Will Brighton hold over Old Gold extend to FA Cup?
Everyone must know about the hoodoo Brighton have when it comes to Wolverhampton Wanderers by now. That Wolves only ever beat the Seagulls once in a blue moon in the bread and butter of league football.
The clubs have meet 42 times in top flight and second tier. Wolves have won just six of those meetings. What makes this record even more remarkable is that Wolves have finished above the Albion in the football pyramid in 107 of the 123 seasons in which Brighton have existed.
They have traditionally been the bigger and better club, yet always seem to come unstuck when facing the Seagulls – even if a sizeable and obvious gap in quality exists between the teams.
Albion are to Wolves what Sean Dyche is to the Albion, to put it in terms relevant from the 1-1 draw with Everton at the weekend when the gravelly voiced Toffees boss extended his unbeaten streak at the Amex to 11 years.
The question as Brighton head to Molineux in the fifth round of the FA Cup then is does this hold over the Old Gold extend to the world’s greatest cup competition?
We have only a small sample to work from, with one previous FA Cup meeting. That was way back in January 1979, when top flight Wolves made the trip to the Goldstone Ground to face Alan Mullery’s promotion pushing Albion.
Four months later and Brighton would successfully take their place in Division One for the first time ever. They were unable to cause an upset against the Old Gold, however, going down to a 3-2 defeat. Gerry Ryan and Mark Lawrenson scored the goals for the Albion.
Look beyond what has happened in the past and the strange series of results between Brighton and Wolves these past 50-odd years and this looks to be a game offering the hosts an excellent opportunity for a rare downing of the Seagulls.
Wolves have almost a full squad to chose from. Brighton in contrast arrive in the Black County without any available centre forwards, only one fully fit winger and a huge question mark over who starts in midfield with Billy Gilmour suspended.
The answer to that final conundrum is likely to be one of Jakub Moder or Carlos Baleba. Gilmour’s absence – whilst problematic – does at least create an opportunity for either of those underutilised players to stake a claim for more regular involvement between now and the end of the season.
As for the whole striker thing, well, good luck Mister Roberto De Zerbi. Ansu Fati as a false nine? Julio Enciso as a false nine? A full debut for Mark O’Mahony? Glenn Murray out of retirement? Ask Gregg Wallace to take a week off presenting MasterChef?
The absence of Kaoru Mitoma is certain to be keenly felt, too. Quite what the Albion were doing playing Mitoma for 70-odd minutes at Sheffield United if he was already suffering with a back injury, goodness knows.
For all the talk of rotten luck through the constant injury crisis that has been the 2023-24 season, if Brighton have indeed contributed towards Mitoma missing the rest of the season, then this one is a mess partly of their own making.
De Zerbi has not been shy about his ambition for the FA Cup this season. To right the wrongs and banish the memory of last April’s painful penalty semi final shootout defeat against Manchester United.
So far, so good. Two potential banana skin ties away at Stoke City and Sheffield United have yielded two wins and nine goals scored.
Wolves though would have provided a much sterner test of the Albion, even if Brighton went to Molineux at full strength. To be Black Country bound with so many absentees makes the task of reaching the quarter finals doubly difficult.
Under Gary O’Neil, the Old Gold have improved beyond recognition from the side Brighton hammered 4-1 on their previous visit to Wolverhampton back in August.
Wolves looked like relegation fodder that day. A summer of chaos in which they made so few signings that Julen Lopetegui quit as manager a couple of days before the campaign kicked appeared to have taken a huge toll.
Not only has O’Neil steadied the ship, but he has the Old Gold thriving. They are only one point behind the Albion in seventh and will fancy their chances of progressing past threadbare Brighton into the last eight of the FA Cup.
From there, anything is possible. Little wonder some are suggesting O’Neil could land the Liverpool job this summer if the Redmen fail to snare Xabi Alonso or De Zerbi. O’Neil previously worked at Anfield as part of the Under 23s management team.
Seagulls supporters saw the improvement in Wolves first hand at the Amex six weeks ago. A fast-starting encounter petered out into a 0-0 draw but the visitors had the better opportunities to win, forcing Jason Steele into his best performance of the campaign.
For the sake of all Albion fans mad enough to be heading to Molineux, let us hope the entertainment factor is ratcheted up a notch or two from that last encounter.
If it were to end in Brighton win, it would have to rank as one of the most impressive results of the season in the circumstances.
