Last night the Eagles went to the Seagulls where we saw two sides playing very different football but united by a derby game. Coming into the game the form of the teams was quite different also. Brighton were on a good run of games including wins against Spurs and Liverpool where Palace had lost there last two games 5-0 on aggregate.
The game perhaps highlighted a different in approach between the managers. I don’t mean how it was a case of purist vs pragmatist but by how one side appeared to set themselves up for the specific opponent and the other maybe just played their normal game. So, what happened in the first half in particular was Brighton ended up doing what Palace wanted them to do. The result was a lot of “chances” for Brighton which weren’t really meaningful because Palace were ready for them.
Core to Palaces success today was the midfield. The 3 central midfielder of Eze, Milivojevic and Riedewald played as one player who was 20 yards wide. Hodgson appeared to have noticed a pattern in how Brighton play, preferring to play down the left side of the pitch. As a result the more defensive player, Riedewald, was played on the right of the three to help cover that attack. Palace owned the space in front of the centre halves so when Brighton did get the ball in and around Cahill and Kouyate it was a physical battle that Brighton’s small forwards couldn’t cope with. They also kept Brighton’s top goal creator, Gross, very quiet. He only got the ball around the edge of the box once and Brighton scored from his incisive pass that bounced off Welbeck and Mitchell for Veltman to finish.
This tough performance explains the huge disparity in the chance to goal ratio between the teams. Both of Palaces goals came from Ayew dragging his side up the pitch by carrying the ball and wrestling with Burn for the first and Welbeck for the second as he carried the ball forward. From there, mistakes are what cost Brighton. For the first goal Dunk got himself caught in no mans land between his centre half partners Burn and White so he wasn’t helping dispossess Ayew, and he wasn’t blocking the passing lane for the ball to Mateta. The first goal was a great scooped backheel that went between the goal keepers legs. White did a reasonable job pressuring the larger Mateta but the intelligent finish negated that good pressure. The second goal from Townsend’s cross was poor pressing from Brighton. Veltman appeared to encourage Townsend to cross the ball then as it gave over to the subbed on Benteke, Burn stopped looking at the looping ball allowing Benteke to watch come down and hit a well placed volley to Sanchez’s bottom corner.
There was a change at the start of the second half when Welbeck came on as a striker for Alzate who was playing at left wing back. This pushed Dan Burn from centre half to left back so White and Dunk played as a two. This change was significant as Brighton were effectively playing with 10 men as they had 3 players on the half way line where Palace were happy to let them keep the ball. It did feel a touch unfair on Alzate as he hadn’t played badly during the game but it was a change that had to happen. Burn is a player who has proved himself at that position over the season so Brighton certainly weren’t losing anything in there and he performed well going forward during the match. Having that extra player in the middle meant that when the ball did get centrally there was an extra player to battle for it and during the build up Brighton were no longer outnumbered. This didn’t make it easy for Brighton at all, but it made the game a little more competitive centrally and on Brighton’s left as Riedewald couldn’t help in wide areas like he could before.
The overall result of this change was a more open second half that resembled a derby game a bit more than the first half where Brighton kept the game slow and steady, trying to work their way forward. There were a couple more changes in the second half. Lallana came on for Mac Allister in the 66th minute who had struggled during the game. Lallana did manage to find him self unmarked in the box to take a shot but unfortunately for Brighton he tough he was playing in the six nations and hit it well over for a conversion. Other than that, he did also struggle to contribute.
Benteke, the eventually winning goal scorer, came on for Mateta in the 75th minute of the game and it was clear to see why. This was only Mateta 2nd game starting for Palace and 3rd in total so I’m not going to pretend I knew much if anything about him before this match. During the game however he seemed to profile as a target man. The things he did well were to run hard for the box when the ball was out wide and his gorgeous finish of course. Other than that he didn’t appear to want to help in defending. His body language looked reluctant so it made sense to take him off at this point for Benteke who was a lot more willing to run and harass the Brighton players. There was another reason this was a shrewd change for Hodgson. Going into this game Palace had conceded more goals in the last 15 minutes of a game than any other side, so in an important game like this one where it’s 1-1 at the time, you need all 11 players working hard. There also seemed to be a change in dynamic for Palace. Eze had started carrying the ball forward a bit more. This meant Palace did look a bit more threatening, although no chances came from Eze pushing, it did open the midfield a bit and Brighton maybe looked the favourites to win because of it.
In the 80th minute Potter made a mistake in my opinion brining Gross off for Jahanbakhsh. Gross is Brighton’s top goal creator and hadn’t been let forward to contribute apart from one occasion which resulted in a goal. I think taking one of the forward options off, pushing Gross forward and playing someone to deeper in the space vacated by Gross would have better taken advantage of Palace opening up. 10 minutes later though, Hodgson made a change to sure the side up a bit and stop a Brighton side growing in some confidence. Eze was taken off in the 90th for James McCarthy who set the midfield 3 back to the solid shape they were before. Brighton struggled from there, pushed too far forward and Ayew bullied his way forward for get the ball to Townsend out wide who assisted the last minute winner.
This game really was Ballers vs Battlers and in the end, the Battlers won. I do feel Palace deserved the win. They put in an incredibly brave performance highlighted by Ayew spending most of the first half with paint on his forehead and Cahill in the second with cotton up his nose to stop it bleeding. In the moments it mattered in the box Palace were always ahead of Brighton and that’s where games are won and lost. Brighton controlled everything between the penalty boxes, but Palace had control of the danger zones.
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