Match Review: Watford 2-0 Brighton
Brighton and Hove Albion may have spent over £50m improving their squad ahead of their second season in the Premier League, but it was the same old story away at Watford in the season opener.
The Albion scored a grand total of 10 goals on the road last year and won only twice. Only one of the new signings, Bernardo, started at Vicarage Road. The result? A 2-0 defeat and not one shot on target against one of the sides who will probably be around the Seagulls in the bottom half of the table.
Chris Hughton, normally so insightful in post match interviews, told the BBC afterwards, “Sometimes you wonder what happened – pre-season was fine. We have some new signings but the team that played today was the same as last season, so no excuses.”
Well, that’s your problem for a start, Chris. Last season’s team were largely woeful on the road and couldn’t defend a set piece to save their life. Hughton said at the Albion Fans Forum on Thursday night that they’d been working hard on defending corners over the summer, yet on this showing it has made bugger all difference.
The season was only 40 minutes old when we conceded our first goal from a set piece. True, it was a spectacularly good volley from Roberto Pereyra, but how he was allowed to be in so much unmarked space on the edge of the box is a question that needs answering.
Pereyra doubled his and the Hornet’s tally in the second half when he was allowed to trundle into the box unchallenged and bend an effort past Maty Ryan. Without the interventions of Ryan, it could have been much worse for the Albion. He pulled off a smart stop in the first half to deny Andre Gray his traditional goal against Brighton and somehow kept out a Troy Deeney effort via a brilliant two handed save.
That was in stark contrast to Ben Foster in the Watford goal. By the time we reached half time, he had been so underemployed that he could’ve read the entirety of War and Peace and written a 10,000 word review of it on Amazon. In the second half, he had time to invent a flying car and develop a way to time travel.
Many supporters will point to losing Bruno to injury early on as a turning point, but really the Albion weren’t in the game even with the skipper on the pitch. Anthony Knockaert’s encouraging pre-season form deserted him as soon as he was faced with the quality of an actual Premier League full back and Solly March might as well have been replaced by a mannequin.
Speaking of replacements, there were at least some positive signs from the bench. New £15m signing Yves Bissouma from LOSC Lille was comfortably the Albion’s best player, injecting speed, dynamism and actually looking like he wanted to attack when he was introduced in place of Pascal Gross with an hour played.
Record buy Alireza Jahanbakhsh was belatedly thrown on with 20 minutes to go and didn’t have much time to make an impression, a few driving runs and a corner straight from the Dean Cox Playbook not really too indicative of what he can offer.
It was intriguing that despite the fact we desperately needed a goal after going 2-0 down, Jurgen Locadia remained on the bench. Rumours abound that Hughton doesn’t fully trust his second most expensive ever signing and the fact he wouldn’t throw on our only striker when needing a goal could tell its own story. Having to make a defensive sub so early obviously didn’t help Locadia’s cause, but it doesn’t bode well for him.
It should be too early in the season to be talking about six pointers, but with the run of fixtures coming up, the Albion really needed something at Vicarage Road. Last season’s top four are up in the next six fixtures, a bruising run that could well leave us somewhat adrift by the time we’ve travelled to Manchester City at the end of the September.
The result takes Hughton’s away record as a Premier League manager to nine wins in 64 games. Clearly, the Albion’s hopes of survival are going to hugely hinge on how things go at the Amex. To that end, Sunday’s game with Manchester United – who we famously beat 1-0 last season – is even more important now.
If we defend set pieces, start Bissouma and actually have a shot then hopefully it won’t leave Hughton wondering what happened afterwards again.
