Brighton bouncing back from Fulham would be a sign of progress
Hands up, who enjoyed the Twitter meltdown in the aftermath of Brighton losing 2-1 at Fulham? Read some of the comments and you could be forgiven that the Albion had been automatically relegated to League Two, that Sami Hyypia was back in charge and Leon Best was now captian and leading striker.
A first defeat in five Premier League games is not a disaster. Go back further and it is only two losses from 14 stretching back to the beginning of April. And one of those was against a rampant Manchester City closing in on the title.
The 28 points won in that time give Brighton an average of exactly two points per match. Replicate that over a 38 game Premier League season, and the Seagulls finish with 76 – a total which would have been good enough to finish third ahead of Chelsea in 2021-22.
One disappointing display and a poor result at Craven Cottage does not suddenly mean the Albion are relegation candidates.
Brighton are guaranteed to sit fourth in the table after the midweek matches are all completed. With Leicester City, Plucky Little Bournemouth and Crystal Palace to come before mid-September, there are three opportunities to put further points on the board.
One could even argue that defeat at Fulham is a blessing in disguise for Brighton. Expectations are cooled and the Albion get a reminder that they are far from the finished article.
Minds become focussed. You cannot afford to stand still in a division as competitive as the Premier League and admire how well you are doing when 19 other teams are striving to improve and overtake you.
The real positive to come out of Brighton losing 2-1 to Fulham however is that we get to see how this Albion side react to defeat.
If they can break the pattern of follow a long run of good results with a long run of bad results which has been prevalent throughout the Graham Potter Era, then that would be a sign of serious progress.
Under Potter’s management, the Albion have tended to get into peaks and troughs which they then struggle to break.
The first three months of the 2019-20 season were all sunshine and roses, Brighton even hitting the dizzy heights of eighth under their new manager.
Then came a run of two wins in 19, plunging the Albion into a relegation battle. The March 2020 lockdown interrupted that sequence, Brighton return from their enforced three months off and picked up 12 points from their final nine games to survive fairly comfortably in the end.
2020-21 saw Brighton record their worst ever start to a top flight campaign, winning only twice in 19 matches. Included in that run came a 14 game sequence without a victory at the Amex, setting another unwanted club record.
Not even the Class of 1997-98 – who finished second bottom of the Football League whilst playing “home” games at Gillingham – went on such a winless streak.
In true Albion style, Potter’s men broke it by beating Jose Mourinho and Spurs 1-0. Three days later and they put a serious dent in Liverpool’s hopes of retaining the title by winning 1-0 at Anfield.
Those two surprise victories led to another run of good results, with just four of the final 12 matches of the campaign lost.
Then came the 2021-22 season. The Albion finished in a record-breaking ninth place despite some long stretches of disappointment.
In complete contrast to 2020-21, Brighton made their best ever start to a top flight season and could have gone top with victory at Crystal Palace in September.
Three months without a win followed that, ended with a 2-0 Boxing Day success over Brentford in front of 30,141. 15,000 of whom had turned up dressed as empty seats.
January and February brought a slight improvement. Then came that ghastly run throughout the Spring; six defeats in a row ended by a 0-0 draw with bottom-of-the-table Norwich City.
Just the one goal was scored in those seven matches. Between Adam Webster crashing home a header against Chelsea on Tuesday 18th January and Danny Welbeck netting past Southampton on Sunday 24th April, the Albion went 94 days without scoring at the Amex.
The insipid Amex draw with the Canaries on April 2nd was followed by a 2-1 win at Arsenal and a 1-0 win at Spurs. Six points from the North London giants in the space of seven days having failed to win any of the past seven including fixtures with Norwich, Burnley and Aston Villa at home.
Those wins at the Emirates and the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium sparked the latest run of impressive results, easily the best of Potter’s reign.
If what has happened in the past does indeed inform the future, then history suggests defeat at Fulham could be the start of a long downturn in results for Brighton.
But what if things are different this time around? Much of how the Albion could improve on last season’s ninth has focussed on winning more at the Amex or scoring more goals.
Less attention has been paid to Potter finding a way to prevent the Albion sinking into long winless runs. If Brighton had managed one victory in the midst of their 11 game autumn winless streak and one in the six game losing sequence of February and March, those additional six points would have delivered Europa Conference football.
Brighton bouncing back from losing at Fulham by picking up points in their next three matches would show that Potter and these players are capable of avoiding the disappointing runs of the past.
And who knows where that will leave the Albion by the end of the season?
