Win against Palace the perfect way for Brighton to bounce back
It never ceases to amaze quite how quickly the mood can change amongst football fans – something Brighton have experienced with bells on in the week leading up to Crystal Palace visiting the Amex.
At 5.30pm last Saturday, all was right in the Albion world. A 5-2 win over Sheffield United secured safe passage to round five of the FA Cup. The dream season of return to Wembley, good run in the Europa League and a top seven finish remained on the cards.
Ansu Fati was in full training. Kaoru Mitoma and Simon Adingra back soon from the Asian Cup and AFCON. Brighton would be returning to near-full strength at the perfect time for an assault on three different competitions.
Then Tuesday night happened. Humiliation at Luton Town. A third Premier League game without a goal pushed the lack of wingers to the top of the agenda again.
The way the Hatters overrun Brighton through the middle highlighted the lack of ball winner. The Albion have not made much headway replacing either Moises Caicedo or Alexis Mac Allister. At Kenilworth Road, it showed.
Next, the January transfer window slammed shut. Brighton had signed five players. Four for their Under 21s and one 19-year-old for the first team.
Experience tells us that Valentin Barco will need at least a year to adjust to life in England, just like Mac Allister, Caicedo and Facundo Buonanotte before him.
Roberto De Zerbi had said in December he wanted the Albion to bring in three or four players to boost his squad. If you accept Barco is not ready, he got zero.
How would De Zerbi take it, we all wondered? An answer of sorts came from his pre-Palace press conference on Friday afternoon.
“I don’t know,” De Zerbi replied when asked if he was happy with his squad going into the final four months of the season.
“We will see in the next games. It is not my business, the transfer market. My focus is on the pitch, we will see in the future.”
“I think we are two less two players in the midfield. I spoke with the club but they decided a different way. We have Moder, we have Baleba, we have Jack Hinshelwood, who can play in a midfield position. We move on anyway.”
Mood changes can be equally swift the other way, from negative to positive. You just have to look at Palace (if you dare) to see that.
Two weeks ago and Eagles supporters unveiled a set of homemade banners during their 5-0 defeat at Arsenal, criticising their owners and Roy Hodgson for the lack of progress at Selhurst Park.
But then Palace won a ding-dong encounter 5-2 against Sheffield United at the same time as Brighton were being hammered by the Hatters.
The Eagles were not afraid to open their chequebook in January either, ending the transfer window as the biggest declared spenders (declared because there were an unusually high number of undisclosed deals).
Palace forked out a reported £22 million on Blackburn Rovers midfielder Adam Wharton and £8 million on right back Daniel Muonz from Genk.
Suddenly, the Holmesdale Fanatics are not having to spend their lunch breaks at school in the art room making cute banners moaning about Uncle Roy.
These are not the moods the respective clubs were supposed to enter the 137th match of the rivalry in. The Seagulls are meant to be riding high, playing the best football in their history, challenging for Europe and setting club records whilst taking down the likes of Marseille and Ajax in Europe.
Palace have no long-term vision, a crumbling stadium desperately needing renovating and seem content to tread water and survive in the Premier League each season.
It should be Brighton coming into game full of confidence whilst Palace enter with trepidation. And that was the case seven days ago. They say a week is a long time in politics; it is even longer in football.
But as my dear old nan used to say, soup warms the soul. Or in this case, Brighton beating Palace warms the soul. Victory over the old enemy and all the gloom caused by Luton, the transfer window and De Zerbi’s failure to hide his frustration will disappear.
Some Albion fans might feel that facing the Eagles just four days after a pasting at the hands of opponents who started the night 18th in the table is terrible timing.
Yet it also presents an opportunity. An opportunity to combine the motivation of putting things right from the Luton game with the added incentive that should always come with a Brighton versus Palace fixture.
And the Albion have become rather adept under De Zerbi at bouncing back from disasters. A 3-1 defeat at Nottingham Forest last April which left European qualification in jeopardy was followed by a 6-0 win over Wolves.
After being thrashed 5-1 at the Amex by relegation threatened Everton, Brighton went and beat Arsenal 3-0 at the Emirates to all-but end the Gunners’ hopes of winning the title ahead of Manchester City.
Five days after going down 6-1 at Aston Villa, the Albion drew 2-2 away in Marseille. Not many teams take a point from bearpit that is the Stade Velodrome; nobody does it by recovering from 2-0 down as Brighton did on that famous Thursday evening.
De Zerbi is a football man. He understands what rivalries mean to fans. He will know there is no better way to reignite the Albion’s season than with victory over Crystal Palace.
Or so we hope.
