Match Review: Brighton 2-2 Fulham
If you are looking for some evidence that the Brighton and Hove Albion of 2018-19 is better than the Brighton and Hove Albion of 2017-18, then the 2-2 draw with Fulham is it.
How often do we hear the phrase, “That’s a game we would’ve lost last year” to justify an improvement, based on nothing more than opinion and a set of vaguely similar circumstances?
Quite a lot. Yet we can say with certainty that the Fulham game is one we would’ve lost last year, because we actually did – it was essentially a carbon copy of the 2-0 defeat to Leicester at home.
First, there was Albion dominating the opening exchanges. Then there was a penalty miss to change all the momentum. That was followed very quickly by the visitors scoring against the run of play. Unlike when the Foxes became the only side outside of the Premier League’s top five to leave the Amex with all three points though, the Albion fought back on this occasion to take a point. Now that’s an improvement.
Fulham have spent over £100m in this window and on this showing, it looks money well spent. Summer arrival Andre Schurrle opened the scoring two minutes before half time after latching onto summer signing Jean Michael Serri’s beautiful pass.
£22m man Aleksandar Mitrovic doubled that advantage on the hour mark after a horrific cock up from Lewis Dunk. Given how heavily the Albion were linked with Mitrovic last season, it was inevitable he would score against us and when he did, it looked like it was curtains at that point.
Had Mitrovic arrived at the Amex in January rather than moved to Craven Cottage, then he’d probably have been in direct competition with Glenn Murray for a place in the side.
Approaching 35, plenty of Albion fans thought Murray would be done this season. Yet he just keeps on surprising everyone. It was his double that earned Brighton a point, taking him past Peter Ward to become the third highest goalscorer in the clubs history. Imagine the numbers he’d been on now if he’d had, oh I don’t know, an extra five seasons at the club? Thanks a lot, Gus.
Murray’s first goal came about thanks to the industry of Anthony Knockaert, who drove down the right hand side to find Murray, who slotted the ball coolly under the body of Marcus Betinelli in the Fulham goal.
The strikers second came from the penalty spot after Mitrovic had bizarrely decided to virtually catch the ball in the box under absolutely no pressure. Having already seen Pascal Gross miss a penalty in the most un-German like thing since Germany went out of the group stage at the World Cup, the tension around the Amex was palatable.
Not for Murray though. He kept a cool, calm, slightly bald head to beat Betinelli and earn a share of the spoils.
Perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised by this Fulham meltdown. Brighton have become something of a bogey side for the Cottagers since we met for the first time in nearly 20 years in 2014. Virtually every time we’ve played them since, Brighton have been terrible yet Fulham have never won a game.
Our friends at Cottagers Confidential even predicted that they would lead 2-0 before blowing it, such is the psychological hold the Albion have over Fulham . Unfortunately, we couldn’t get in contact with them afterwards to find out what that evenings National Lottery numbers would be.
The big question in the bars around the Amex afterwards was whether this was one point gained or two lost. The answer is a bit of both. Given where we were on 65 minutes, a point gained. But when you look at the game overall, it’s a big two points dropped. Brighton made so many errors that it’s hard to conclude otherwise.
Gross never looked confident taking the spot kick, perhaps afflicted by how close he’d come to seeing his effort against Manchester United kept out by the legs of David De Gea. It was a terrible penalty and if it goes in, its a different game.
Likewise Dunk’s error. The Albion captain was clearly not match fit and the wisdom of rushing him back when he could’ve had another two weeks to recover with an international break coming up has to be questioned, especially as Leon Balogun hadn’t put a foot wrong. The Nigerian international isn’t losing that ball to Mitrovic which presents Fulham with their second.
Then there were the missed chances, most notably when Solly March cleared the crossbar when all he needed to do was pass the ball past Betinelli after being played in by Davy Propper. March really does blow hot and cold at the moment. Brilliant against United, he was utter gubbins here and that Hughton decided to haul Knockaert for Alireza Jahanbakhsh rather than March was mystifying. Knockaert clearly wasn’t happy either given the number of toys that were thrown onto the floor of the technical area after he’d come off.
It’s hard to look beyond this being two points dropped in the end. But at least we know thing – this Brighton side already looks better than last seasons. The comparison to that Leicester game proves it.
