Match Review – Brighton 2-2 Bournemouth
Corners, corners, bloody corners. Another game and another two goals conceded from crosses delivered into the box. That takes the total to 11 goals out of our last 16 in 11 games, something which Chris Hughton said afterwards is “a worry”.
2018 may have been less than 24 hours old when he uttered that comment, but it’s already a strong contender for Understatement of the Year. A worry is arriving at the Amex hungover on an empty stomach to find out there is no food in the West Stand. Or going to make a cup of tea and discovering your milk is out of date.
When just short of 75% of the goals you’ve conceded have all come from crosses into the box, that goes from worry territory into concern on the level of finding out your Nan has just registered with a new GP going by the name of Dr H Shipman.
Had we been able to keep out two preventable goals, then this would have been three richly deserved points. After all our struggles in front of goal, the Albion were excellent going forward against Bournemouth, none more so than Jose Izqueirdo who looked every bit a £16m club record signing.
His pace frightened the life out of Bournemouth and he set up both of Brighton’s goals with some classic wing play. The first came inside of five minutes, our fastest goal in the Premier League so far this season and only our sixth in the first half. Pascal Gross played a perfectly weighted pass to Izquierdo who directed a low cross unselfishly across the goal to the back post where Anthony Knockaert had the simple task of tapping in from a matter of yards.
Gross and Izquierdo linked up again for Glenn Murray’s second half goal, another delightful ball from the German playmaker finding the Colombian who again squared. That gave Murray the time and space to take a touch and toy with the covering defenders a little before smashing home.
Izqueirdo did blot his copybook slightly when there was a golden opportunity to score what would have been a killer third goal. He’d done ever so well to spring the length of the pitch with the ball with no Bournemouth player able to get near him but, when one-on-one with Asmir Begovic, Izquierdo opted to shoot straight at the goalkeeper when he could have squared to the supporting Davy Propper who would’ve had an open goal.
In the Championship you can get away with that sort of miss as another chance would always come along but at the highest level, you have to take those opportunities, otherwise you will pay for them. Bournemouth duly made us pay which was a real shame as it took the shine of one of the best performances from a wide man that the Amex has seen so far.
So to those two Bournemouth equalisers. The first arrived just before half time when neither Shane Duffy or Lewis Dunk managed to track the run of former-Albion defender Steve Cook who had a free header as a result. Given Dunk’s previous form for watching what Cook is up to, this was a disappointing goal to conceded.
The second was even more so given that it was a goal that would be perfect for having the Benny Hill theme tune played over the top of it. The Albion defence made a right hash of clearing a corner despite having three opportunities to put a foot through it, the result being it eventually ricocheted onto Callum Wilson who used his shin to divert it past the sprawling dive of Maty Ryan and over the line at a trickle.
That came with 11 minutes which was pretty much game over although Bournemouth did have a couple more half chances to snatch what would have been an undeserved three points after Wilson’s goal.
