The Albion capitulated by conceding two goals in quick succession within a five minute period and dropping two valuable points.
Albion can’t seem to get past their rut of being unable to beat teams that they are favoured to win against-especially at home. We struggled with this problem under Roberto De Zerbi not being able to turn draws into wins e.g. Sheffield Utd, Fulham, Burnley all ending as 1-1 draws at the Amex last season. There’s already evidence of this repeating, this season against Ipswich and now Wolves, despite the fact of them being 2 very different games we continue the trend of dropping points.
Although The Seagull’s have done exceptionally well against competitors Newcastle and Spurs, it’s just frustrating that this seems to be a pattern. Brighton would usually drop points under De Zerbi due to not being able to break teams down and being skeptical on the transition. We couldn’t break the low block which- slightly correlates to the Ipswich game, where we didn’t take our chances. However, under Hurzeler it feels more down to (as he stated) a lack of maturity and professionalism-sloppy defending and poor decision making.
Brighton controlled the first half by dominating play with attacking prowess and themselves in front through Welbeck just before halftime. Again, excellent link up between Geogrino and Welbeck, their relationship is progressing and from an outsider’s perspective, it feels as if they have an in-depth understanding of each other’s game already- which is very promising to see. Also, excellent to witness Welbeck continue his goal threat and clinical nature. The Seagulls needed to be ahead as otherwise fans might have been concerned if we were unable to capitalise on the dominant display in the first 45.
The second half Wolves grew into the game and looked threatening, producing a few chances but in my opinion the game went a bit stale within the middle of the second half, until Brighton went 2-0 up. Where Lamptey laid the ball off to Ferguson who took his chance extremely well- a couple of touches to set himself and gain space to shoot, followed by a composed finish into the bottom right hand corner. That’s his first goal since November(against Nottingham Forest), so incredible to see him back on the scoresheet. Hopefully it will be a significant goal that allows him to regain momentum.
Also, with Welbeck in such fine form there’s no pressure on him being our main outlet for goals. He can purely focus on expressing his quality off the bench and continue to fight to break into the team by trying to find form again, after recovering from injury that may have been overworked last season.
85 minutes gone Brighton looked in cruise control and about to move into the period of the game where Albion needed to see out the victory and take all 3 points. However, a corner isn’t properly cleared and all of sudden Wolves have a lifeline and are back in the game. Later Brighton have an overload of 4 on 1 and a huge opportunity to really put the game to bed, but a poor pass from Wieffer results in Doyle regaining possession and assisting Cunha who sees his shot deflected into the Albion net.
Really feel like we threw the game away despite The Seagull’s not having as strong a second half, but feels like it’s these types of games you need to win ugly. I’m not stating that all circumstances are poor-we’re 6th in the league and of course I know Brighton aren’t going to win every game, but I’m merely trying to express that there’s a recurring issue when facing lower opposition. Especially how this game in particular panned out, as when you’re 2-0 up with 5 minutes plus stoppage time to play, you can’t proceed to fail to win the game. If this consistency of dropping points continues, it is going to dampen our position.
I need to clearly convey that I’m not saying in any way there is a need to panic but would just like to see a reaction. Not in terms of result necessarily, as Brighton face Liverpool twice then Man City however, if we can show more composure that will be reassuring to see.
It will be interesting to play Liverpool twice in a week. It normally means there will be two very different games to come. Each team will adapt and progress in terms of what went wrong when facing each other the first time and try to implement or remove something into the second fixture.
Questions have also been thrown around about leadership without Dunk on the pitch. I think fans forget how young this Brighton team is and the lack of experience within it, therefore less established leaders. It may have not been any different even with Lewis there, as we simply don’t know. However, he has shown on countless occasions his lead by example style of leadership is very effective and may have assured the last 10 minutes and would have retained the 3 points. But as I mentioned before this is all guess work. We don’t lack leadership entirely without him- there are upcoming leaders such as Van Hecke as well as leaders still in the dressing room and the bench like Milner and Welbeck but arguably no settled leaders on the pitch.
Brighton simply need to accept this poor game management and take it as fuel for the next game and beyond to ensure history doesn’t repeat itself.
