Brighton (a) – The Review

Biggest positive to take

I don’t want to write about it, you don’t want to read about it, so shall we get this over with quickly?

Weekend whinge

A really worrying lack of anything resembling an attacking threat. Onel might have had other things on his mind but as a starter had far less impact than in his sub appearances against Bournemouth and United, while Emi is still struggling to impose himself on games at this level and often looks for one dribble too many when there are better passes available to him.

Everything stutters or gets shut down in midfield and the incisive passes to release Pukki just aren’t happening. At the other end, Brighton created chance after chance and we are perhaps lucky to have got away with another 2-0.

Moment of the match

The pie I had in the away end concourse before kick-off which was outrageously good. It was always going to be downhill from there.

Random star performer 

Tim Krul, who arguably of our squad has settled best in the Premier League – another solid performance despite the uncertainty going on in front of him.

Farke watch

He’s admitted a bad call on making a double sub while setting up to defend a free-kick, but the team should be able to manage a bit of a reshuffle without the defensive chaos that transpired when the ball was put in. Game over.

Atmosphere

Not a great atmosphere from either the home and away fans with both the action on the pitch and the weather making it more of an endurance test.

Summary

Maybe under ‘Biggest positive to take’ I should have actually put that our next game is against the only team in the league having a bigger crisis of confidence than ourselves. If we can find some of that belief again, pass the ball effectively, score a few goals and get three points – all of which we’re more than capable of doing – everything will look a lot brighter. That belief needs to come from the stands as well, so Sky might have done us a favour in setting up a fervent Friday night atmosphere.