Brighton 1-1 Liverpool: Klopp left rattled by a Team Like Brighton

In the aftermath of Brighton 1-1 Liverpool, Jurgen Klopp managed to make it all about him. The Liverpool manager completely lost his mind live on BT Sport in a wonderful argument with interviewer Des Kelly over fixture scheduling, five substitutes and injuries.

This meltdown ended up taking all the headlines, alongside Jordan Henderson saying he wanted VAR scrapped. Later in the evening, James Milner began making further waves when he tweeted that it was “clear and obvious” that technology was ruining football.

Funnily enough, nobody could recall Mr Henderson or Mr Milner making similar statements when decisions made using VAR had gone Liverpool’s way as they sauntered to the Premier League title last season.

And so the coverage and analysis of Brighton 1-1 Liverpool was awash with the petulant reaction from the Liverpool manager and his players.

Nobody was talking about how well the Albion had played, or that they had managed to rattle the Redmen’s cages to the point that Klopp, Henderson and Milner left toys scattered all over the Amex after throwing them out of their pram.

Which was wrong as Brighton deserved a huge amount of praise for their performance. Liverpool were lucky to escape with a point and they knew it at the end of 90 roller coaster minutes which had everything.

Graham Potter was bold in his team selection, naming three centre forwards against the champions. This came after he had played four centre backs when struggling West Bromwich Albion and bottom-of-the-table Burnley came to the Amex. Oh to have a window into his mind to discover where that sort of logic comes from.

Actually, there was method behind the madness. We are not sure if you had heard bearing in mind Klopp and Liverpool fans never mention it, but the Reds are undergoing something of a defensive injury crisis.

Virgil van Dijk was actually murdered a few weeks ago with candlelight vigils and prayers said across Merseyside for his loss. Joe Gomez suffered a serious injury on international duty earlier this month and Trent Alexander-Arnold has also been on the shelf for some time.

Liverpool arrived at the Amex with a makeshift defence and Potter clearly thought playing all of Danny Welbeck, Aaron Connolly and Neal Maupay would test a back four featuring two youngsters and Fabinho playing out-of-position.

And he was right. Brighton were excellent in an opening 20 minutes in which they should have been 2-0 ahead. Connolly was the first to fluff his lines, going through one-on-one with Allison Becker after Maupay played him in but the shot went woefully off target.

There was worse to come nine minutes later when Connolly’s pace again took him in behind, leading to Neco Williams bundling the Irishman over in the box.

Maupay stepped up to take the resulting penalty but he put his spot kick wide of the right hand post. It was an awful miss and Maupay knew it as he effectively substituted himself off ‘injured’ moments later. It was reported as being a hamstring problem, but it looked like either a bruised ego or snapped enthusiasm from where we were sitting.

Clearly, there is something not quite right with Maupay at the minute. Four weeks ago, he was dropped from the matchday 18 for being involved in an altercation with a teammate following the draw with West Brom.

He has squandered countless opportunities this season which a £20 million striker should be scoring. The penalty cock up was just the latest of those.

His reaction to it was the most troubling aspect, if indeed he was making a mountain out of a molehill to get himself off the pitch as a lot of supporters seemed to think. Maupay did not appear to want to carry on, which merely added fuel to that particular fire.

Maupay looks like a man who could benefit with a spell away from team to sort out whatever is going on. Previously, that would have been implausible as he was Brighton’s best centre forward but with Welbeck now at the club and Connolly delivering a performance that frightened the live out of Liverpool, the opportunity is there to take Maupay out of the firing line.

VAR made its first intervention on 35 minutes when Mo Salah collected Roberto Firmino’s flick and finished clinically. The second best Egyptian footballer after Adam El-Abd had strayed offside by a finger nail however and so the goal was chalked off by the tightest of margins.

Brighton’s two misses and an offside that would never have been given pre-VAR meant that the sides went into half time level at 0-0 when in reality, the Albion should have been 2-1 ahead.

Klopp hauled Williams at the break, the second time that the young full back has been substituted after only 45 minutes at the Amex. In last season’s 3-1 defeat to Liverpool, Tariq Lamptey gave Williams such a torrid time that he had to be withdrawn.

On this occasion, Connolly was the man who Williams will be having nightmares about as he now finds himself in Dan Harding territory of being a man who turns to jelly whenever he visits the city of Brighton & Hove.

The change – alongside whatever Klopp said at half time – worked for Liverpool and the Albion had much less joy in the second half. Allison finally had a save to make when Welbeck meandered into the box but other than that, chances were few and far between for the hosts.

There were questions to be asked about Brighton’s defending as Liverpool took the lead on the hour mark. Salah played in Diogo Jota who escaped the attentions of Adam Webster and Leandro Trossard a little too easily before firing low and hard past Maty Ryan.

Connolly then joined Klopp, Henderson, Milner and Maupay in the creche when he threw a tantrum at being replaced by Adam Lallana. Substituting a striker who had been playing so well for a midfielder just after going 1-0 down was a move that led to a lot of Albion fans once again questioning Potter’s tactics.

Shockingly, we found ourselves siding with the Albion manager again. Connolly’s joy was coming from getting in behind Liverpool’s back four, space which the Reds no longer needed to leave as they could sit back and defend the lead which Jota had just given them.

Brighton therefore needed to find an alternative route to goal if they were to make it 1-1 against Liverpool as Connolly’s threat was suddenly diminished. Lallana’s introduction therefore made sense as an individual with the playmaking ability to pass through the Red’s defence.

That was the theory anyway. Lallana managed to last all of five minutes before he had to be substituted. Lord knows what was going on there, but at one point he ran straight down the tunnel whilst the game was going on like a bloke who is playing Sunday League at East Brighton Park, has not paid for his parking and has just clocked the traffic warden turning up.

So much drama already and we have not even made it to the main talking point of Brighton 1-1 Liverpool. Alireza Jahanbakhsh replaced Lallana and he was an extremely lively figure playing through the middle as the Albion looked to wrest back control from the champions.

The game looked over late on when Sadio Mane scored a header from a free kick but again VAR intervened to rule it out for a minimal offside.

That was justice in a way as the initial free kick had been awarded after Ben White won the ball with a perfectly timed challenge which Stuart Attwell somehow concluded was a foul.

Liverpool defended stoically in the final 10 minutes and it looked like they had done enough to secure what would have been a very underserved three points right up until Andy Robertson decided to leather the foot of Welbeck in the area.

Attwell initially saw nothing wrong with it, which was strange given the free kick and yellow card that went against White. VAR told him to have another look and he duly awarded the Albion a second penalty of the afternoon with just seconds remaining.

Pascal Gross was the man charged with taking it and he showed exactly why a German should always be on penalty taking duties, slamming his effort past Allison to earn Brighton a 1-1 draw against Liverpool – the least the Albion deserved.