Will Brighton make travel chaos worth it with a first Premier League win over Leicester?
A difficult fifth Premier League game of the season lies in store not just for the players of Brighton against Leicester City, but for Albion supporters too.
On the pitch, the Seagulls face one of only two opponents who they are yet to beat in the top flight since winning promotion in 2017. It was men against boys last season, not least in the dugout where Graham Potter found himself tactically outclassed by Brendan Rodgers.
At the King Power Stadium, a switch of formation from Rodgers with 15 minutes played resulted in Leicester going into half time 3-0 ahead and Dan Burn suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.
Potter could merely watch on dumbfounded as Leicester’s move to two out-and-out wingers tore the Albion to pieces. You can bet your bottom dollar that Rodgers will have noted the success Everton and Rafa Benitez enjoyed when they won 2-0 at the Amex three weeks ago.
Fast forward four months and the Albion had a good first half against Leicester, going into half time 1-0 ahead through Adam Lallana. Rodgers rallied his troops at the interval and the Foxes came back to win 2-1. Six points delivered by shrewd management.
Off the pitch, Albion fans face a travel nightmare getting to Falmer for the game. There are no trains between Littlehampton and Brighton. The London to Brighton bike ride will cut off Ditchling Beacon. New students are moving into both Sussex and Brighton University campuses. And there is a Race 4 Life event in Stanmer Park.
With many Brighton supporters not willing to pay the £20 required to upgrade their season ticket account so that they may pass on their seat to a friend – who must in turn pay £25 to become a MyAlbion+ member – there could be vast swathes of empty seats across the stadium. And an announced attendance in excess of 29,000, of course.
Leicester City this season
These are heady times to be a Leicester fan. In May, they won the FA Cup for the first time in their history when beating Chelsea 1-0 at Wembley.
The Foxes then lifted the Community Shield last month, knocking off Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City. For a club who were in League One 12 years ago, Leicester are gathering quite an impressive collection of silverware.
What makes this all the more impressive is that it has not been done via the bankrolling of a nation state or the vast wealth of an oligarch. Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha and now his son Aiyawatt ‘Top’ Srivaddhanaprabha have instead built a club that is efficiently run with first-class recruitment, proving that you do not need a Sheikh to succeed.
In terms of league performance, Leicester have looked set to qualify for the Champions League in each of the past two seasons until a late dip in form led them to finishing fifth.
Can they make it third time lucky and get over the line into Europe’s elite competition this time around? It will be tough as most of the big six have chucked more money around this summer in an attempt to avoid the embarrassment of being outdone by the likes of Leicester and West Ham United.
The Foxes have made a mixed start, winning two and losing two. Their recent record against Brighton and the hold Rodgers has over Potter will give them confidence, but they might just find that this Albion side is a different beast to previous years. Let us hope so anyway – something needs to justify spending a Sunday on a rail replacement bus.
Team news
Adam Webster is out with the hamstring problem he picked up in Brentford 0-1 Brighton and the Leicester game will come a little too soon for Tariq Lamptey, who is expected to make his comeback against Swansea City in midweek.
Pascal Gross is continuing to self isolate but Enock Mwepu is available after missing the trip to Brentford undergoing the same process.
For Leicester, Jonny Evans limped out of their Europa League draw with Napoli on Thursday night and will not make the trip to Sussex. Ayoze Perez serves the final match of a three game ban after being sent off in the Foxes’ 4-1 defeat at West Ham United.
This is one of those matches where it looks even harder to second guess what Potter will do than normal. He could line up a back four of Joel Veltman, Shane Duffy, Lewis Dunk and Marc Cucurella or Solly March. He could name a back three of Veltman, Duffy and Dunk with March and Cucurella as wing backs.
One thing that he should not under any circumstances do is play central midfielders as wing backs again. As we have already reminded you, Gross and Jakub Moder were led on a merry dance by Demarai Gray and Andros Townsend when Everton came to town.
The Foxes have similar players who could Brighton in similar fashion – as we found out at the King Power Stadium. If the Albion are to have any hope of a first win in 10 attempts against Leicester, they will have to be at their best defensively.
Key battles
Making sure Leicester do not hurt you out wide is only half the battle. There is also the small matter of Jamie Vardy to worry about, who like a lot of strikers plucked from non league seems to be defying conventional wisdom by getting better the older he becomes.
In recent seasons, Vardy has taken to doing some form of goal celebration to do with the opponents he scores against. Duffy, Dunk and whoever joins them in that Albion backline have their work cut out ensuring everyone’s favourite WKD drinker is not flapping around pretending to be a Seagull in front of the North Stand.
At the other end, Kasper Schmeichel has an outrageous record against Brighton, especially when it comes to penalties. In the past decade, he was denied Ashley Barnes, Glenn Murray and Neal Maupay from the spot.
The Barnes miss was the best as Our Ashley followed it up by putting the rebound over the bar as well. This led to a near punch up on the pitch after the full time whistle with Tomasz Kuszczak in one of the stranger sights of the 2021-13 season.
If Brighton get a penalty, we will be covering our eyes as chances are it will not be rippling the back of the Leicester net.
Recent form
One of the overriding reasons for braving the travel chaos is because of the form Brighton are in. There is a real feel-good factor around the Albion at the moment, helped by four wins out of five in all competitions to start the campaign.
Nine Premier League points mean that Brighton come into the clash above Leicester in the table. If there was ever a time to end the Foxes’ recent domination of the fixture, this looks like it.
- 11/09/21: Brentford 0-1 Brighton
- 28/08/21: Brighton 0-2 Everton
- 24/08/21: Cardiff City 0-2 Brighton
- 21/08/21: Brighton 2-0 Watford
- 14/08/21: Burnley 1-2 Brighton
- 23/05/21: Arsenal 2-0 Brighton
Another reason to be confident in the Albion’s chances of success is that Leicester come into the campaign after a very tough seven days. They faced Manchester City at the King Power a week ago, going down 1-0.
Then it was Napoli on Thursday night, the toughest game in their Europa League group. Rodgers played a reasonably strong line up against the Italians and so there is every chance that some of his big hitters may rock up in Sussex a little fatigued from their exertions.
- 16/09/21: Leicester 2-2 Napoli
- 11/09/21: Leicester 0-1 Manchester City
- 28/08/21: Norwich City 1-2 Leicester
- 23/08/21: West Ham 4-1 Brighton
- 14/08/21: Leicester 1-0 Wolves
- 07/08/21: Leicester 1-0 Manchester City
Last time we met
It was that aforementioned 2-1 defeat at the Amex back in March when, as former England and Leicester manager Sven-Göran Eriksson might have said, the first half was good but the second half not so good.
We did at least get a refreshingly honest interview from Lallana afterwards. Whereas Potter was going through that phase of wheeling out his “learn and take the positives” catchphrase every week, Lallana berated his teammates for their performance and mentality.
“Second half we were poor,” said the Albion midfielder. “It almost felt like we had won the game at half-time. If you drop your levels you get punished.”
“There have been games we’ve felt hard done by but today doesn’t feel like that. We didn’t perform well enough in the second half. We’ve proven we can get results against big teams. We all dropped off a couple of percent. We were too passive and we got punished.”
Brighton v Leicester head-to-head
Brighton and Leicester have met 38 previous times with the majority of those coming in the past 20 years. The Foxes lead the way with 18 wins to Brighton’s 13, thanks largely to their dominance since 2017. There have been seven draws, the most recent of which saw Lamptey make his Albion debut in a 0-0 at the King Power in June 2020.
It also happens to be one of the more madcap fixtures in Brighton history. There have been FA Cup shocks and League Cup shocks. Jimmy Case has been sent off for the crime of being deaf.
Leicester fans were unable to see their team score because of heavy fog at Withdean. Half the Albion support once left at half time with Micky Adams’ side 2-0 down only for Brighton to come back to win 3-2.
And best of all, the Seagulls once had to borrow Leicester’s away kit at the King Power in that 2008-09 season when Dick Knight thought it would be a good idea to have a blue and white home kit, a blue and yellow away kit and an all-blue third kit.
A reason why Brighton will win
Tiredness. Teams who play Thursday night in the Europa League tend to struggle in their next Premier League outing. This fixture falling after Leicester kicked off their continental campaign might tip things in the Albion’s favour.
A reason why Leicester will win
As we well know, Rodgers is one of the best managers in the top flight. Potter may be able to tactically outthink a lot of his peers, including with his game changing tweaks and substitutions in the wins away at Burnley and Brentford.
He is yet to get one over on Leicester and Rodgers though. That man in the away dugout can make the difference for the Foxes.
Brighton v Leicester betting
Leandro Trossard seems to go through good patches of form followed by spells when he is so anonymous that you could be forgiven for thinking he is hibernating in a coffin alongside all the other vampires.
His goal and all round performance at Brentford was superb, which bodes well ahead of the visit of Leicester. With Potter likely to continue using Trossard as a striker because of a paucity of other options and the bookies yet to cotton onto that, his anytime goal scorer price of 11/2 looks very generous.
Predictions
Prediction of score: Brighton 1-2 Leicester City
Prediction of announced pre-ttendace: 29,617
Prediction of actual attendance: 24,597
