I seem to be almost alone in this, having read what many said on here during and after the game, and even listened to some of the pods this week that seemed to suggest this was a hard watch and a game in which we were shit and Brighton were fabulous.
I actually quite enjoyed this game, until around the 70th minute at least. Brighton one of those sides, like us, that play a high risk strategy, and like us, it can reap rewards but can also leave your arse hanging in the wind.
They aren’t the first team to stick a man on our 6 to try to stifle our build up, but they went full commando, pretty much man for man and even had their CB following Maddison up and down the pitch.
This posed us big problems, especially in the first 20 minutes or so as we tried to figure it out.
But I quite enjoyed seeing us challenged like this. And I quite enjoyed watching the dance unfold between these two teams as we tried to find answers. A year ago we’d have just shrunk up our own arses and tried to sneak up the pitch a couple of times.
But between 20 and 70 I felt that we posed them more problems than they posed us. We pushed them back down the pitch, tried to work the ball around and pretty much kept them to nothing - they had something like 2 shots (1 on target) during this 50 minute spell, whilst we had 14/5. We had 57% of the ball during this phase. Their XG flatlined at this point and ours steadily climbed during the same phase.
This continued for ten minutes (60-70min) after we scored, in fact intensified and we had 70% of the ball in the next ten minutes, but then suddenly we dropped off. The next 10 minutes (80-90 mins) they had a really strong phase, possession went 30/70 they had a great chance and we struggled to string three passes together.
I’m really not sure whether any one thing caused this. Johnson coming on definitely hindered our ability to play out on the right, but the other two subs had no real negative tactical impact - they were either like for like or improved their positions.
But either way the last 8 minutes we regained some momentum, possession switched round again 67/33 for the last 8 minutes and we put together the move of the game to score the winner.
I felt the way Brighton played almost suits us (or that’s the plan anyway) better than most approaches. Our intention is to draw teams out, we want to be pressed. That’s the high risk part. We want to play through that pressure and then capitalise on the openings that that press leaves behind. That’s the high reward part.
Our trouble in this first season of Ange is that we are also a Brighton. We invite the risks and give up those same rewards.
Thats why I actually quite enjoyed this game. It was nice to be involved in this kind of tactical game of Russian roulette instead of the fucking grandads gin rummy we’d been playing previous seasons.
I felt like we competed. Like we caused them more offensive problems than they did us, whilst limiting them to almost fuck all.
The non penalty XG was 2.4/0.6 to us. They had 3.85 in their home game.
Some of the usual frustrations were there, a front line that wastes good situations and chances with bumbling being primary, but overall I found myself quite absorbed and the game seemed to fly by quicker than some games.
And a last minute winner never hurts.