least eight points, which would improve on last season’s tally of 41. He needs to finish higher than 15th to better 2019-20’s finishing position.
Tony Bloom has publicly stated that he wants the Albion to become an established top 10 club. It will happen through gradual, year-on-year progress rather than overnight. No progress or improvement in finishing position and points won might be a bit of a concern to Bloom.
Brighton’s problem is that they will never become a top 10 team unless they can find a way to beat the lesser teams. Any side who set out to defend deep and let the Albion have the lion’s share of possession know that Brighton will struggle to break them down.
This is why all but two of the Premier League victories the Albion have racked up since January 2020 have come in games in which they had less of the ball.
Newcastle United are the honourable exception to the rule, thanks to two ghastly Toon Army performances in our meetings this season. Arguably the most depressing thing about the current table is that Steve Bruce has his side two points ahead of Brighton.
Albert Einstein was quite a wise man and he once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Time and time again, Potter sends Brighton out to dominate possession even though all the evidence points to the fact that Brighton do not win games when they have so much of the ball.
Potter’s reign has thus developed into a bit of a repetitive pattern. The Albion go on a poor run of results whilst recording 60 to 70 percent possession in every game.
They then adopt a more pragmatic approach and points start appearing on the board. That is followed by a return to the possession obsession and another disappointing sequence follows. Repeat over and over again.
The type of opposition of course plays its part too. The good news is that four of Brighton’s last five fixtures are against sides who want to dominate and who the Albion subsequently do well against.
Leeds, Wolves, Manchester City and Arsenal will all happily have more of the ball than Brighton. That means there are points to be had from those matches – okay, maybe not City – and that is another reason to be confident about the Albion’s chances of staying up.
Having more of the ball but losing the game was not the only hallmark of the 2020-21 season on show in Sheffield United 1-0 Brighton. The Seagulls were also terrible in front of goal with Neal Maupay the main culprit.
The French striker was denied twice by Aaron Ramsdale before producing a simply astonishing miss in the second half, hooking the ball over the bar from three yards out after a cross from Alireza Jahanbakhsh.
Maupay being a poor finisher is nothing new. However hard it may be, Brighton need to find a more clinical centre forward for next season to partner Maupay.
Let him do what he is good at – holding the ball up, bringing others in and tiring out defences with his work rate – alongside a striker who can take advantage by converting chances.
To keep burdening Maupay with the responsibility of being chief goal getter is flogging a dead horse and unfair on him, especially as it constantly overshadows the fact that he brings so much else to the party.
Maupay was not the only guilty individual when it came to spurning opportunities. Brighton racked up 17 shots over the 90 minutes but only four of those were on target.
Among the better chances were Adam Webster heading a corner over, Danny Welbeck failing to meet a cross on the stretch, Yves Bissouma being wayward with a couple of efforts from distance which should have at least worked Ramsdale and the United goalkeeper saving easily from Adam Lallana.
Ramsdale had to be alert late on to turn a dipping 25 yard effort from Jose Izquierdo around the post. Yes, you read that right. For the first time in two years, the popular Colombian was on the pitch in a Brighton first team game.
He showed glimpses to suggest he could still be the unpredictable entertainer he was in the 2017-18 season before all his injury woes, not least with that driving run and shot which would have marked a fairy tale return.
Brighton had managed to put the ball in the back of the net on 56 minutes, but typically for the Albion VAR decided to work perfectly for once to rule it out.
A Pascal Gross corner caused chaos a bit of confusion in the box with Jakub Moder eventually turning the loose ball home. Unfortunately, the eagle eyes of Stockley Park spotted that Moder was coming back from an offside position and so the Pole was denied his first goal in Brighton colours.
Whilst not doing much with lots of the ball and failing to hit the target often enough with shots are familiar stories, the only goal in Sheffield United 1-0 Brighton was unusual because it came from a set of defensive errors from the usually trustworthy Albion defence.
Webster looked rusty on Wednesday at Stamford Bridge on his first start since February but the Albion got away with the instances he was loose in possession.
No such luck here; Webster’s heavy touch as United tried to break from an Albion corner played the ball perfectly into space for a home advance on Robert Sanchez’s goal.
Ben Osborn took advantage, crossing into the box where Joel Veltman’s unconvincing clearance was then sliced by Gross straight to David McGoldrick who swivelled on the ball to beat Sanchez diving the wrong way. We are looking forward to someone mocking that up to the Benny Hill theme tune in the not-too-distance future.
It was the most Brighton way to concede in the most Brighton result of the season. Safety could have been assured at Bramall Lane but hey, when have the Albion ever done things the easy way? That is half the fun of it.
We will get across that line at some point in the next five matches. Then it will be down to Bloom to back Potter this summer and Potter to formulate a way to win games of football like Brighton losing 1-0 to already relegated Sheffield United.
Or Brighton losing 1-0 to West Brom despite being awarded two penalties. Or Brighton needing an 87th minute equalise to draw 1-1 at home to Sheffield United who have played for over an hour with 10 men. It has been quite a season.
