Ori Remembers to Duck
After the horrendous
shit show at Burnley, we travelled to Brighton today in hope that the team
would react. To be fair, they reacted after the Chelsea game and beat Arsenal
so why not. Why we have to always
be reacting to piss poor performances is another matter altogether for another
day but let’s just hope that we get something today.
A trip to the Amex at Brighton is never one of the more daunting away trips with the fans being very friendly in the main and their team not being very good, especially at home. They are coming to this game however on the back of two consecutive away wins in North London against Arsenal and then Spurs so they will be confident, even if they are in front of their own fans.
Brighton’s manager is of course Graham Potter who is very highly thought of by seemingly everybody who is not a Brighton fan. Many Brighton fans seem to be not sure at all about him but the truth is, they are a mid-table team whose first thought every season is survival and it’s going to be very difficult for them to crack the top half because they don’t score enough goals. Sounds similar to us in lots of ways.
Their main striker is still Neal Maupay who is a handful but he is a shit house and he is someone who you always laugh at when you hear that he’s gone 15 games without a goal. Danny Welbeck is still getting games in the Premier League which is pretty ridiculous as well. Someone who has impressed this year is Alexis McAllister in midfield and the excellent Leandro Trossard who may well be looking for a move to a bigger club in the summer. The defence in the main is very solid with a combination of Lewis Dunk and Adam Webster in central defence and Robert Sanchez is a decent goalkeeper. Missing today from the midfield is Yves Bissouma who has picked up 473 bookings since the season started. He makes Oriol Romeu look like Gary Lineker.
As said at the start, Saints are looking for a reaction and Ralph has made a few changes to try and achieve it. We are back to the 4-2-2-2 formation with Salisu coming back in. Livramento is at right back with KWP on the left and the wingers are two recently marginalised players in Nathan Tella and Nathan Redmond. As I look down the list it’s all okay… and then I see that partnering Che Adams up front is Shane Long. What the actual fuck is going on? How can 35-year-old Shane Long who is surely leaving the club in less than a month, getting selected to play from the start in a Premier League game ahead of Adam Armstrong, a striker that we paid £15 million quid for in the summer?
Anyway, it’s a lovely day in Brighton and because of the way that the stadium is orientated, you know full well you are going to be getting sunburn on one side of your face. It’s a funny little ground, set as it is in the South Downs and it has a lopsided feel to it which gives it a bit of character. It’s certainly better than the Withdean anyway.
Away we go, a minute in and Brighton build up down our right and eventually win a throw off of Livramento in the corner. We then completely switch off as Cuccurella gets the cross over, Salisu dives in with Forster and neither take charge and the ball bounces for Danny Welbeck to poke into the net from about 3 yards. It’s an absolute clusterfuck of errors from us. Tino doesn’t do enough to stop the original cross coming in, Fraser seems to take his eye off it and misses the ball and then Salisu piles into him and then swings a foot at it to try and clear it and succeeded and only in booting Fraser in the head. Fucking great start lads.
A trip to the Amex at Brighton is never one of the more daunting away trips with the fans being very friendly in the main and their team not being very good, especially at home. They are coming to this game however on the back of two consecutive away wins in North London against Arsenal and then Spurs so they will be confident, even if they are in front of their own fans.
Brighton’s manager is of course Graham Potter who is very highly thought of by seemingly everybody who is not a Brighton fan. Many Brighton fans seem to be not sure at all about him but the truth is, they are a mid-table team whose first thought every season is survival and it’s going to be very difficult for them to crack the top half because they don’t score enough goals. Sounds similar to us in lots of ways.
Their main striker is still Neal Maupay who is a handful but he is a shit house and he is someone who you always laugh at when you hear that he’s gone 15 games without a goal. Danny Welbeck is still getting games in the Premier League which is pretty ridiculous as well. Someone who has impressed this year is Alexis McAllister in midfield and the excellent Leandro Trossard who may well be looking for a move to a bigger club in the summer. The defence in the main is very solid with a combination of Lewis Dunk and Adam Webster in central defence and Robert Sanchez is a decent goalkeeper. Missing today from the midfield is Yves Bissouma who has picked up 473 bookings since the season started. He makes Oriol Romeu look like Gary Lineker.
As said at the start, Saints are looking for a reaction and Ralph has made a few changes to try and achieve it. We are back to the 4-2-2-2 formation with Salisu coming back in. Livramento is at right back with KWP on the left and the wingers are two recently marginalised players in Nathan Tella and Nathan Redmond. As I look down the list it’s all okay… and then I see that partnering Che Adams up front is Shane Long. What the actual fuck is going on? How can 35-year-old Shane Long who is surely leaving the club in less than a month, getting selected to play from the start in a Premier League game ahead of Adam Armstrong, a striker that we paid £15 million quid for in the summer?
Anyway, it’s a lovely day in Brighton and because of the way that the stadium is orientated, you know full well you are going to be getting sunburn on one side of your face. It’s a funny little ground, set as it is in the South Downs and it has a lopsided feel to it which gives it a bit of character. It’s certainly better than the Withdean anyway.
Away we go, a minute in and Brighton build up down our right and eventually win a throw off of Livramento in the corner. We then completely switch off as Cuccurella gets the cross over, Salisu dives in with Forster and neither take charge and the ball bounces for Danny Welbeck to poke into the net from about 3 yards. It’s an absolute clusterfuck of errors from us. Tino doesn’t do enough to stop the original cross coming in, Fraser seems to take his eye off it and misses the ball and then Salisu piles into him and then swings a foot at it to try and clear it and succeeded and only in booting Fraser in the head. Fucking great start lads.
Fraser and Sali do the Fuck Up Dance
Saints respond reasonably well with Che Adams picking out Tino on the right-hand side with loads of space to run into and he advances and drills in a cross shot with bounces off the far post, off the back of the goalkeeper and bounces clear from Adams. Fucking lucky bastards. Where was that luck when we were a shambles at the back in the opening couple of minutes?
Salisu is playing like a man who has not played for 2 years, let alone 2 matches and is generally having a shocker, which extends to another mistake when he misses a header and gets outmuscled by the tiny Maupay. The ball eventually finds its way to Danny Welbeck on the left, who forces Fraser into a standard save at the near post.
Salisu is not being helped by partner Bednarek and they try and pass it to eachother until Bednarek wafts if out of play and whilst they are arguing about who was the more shite, everyone switches off again from the throw and Trossard is allowed to run towards goal and win a corner. The corner is met by Lewis Dunk and Maupay flicks into the net but he is a good 5 yards offside. We are causing all our own problems again and Brighton are really not having to work very hard for their shooting opportunities.
There is a worrying development soon after as Tino goes to close down Mwepu and collapses in a heap. Like they did when their centre forward tried to break Yan Valery’s leg a couple of years ago, the Brighton fans booed the fact that the referee stopped the game but everyone with half a brain cell could see this was a serious one. There is about a five-minute break whilst Tino is loaded onto a stretcher and taken away. Grim. Get well soon Tino.
Perraud is on with KWP switching but we are still no better and we play ourselves into the shit as Romeu dawdles, loses the ball and Trossard gets it across to Welbeck and like with the opening goal, there is a big scramble but this time we get lucky has Forster blocks the shot and we scramble it clear. Even when we attack we look clueless and JWP puts a cross into the Brighton penalty area which gets cleared out as far as Perraud who takes far too long to realise what’s going on and now Brighton are on the break with and Mwepu and Welbeck on the right hand side. Welbeck finds Trossard who returns a hopeful pass towards Welbeck but Salisu and Romeu don’t appear to be talking to each other, meaning Salisu diving in and clipping it superbly into his own net via the post. Great finish. For fuck‘s sake…
2-0 down we’ve been fucking dreadful, but an aimless punt forward brings hope as Tella puts Cuccurella under pressure and he loses the ball, eventually trashing the Saints winger on the edge of the penalty area and we all know what this means. It’s very central but up steps JWP. It’s amusing because the Brighton fans behind the goal are trying to put him off like you would normally try and put off a penalty taker. This this time he goes around the wall to the keepers side but Sanchez has tried to anticipate it and taken that one step that means he has absolutely killed himself in the ball nestles in the bottom corner via post. Quite brilliant.
In at half-time just the one behind. To be honest, we have been absolute fucking rubbish so far with no cohesion in attack and we look absolutely shambolic in defence. If we don’t sort the defence out then we got absolutely no chance of not conceding a goal in the second half, so that’s the first priority, but having got a goal back, we at least have a chance.
This one is for Tino
No changes at half-time but we are immediately different team. We have stepped up and we are pushing onto the Brighton players and we are finding that they are not in fact very good under pressure. Even when not under pressure, Webster gives the ball away to Romeu who finds Tella out on the left hand side. He takes on Veltman before finding Romeu on the edge of the box who becomes possessed by the spirit of Iniesta and Xavi and produces a backheel and JWP absolutely laces it into the bottom corner of the net giving Sanchez absolutely no chance at all. Absolute scenes in the away end - red smoke and everything. What a fucking goal.
Who wants it more? Saints are the better side now of course and we create another chance through persistence as Salisu nods a clearance back into the box and it drops down for the talismanic Shane Long to attempt to curl one in to the far top corner but Sanchez pulls off one for the cameras. I feel that there would have been a pitch invasion if that had gone in.
Tella, who has been decent then falls foul of the usual and has to go off with cramp and is replaced by Stuart Armstrong. Not long after, Shane is poured off the pitch and on comes Broja.
There’s a heart in mouth moment as Trossard gets always on the left-hand side and finds substitute Gross in the centre forward position, surrounded by 20 yards of space and no central defenders. We seem to be assuming that he’s offside but he takes the touch, orders a pint of Guinness, lets it settle, wonders where the defenders are, lines up a shot and smashes it into the bottom corner. It is offside isn’t it? …. linesman‘s flag has gone up straight away. However, it is slightly disconcerting that the VAR check seems to be taken quite a while but no bother, disallowed and the Brighton fans that have made their first noise of the second half can shut up again.
As we get towards the 90, both teams seem happy with a draw. Having been 2-0 down you have to be happy with a point at the end of the day but boy, did we might hard work of it. The first 40 minutes were shockingly bad with no idea of how to defend and even less idea of how to attack. In amongst all that we had the sight of Tino Livramento being stretchered off which as I write, is looking like an ACL and 9 months out. Get well soon Tino.
Our initial reaction to the Burnley defeat was to concede a goal in a minute from Brighton’s first attack as some namby-pamby defending allowed the cross to come in and the Forster and Salisu shambles resulted in a tap in for Welbeck, another striker who ended his drought against Saints. After Tino had hit the post and got injured, we conceded an equally shambolic second as we even managed to save Brighton having to do what they always struggle with - putting the ball in the net themselves. If we’d gone in 2-0 down at half-time then I very much doubt there was any way really to get back into it but the free kick from the man himself JWP, changed the narrative for the second half and Brighton were always going to get nervous with their shite home record.
The second half was completely different as we seem to press higher at the pitch and gave Brighton no time at all and forced them into mistakes. This is how we’re supposed to play isn’t it? The equaliser was down to a patient build up but it had purpose and was well set up by Romeu and excellently finished by JWP but Brighton fans will be fuming that he was left completely unmarked on the edge of the box. I feel that there was an opportunity for Saints to really push on and win this game but it wasn’t to be. We didn’t quite do enough in the last 25 minutes and neither did Brighton.
Che Adams was brilliant today. I don’t think he gave the ball away at all and his link up play was superb, especially in the second half. The only problem was of course that as he was doing all the donkey work, he wasn’t a goal threat in that I don’t think he actually had a shot. You need the other striker to be the goal threat but our other striker was Shane Long so it really wasn’t going to happen. Shane had a couple of nice touches in the second half but in the first half was completely non-existent and there is absolutely no way that he should’ve been out there. There was always the very slim chance that Shane would’ve been brilliant today and prove that my assertion that he should never be playing completely wrong. However, I was proved right and Adam Armstrong should’ve played. Nathan Tella contributed well down the left flank mainly, using his pace to good affect but his lack of regular gametime was evident when he went down with cramp and had to come off. He did play a major part in both goals though so I’d like to see him stay in the team for a while. Nathan Redmond was Nathan Redmond - no more no less. Slowing down many moves and playing the safe pass and I don’t think I saw him take anyone on all game. He put over a couple of decent crosses when there was no other option but he is what he is and like with Shane, I don’t think we should really be surprised or expect any different anymore. Salisu had a nightmare first half but in the second half he seemed to snap back into action and was back to being a player we know that he can be. His resurgence was mirrored by the whole team. Finally, what can you say about JWP. Another different type of free-kick today to add to the one at Wolves which means that keepers will have even less idea what he’s going to do. There’s going to be a team soon who either don’t put a wall in place or put defenders on both posts. The strike for the second goal was superb as well – absolutely buried it.
The fact that we, as a team, played well in the second half and came back into the game gives us hope that the next four games won’t be a complete waste of time but at the end of the day, as a team we put in a 45 minute performance and you are not going to get away with that too often. We need 90 minutes next week against Crystal Palace or else we will be leaving St.Mary’s with nothing. Today though we can finally celebrate reaching 40 points and be happy that we finished the game in a way that we need to start the next game. Bring it on.
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