Brighton and Hove Albion took on Tottenham Hotspur in what was the eighth Premier League game of the season for both sides at the Amex Stadium on Saturday.
The Seagulls came into the clash with no more than six points to their name from the opening seven games, which put them in 16th place. It’s becoming rapidly clear that this is going to be another season of struggle for survival for them.
Spurs aren’t doing too well themselves at the moment. Even if they’ve had any hopes of being a part of the title race, it seems at this point that making the top four again and qualifying for next season’s Champions League will prove a challenge enough for Mauricio Pochettino and his men. Shaken by the uncertainties of some of their players’ futures which engulfed them over the summer, by their own admissions, they need to snap out of it and start producing results on a regular basis as soon as possible. Going into this game they were in sixth place, 10 points behind league leaders Liverpool, though not too much behind the rest of the pack.
Team News
Brighton manager Graham Potter had to make do without the services of winger Leandro Trossard again, as well as defenders Shane Duffy and Bernardo. Midfielder Davy Propper was a doubt having missed the defeat away to Chelsea the previous week. On the other hand, midfielders Solly March and Alireza Jahanbakhsh and defender Leon Balogun were back from injury absence.
Matthew Ryan stood between the posts. Lewis Dunk, Adam Webster and Dan Burn formed the back three. The midfield of five was anchored by Dale Stephens, with Pascal Gross and Aaron Mooy helping him in the middle, while Martin Montoya and Steven Alzate provided width. Neal Maupay and Aaron Connolly played up front together.
Pochettino in the away dugout was without fullback Serge Aurier who was sent off previously against Southampton, as well as Ryan Sessegnon who suffered an injury setback in training and couldn’t play. Midfielder Giovani Lo Celso was also out injured.
Hugo Lloris was in goal. Toby Alderweireld and Jan Vertonghen played at the heart of defence, with Moussa Sissoko deputizing at right-back and Ben Davies on the left. Eric Dier and Tanguy Ndombele sat in front of the back four, while the trio of Christian Eriksen, Son Hueng-min and Erik Lamela were tasked with providing creativity behind striker Harry Kane.
The First Half
It took less than three minutes for a new disaster to hit Spurs. A cross, apparently mishit by Alzate, went straight towards the goal. Lloris was caught by surprise and only managed to push it out short, and Maupay was the quickest to react by nodding in.
1-0.
To make matters worse, Lloris had fallen awkwardly and injured his arm rather seriously. Pochettino was therefore forced to send Paulo Gazzaniga into the fray, while the captain’s armband went to Harry Kane.
The moment of heavy misfortune understandably affected the concentration of Spurs players, and they were finding it hard to cope with the Seagulls who stuck to their task relentlessly. It took the visitors around 10 minutes to start linking a few passes together and to push the main line of the battle into the opposition half.
But after they created a few half-chances, Brighton decisively stepped their game up and the two teams alternated in attacking every few minutes or so for a while. There were no real chances at either end of the pitch, however. The most exciting moment was probably when Eriksen let one fly from around 25 yards straight into Ryan who had some difficulty in keeping a hold on the ball, but there were no consequences.
It was interesting to notice how Spurs’ formation changed from 4-2-3-1 to 4-4-2 when defending, with Eriksen and Lamela dropping beside Dier and Ndombele while Son joined Kane further up.
Bit things got much more exciting in the 32nd minute. Brighton were on the move and another interesting cross came in from the left, this time sharp and low towards the six-yards line. Connolly got there ahead of Alderweireld and diverted it on target with a cunning flick which Gazzaniga managed to stop, but Connolly was still alert and slammed in from two yards.
2-0.
Connolly had another chance soon afterwards as Montoya this time found him from the right, but the Irishman missed the target with a low drive from near the penalty spot.
The agony of Spurs seemed to be growing with time, and a number of their players were showing nerves when on the ball – whether with a misplaced basic pass or a piece of miscontrol. Even in possession, they had trouble in getting past Brighton’s strikers, let alone the other lines of defence. Occasionally, a long pass would be aimed towards Kane, but Dunk and Burn proved more than capable of dealing with the England captain.
Not until there were only two minutes of the 45 to go did the visitors threaten. Then, they worked up a nice situation for Lamela to shoot from around 12 yards, but his shot was not only feeble, but also inaccurate.
But there were seven minutes of injury time due to several medical interventions, not least the one when Lloris was injured, and in that time Spurs were lucky to hang on just two goals down.
The Second Half
The break must have done the visitors some good because they entered the second half with much more deliberation, even if they couldn’t create a proper chance for almost five minutes. Then, however, a nicely worked move saw Davies come in from the left flank a fire a sharp cross into six yards, but Brighton’s defence reacted well.
Spurs were now pressing higher up the pitch and in numbers, which enabled them to win the ball more quickly than before. Their formation had also changed, with Dier dropping back between Alderweireld and Vertonghen, and Davies and Sissoko playing further up as wing-backs.
It’s not as if the home team were playing any differently than in the first half though. They pushed forward looking to kill the game off, but the battle was now much fiercer on every inch of the pitch. Connolly and Maupay were still giving the Spurs defence reason to worry, but the north Londoners had taken a fresh approach to defending too. On 53 minutes, Dier was booked for deliberately hitting Connolly.
Ten minutes later, Gross took a free-kick wide from the left and surprised everyone by whipping it goalwards, hitting the crossbar. But it took Connolly just another five minutes to do better than that.
The striker received the ball on the left, ran at Alderweireld pushing him backwards, and when he reached the edge of the box, he whacked it straight at the far bottom corner with Gazzaniga unable to do anything about it.
3-0.
Having conceded again, Spurs players seemed to have lost all hope. They still fought and pushed forward, but their lack of concentration was best displayed by Son in the 69th minute as the ball found him inside the six-yard box, but he was unable to steer it goalwards. Two minutes later it was Kane’s turn not to be himself as he turned Burn inside-out in the box, did all the hard work and then blasted it off target from close range.
After that, they fell back under fresh waves of Brighton’s attacks, which ended one after another with hopeful crosses that weren’t too hard to defend against. In the 73rd minute, Pochettino made his last move and replaced Son with Lucas Moura.
With 10 minutes to go, Connolly’s brilliant performance ended as Potter decided to withdraw the 19-year-old striker and send on Yves Bissouma in his place.
And then, Spurs had the best chance of the game. Moura broke through the Brighton defence and found himself with only Ryan to beat, but the Australian goalkeeper was quick off his line and made a great save. A few minutes later, Ryan beat Moura again as he got down quickly to save his low shot from the edge of the box.
Then it was Brighton’s turn to go forward again, but it always seemed they were more interested in bringing the game to a peaceful end than adding a fourth goal.
The Afterthought
A great, extremely motivated performance by Brighton, albeit helped undoubtedly by the Spurs misfortune early on. Nonetheless, they took the chance that presented itself to them and won the game by a high scoreline deservedly. Every player played his part, performing his role to perfection, but what Aaron Connolly did stood out by a mile. The young Irishman will probably be an object of observation for a number of bigger clubs, with all due respect to the Seagulls.
On the other hand, it’s back to the gloom for Spurs. The midweek home thrashing in the Champions League now seems to have been a preview of what was to come at the Amex Stadium, although few will have believed it. There’s so much going wrong there at the moment, and it now appears questionable if Pochettino has the know-how to resolve the issue.
Quite apart from the extremely disappointing result, they will now be anxious over the extent of injury to Hugo Lloris. From a slow motion video, it looked like either a broken arm or a dislocated elbow. Either way, it seems he will be out for a long time – another problem on an ever-growing list.
Match Report
BRIGHTON AND HOVE ALBION: Ryan 8, Dunk 7, Burn 7, Webster 7, Stephens 7.5 (90′ Murray N/A), Mooy 7, Gross 7, Montoya 7, Alzate 6.5, Maupay 7.5, Connolly 8.5 (80′ Bissouma N/A).
TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR: Lloris 5 (8′ Gazzaniga 6.5), Alderweireld 6, Vertonghen 6, Sissoko 5.5, Davies 7, Dier 6.5, Ndombele 5 (46′ Winks 6), Eriksen 6.5, Lamela 6.5, Son 5 (73′ Moura 7), Kane 5.5.
GOALS: Maupay 3′, Connolly 32′, 65′.
YELLOW CARDS: Dier 55′, Stephens 57′, Dunk 89′.
REFEREE: Jonathan Moss.
DATE & VENUE: October 5, 2019, Falmer (Amex) Stadium, Brighton.
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