Why have Brighton lost six games in a row?
Ask six different people why Brighton have lost six games in a row and you will get six different answers. The mystery perhaps comes from the fact that before this wretched run of form, the Albion had been beaten only four times in 23 Premier League outings.
Such a spectacular collapse is impressive even for a club who have a long and proud tradition of veering from the sublime to the ridiculous and back again faster than Mark McGhee to a free whiskey tasting session.
Somebody needs to get to the bottom of it and the good news is that – after finally sobering up sufficiently from the Cheltenham Festival – we are here to try and do that.
These 2,334 words will dissect seven of the possible reasons as to why Brighton have tumbled from the cusp of European football to a position whereby some of glass-half-empty fans are thinking we could yet get sucked into the relegation battle. Surely not?
Selling Dan Burn to Newcastle United
If we ran a poll to determine the most popular theory amongst Brighton fans for this losing streak, then the sale of Dan Burn would undoubtedly come out on top.
The Albion have won one and lost seven games in all competitions since the Princess Diana look-a-like was granted his dream move to boyhood club Newcastle United.
And whilst nobody can ignore the stunning decline in form following his departure, there is more to it than simply Burn being The People’s Princess a very underrated defensive option.
The problem is not so much that Burn has gone, but that Brighton have not replaced him. No new signing was made, no loanee recalled and the one who did come back Leo Ostigard was sent straight to Genoa upon his return from Stoke City.
With Potter not thinking that Haydon Roberts is ready for Premier League football yet, the Albion have willingly put themselves in a situation whereby a couple of injuries or a suspension leaves them short of centre back options.
Not a problem per se when you play a back four. A big issue though if your best results and football come using a three and wing backs.
Burn’s sale, Adam Webster’s annual “minor knock” which rules him out for six weeks, Lewis Dunk’s suspension and the fact the manager no longer seems to trust Shane Duffy have left Potter short of options.
Potter has spent the past seven matches since Burn left switching from a back three to a back four more frequently than my missus changes outfits before we go out for dinner.
A back four does not work because it clips the ability of Tariq Lamptey and Marc Cucurella to attack. Playing Cucurella as a centre back – as Potter has done when trying to stick with a three – has the same detrimental impact.
Is it a surprise that Brighton can barely register a shot at the Amex – let alone score a goal – when the Albion’s two biggest threats going forward no longer have that license?
It would seem that the obvious way to get back to the form of the first half of the season and end this wretched run of six lost games in succession would be to revert to the team and tactics that had Brighton in the top 10. That is a back three with Lamptey and Cucurella as wing backs, in case you hadn’t worked it out.
Burn’s sale makes it more difficult, but not impossible. It would be 100 percent possible if Brighton had replaced Burn (or Ben White for that matter) and not left themselves with a roster of only Dunk, Webster, Duffy and Joel Veltman. Four centre backs to fill three berths. Not great planning.
Adam Webster being out injured
File the absence of Webster under the above as well. As unique a player as he is with his ability to stride out of defence with the ball, his injury might have been less keenly felt if the Albion had the defensive numbers to cover his absence and stick to three centre backs with Cucurella and Lamptey in their best roles.
Missing such a chunk of the campaign could not have come at a worse time for Webster, either. As England players fall like lemmings ahead of the March international break, he surely would have been in Gareth Southgate’s Three Lions squad for matches against Switzerland and Ivory Coast.
There was no better English centre back in the Premier League than Webster during January, especially when he was pocketing Romelu Lukaku at one end and then popping up to score past Kepa Arrizabalaga at the other in the 1-1 draw with Chelsea.
Matches and Brighton performances like that one against the European Champions feel like they are from a different lifetime.
Signing Deniz Undav… and then leaving him in Belgium
Another theory gaining traction as to why Brighton have lost six games in a row is that the club dropped a bollock by leaving Deniz Undav in Belgium to spearhead the unlikely Jupiler League title charge of Tony Bloom’s other club, Union Saint-Gilloise.
The world and his wife know that Brighton need a clinical striker. By paying £7 million to Union, the Albion had secured the signature of the player involved in more goals and assists than any other in a European top league.
Brighton goals have been in particularly short supply in this run of six lost games in succession. Would having Undav in blue and white stripes have provided the firepower needed to turn some of those defeats into draws or maybe even wins?
No is probably the answer. For Undav to score goals, the Albion would need to create opportunities for him. What has been particularly notable about these six lost games is that Brighton have barely looked like scoring.
We have gone from fans bemoaning seven missed chances from Neal Maupay in a single game to managing three shots on target across four matches at the Amex against Burnley, Aston Villa, Liverpool and Spurs.
All the time that Brighton remain so pedestrian in their build up and predictable to defend against, they are not going to supply their strikers with the sort of opportunities needed to score – whether those strikers be Maupay and Undav or Harry Kane and Mo Salah.
Dan Ashworth resigning to look after his garden
Burn was not the only man to leave Brighton bound for Saudi Sportwashing Project on Tyne just prior to six games being lost in a row.
Albion technical director Dan Ashworth handed in his resignation and was subsequently placed on gardening leave by the Seagulls.
With a significant notice period to serve until he can take up his next job – which we all know to be at Newcastle – he is going to have a lawn and petunias to rival Alan Titchmarsh’s by the end of September.
How much impact has Ashworth’s departure had on the Albion’s loss of form? Not much you would hope. He did not pick the team, he did not choose the tactics, he did not work day-to-day with the players on the training ground.
Long term, Ashworth moving onto the payroll of Saudi Arabia could prove to be bad news for Brighton in terms of recruitment, academy and the overall structure of the club off-the-pitch. It cannot be the reason why first team form has collapsed.
Having so many players out of contract in 18 months
Or can it? Part of Ashworth’s remit would have been a say in player contracts. Is the reason that Brighton have lost six games in a row because so many players have entered the final 18 months of their current deals, with all the uncertainty that brings?
Yves Bissouma is the headline act here, obviously. There is more chance of DJ Jurgen Locadia headlining the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury in 2023 than there is of Bissouma signing a new contract with the Albion.
His agent is viewing a juicy signing on bonus, which whoever signs him in the summer will be able to afford because of the reduced transfer fee they will pay owing to his contract having only 12 months left to run.
Since January, Bissouma has looked a shadow of the player who was one of the best defensive midfielders in the Premier League for much of the previous 18 months.
Most Brighton fans have concluded that he is either reigning in his performances, knowing he only has six months left as an Albion player and so no longer cares.
Or he is sulking that Bloom turned down a £35 million bid from Aston Villa in January. Either way, the phrase “downed tools” has been thrown Bissouma’s way as a result of his below-par efforts and his disappearing down the tunnel on the full time whistle throughout February and early March.
Other players who might have to be sold in the summer or whom Brighton risk losing on a free in 2023 include Leandro Trossard, Neal Maupay, Alexis Mac Allister and Joel Veltman.
If all are wondering – or knowing like Bissouma – that they are unlikely to have a future at the Amex beyond this summer, then maybe that explains why the Albion cannot win a game for love nor money? Trossard in particular has looked well off the boil during this losing run.
Have none penned new contracts because of a vacuum in who deals with it caused by Ashworth pruning his bushes?
Who knows. News that at least one of the five first choice players set to enter their final 12 months has signed a new deal might at least lift some of the doom and gloom currently surrounding the Albion.
Overconfidence amongst the Brighton management
The trouble with a manager making a not-so-thinly-veiled dig at supporters is that it can provide wonderful quoting opportunities down the line.
Take a bow then Potter saying that he needed a “history lesson” after November’s 0-0 draw with The Leeds United.
The implication was clear. How dare a small pocket of fans not agree with my way of doing things when the club are eighth in the Premier League? I am very wise and anybody who doubts me is a fool.
Well, how about this for a history lesson? Brighton last lost six games in a row 16 years ago, the most recent season in which the Albion were relegated. And manager McGhee lost his job six months later.
Or how about the fact that Potter is on course to deliver the worst home season in Albion history? With three Amex victories on the board, a £650 West Stand Upper season ticket holder is currently paying £216.66 per home win.
Only 10 goals have been scored in the Falmer area. Six have come from free kicks, corners and penalties, leaving just four from open play.
£162.50 per goal from open play is the worst value campaign for season ticket holders in Brighton history. Probably not the sort of lesson Graham had in mind when he requested to be taught about the rich past of the Albion.
Potter’s history lesson comments came across as almost arrogant. Both manager and club were very keen to congratulate themselves and point out what a good job they were doing when things were going reasonably well in the first half of the season.
The question then is has that led to overconfidence and complacency? Is that why there were no incoming signings in January, because they believed their own hype?
A club such as Brighton who wish to establish themselves in the top 10 cannot ever stand still. Think you have made it rather than continually trying to improve and others will catch up and overtake you.
The most painful example of this is Crystal Palace. All that “Mind the Gap” nonsense on social media has suddenly disappeared as Palace have moved above Brighton in the Premier League table and have an FA Cup semi final to look forward to.
As an Emperor in a galaxy far, far away once said, “Your overconfidence is your weakness”. Are the Albion now paying the price for theirs?
Brighton are on upper midtable team falling back to upper midtable
Or have we just been spoiled this season? 10 Premier League defeats, 33 points on the board and 13th place in the table after 29 matches would look like a decent record at this stage in any other season. It is just unfortunate that Brighton have lost six of those 10 games in a row.
This Albion squad is good enough to finish in upper midtable and that is where they are falling back to having had an outrageous flirtation with the top six.
Whilst this is undoubtedly proving a disappointing end to a campaign that had promised much, most fans would have taken an improvement on the 16th place of 2020-21 if offered it back in August.
Finish higher than 13th for the first time ever is still on the cards and Brighton could yet beat their previous best top flight points haul of 41, providing Potter can find a way to turn around the form soon and put nine more points on the board.
Nobody can surely argue that the Albion need a win very soon though. The longer that this losing streak extends for, the harder it will become to break.
Confidence will seep from the players and Potter might start reaching for batshit crazy ideas to try and end it. There is this myth that the summer can provide a reset but often, poor form stretches into the next campaign.
It did for McGhee, who lasted just one month playing in a lower division before he was fired. Bloom never gave Chris Hughton the opportunity to prove that he could use the summer to turn things around, appointing Potter in 2019 after the Albion avoided relegation by the skin of their teeth.
Beat Norwich City when the Premier League resumes and the theories and concerns will start to go away. Lose a seventh game in a row and the pressure will increase on Potter and the players.
We will probably never find out the reason why Brighton have lost six games in a row. The only thing we do know is that it is never dull being an Albion fan, is it?
