Match Preview: Brighton v Tottenham Hotspur

Spurs are in crisis. Everywhere we’ve turned this past week, that has been the headline. They were eliminated from the Camila Cabello Cup at the hands of League Two Colchester United two weeks ago and then they were hammered 7-2 at home by Bayern Munich in the Champions League on Tuesday night.

Mauricio Pochettino has spent most of this season acting like a moody teenager, saying one chapter closed after their European Cup final defeat to Liverpool and the club had yet to decide what the new one is.

Daniel Levy continues to be the tightest man in football whose overriding aim is to make money – it isn’t hard to see why Profit Paul Barber so enjoyed working for Tottenham – which has left Spurs with a stagnating squad amongst which their are rumours of serial unrest.

To put it simply, there probably isn’t a better time to be facing Spurs. Especially when we are pretty desperate for points ourselves having not won since the opening day of the season.

But if there’s one thing that watching Brighton for over 25 years has taught us, it’s that it doesn’t matter how bad a rut the opposition are in. If there is one team in the country that terrible runs of form and crises of confidence come to an end against, it’s the Albion.

A brief history of Tottenham Hotspur
Tottenham are one of the most famous clubs in the country and have a number of historic firsts to their name. They were the first English club to complete a league and FA Cup double in the 20th century when they lifted both trophies in the 1960-61 season. In 1901, they became the first – and only – non-league club to win the FA Cup. And they became the first club in the history of English football to record a home attendance in excess of 85,000 when they played Bayer Leverkusen at Wembley in November 2016.

In recent years, Spurs have developed a reputation as an exciting team to watch packed with young English players. They’ve also confirmed their place as the country’s serial bottle jobs having not lifted a major trophy since 2007 despite having all that talent. They lost out on the Premier League title to Leicester City in 2016 and of course there was last season’s Champions League final defeat to Liverpool.

Still, their supporters don’t seem to mind as long as they finish above Arsenal.

Tottenham Hotspur this season
Pochettino talks about this lack of new chapter as being the problem currently, but to us it looks like their players are suffering a severe hangover. Rather than being a result of 20 pints of Amstel and 10 Jägerbombs, this hangover appears to be caused by coming so close to success yet falling at the last hurdle every time.

It’s almost as if Spurs’ players are beginning to question if they’ll ever get across that finishing line in first place – and because they’re doubting that, they’re beginning to give up. That certainly appeared to be the case in the heavy midweek defeat to Bayern in which the German champions scored three times in the final seven minutes.

If players and manager are starting to wonder if they can lift trophies with Spurs, then that could set them on a dangerous path once the transfer windows open again. Why would the likes of Harry Kane, Son Heung-Min, Christian Eriksen and even Pochettino himself want to stay when bigger and better clubs who can offer them the chance to win things may be interested in their services?

Having said all that, they should still be too good for the Albion this weekend. Still, it will be fascinating to see how Graham Potter’s attacking football works at home against one of the big six who arrive bereft of confidence.

Head-to-head
There have been 32 matches between Brighton and Tottenham since we first met as Southern League opponents in 1903. Spurs have won exactly half of those games, triumphing on 32 occasions with Brighton winning eight and eight draws.

In terms of Football League games, we have only beaten Spurs three times in 18 attempts, with the last Seagulls victory coming in April 1983 thanks to goals from Steve Gatting and Gerry Ryan. It didn’t prove to be much help as the Albion were relegated a month later.

Brighton’s head-to-head record with Tottenham Hotspur

Last six meetings
• Tottenham Hotspur 1-0 Brighton (Premier League, 23/04/19)
• Brighton 1-2 Tottenham Hotspur (Premier League, 22/09/18)
• Brighton 1-1 Tottenham Hotspur (Premier League, 17/04/18)
• Tottenham Hotspur 2-0 Brighton (Premier League, 13/12/17)
• Tottenham Hotspur 2-0 Brighton (League Cup Fourth Round, 29/10/14)
• Tottenham Hotspur 2-1 Brighton (FA Cup Third Round, 08/01/05)

No victories for the Albion in the past six meetings doesn’t exactly make for great reading, although that only tells half the story as most of these have been extremely close encounters. Take the last meeting in April for example, when Brighton were only undone by a piece of Eriksen magic in the final minute at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

With a little more composure in front of goal from Anthony Knockaert, we could have had a point in the earlier fixture at the Amex in September. The League Cup game in 2014 saw the strange scenario of Pochettino naming a full-strength Spurs side while Sami Hyypia rested players from his Championship strugglers, so a 2-0 defeat that day was actually quite impressive. And Mark McGhee’s Brighton were more than worthy of a replay in our FA Cup meeting in 2005 before Robbie Keane scored an absolute cracker late on to ensure that Tottenham didn’t face the ordeal of a midweek trip to Withdean.

Team news
Leandro Trossard remains out which continues to be a huge blow to the Albion’s chances. Davy Propper was too exhausted to play at Chelsea last time out according to Potter and given that Aaron Mooy had little-to-no impact at Stamford Bridge, we’d replace him with the Dutch midfielder.

Otherwise, the team pretty much picks itself unless Solly March is back to full fitness. That would then give Potter a selection dilemma as Steve Alzate has been excellent on the left wing, if you ignore the fact he goes down more easily than the Titanic. Of course, March could come into the front three but given that Pascal Gross has been Brighton’s most creative player so far this season so it would seem madness to drop him.

Tottenham Hotspur’s key players
Spurs and England captain Harry Kane is their talisman and main striker with Eriksen pulling the strings behind him. We also love Son, partly because he is one of the most underrated players in the league and partly because he took the time to speak to us as an 18-year-old Hamburg striker when we decided to take time out from visiting the Reeperbahn to turn up at HSV’s training ground. This was in stark contrast to Ruud van Nistelrooy who legged it at the first sign of six pissed up English blokes stood on the side of the pitch.

A good WeAreBrighton.com memory of Tottenham Hotspur at home
Three days after the Albion’s back four had resembled the cast from Zippos Circus away at Crystal Palace, a much tougher proposition lay in store as Spurs came to the Amex in April 2018. We went into the game fearing the absolute worst but remarkably, Brighton played ridiculously well and were more than worthy of a point. It finished 1-1 after Pascal Gross scored a second half penalty.

A bad WeAreBrighton.com memory of Tottenham Hotspur at home
The Albion’s point that day against Spurs came because Chris Hughton surprisingly sent a side out with the instruction to attack. Fast forward five months and it was the polar opposite when Pochenttino and his stars returned to Sussex.

Only once we were 2-0 down did Hughton release the handbrake, a real head scratcher given that once he did so, we subsequently scored and missed two other glorious chances. Spurs were also forced into playing their third choice goalkeeper due to an injury crisis. It was a game that could have been there for the taking.

Our favourite player to play for Brighton and Tottenham
Who else could it be but Mauricio Taricco? Tano arrived at the Albion as a retired right back, came out of retirement once and got sent off in his first game for barracking the referee at Woking in the FA Cup. He retired again, then made another comeback and got sent off a few games into that return for protesting a little too vehemently against a penalty away at Southampton. You could tell he was different class even at the age of 37 but nonetheless, he was a complete loose cannon when it came to dissent.

What we like about Tottenham
Not much to be fair. The local MP is David Lammy, a man who calls anyone who disagrees with him a Nazi, which isn’t particularly helpful in this day and age. Aside from their wonderful new stadium, Tottenham seems to be an area of off licences (good) and kebab shops (not so good). It was also where Mark Duggan got shot, sparking the London Riots of 2011.

Prediction
Spurs may be a club in crisis, but when has that ever helped the Albion win? Chelsea hadn’t won at home under Frank Lampard until last week. West Bromwich Albion hadn’t won for 20 games until we rocked up to the Hawthorns in January 2018. Wigan Athletic had gone eight months without a home victory until beating us 2-1 at the DW Stadium in April 2015 and Birmingham hadn’t tasted success at St Andrews for nine months until they saw us off 1-0 in August 2014.

As a result, the Spurs crisis means nothing. We’re going for a repeat of last year’s meeting at the Amex with Spurs winning 2-1.