Woke up feeling weirdly confident about this one for absolutely no reason. Heart says 3-0 Brighton, head says 3-0 Bournemouth
Didn't I read somewhere that your manager is basically playing the kids for the remainder of the season?
Not sure where that would have come from as he hasn't so far. It's also probably too early to announce that we're completely giving up on the league as if we win all 5 of our remaining games we will still probably finish 6th (not that we have any chance of doing that realistically) Can only think it might have been something about (19 year old) Barco playing for the remainder of the season, but with 2 out of our 3 older full backs injured he doesn't exactly have a choice
Another meeting with Brighton, who must be one of my most watched opposition down the leagues and the years. A great many scrappy, crappy games in that. You’d like to hope we’re both better and capable of some quality these days! There’s been odd sightings of flip-flops and beach towels in some recent games, but on the whole so far Iraola has done well to keep performances going. Our trouble hasn’t been levels, we’ve been creating chances for fun, but more taking them and then cutting out mistakes at the other end. Meaning we’re still some way short of the previous points total we’d like to beat. The shift we had to put in second half against Wolves midweek showed the commitment but it’s left us with more knocks and a suspension to manage today. I gather they have their own injuries etc too. Draw wouldn’t surprise me?
Team news isn’t great and the bench is mostly kids but we’ll have to make the best of it! Dango as a full back is always fun, he’ll do something amazing one minute and then brain fart the next. Two up front is unusual for us.
Surprised de zerbi's gone for such a youthful team as we probably would still get 6th or 7th if we won all our games, but seeing as we realistically won't do that anyway I'm fairly happy to just let the youngsters have a run out for the rest of the season
Yet again it seems not many teams are having any real problem with Brighton this season. I've no doubt however that ten Hag will manage to get a trouncing on May 19th, as he usually does.
Very solid result, only soured by our arguable player of the season getting stretchered off with a knee going. Another game where more accurate finishing would have seen us run riot, but as ever we can’t make it too easy. I swear Justin Kluivert will be the death of me with his moments of magic followed by moments of pub team ha but what good feet he’s got. I assume Brighton’s side was a mish mash judging by the numbers and few names I knew. I thought the second half subs would turn the game against us given our lack of senior options, but as it turned out we seemed to grow as the game went on.
We simply don't have a very good team this year. It's been masked for most of the season by the great start we had, but there was a reason why pre-season I said I'd be delighted if we finished anywhere near the top half
You’d have Kerkez and Zabarnyi straight in at the back. Neto is debatable either way. Christie in midfield (yes he came on for 30 mins). At least one if not both of Tavernier and Sinisterra in attack as well. Dango with another erratic and slightly crazy but overall successful job at full back. Scott and Unal with their best games for the club, both slowly growing into the PL. Which I expect will be needed next season with likely summer sales. Travers giving food for thought in goal. Smith/Aarons is a hard one to call. It’s going be to an interesting summer for sure. I reckon some of those fringe lads out there today will need to grow into their first team boots.
VERY satisfying win. I remember a Brighton fan on here saying they were comfortably better than us in the return fixture, so it's amazing the roles have reversed so firmly so quickly. I know Brighton have injuries, but the second half was still impressive from us considering we have no real options to bring on. I've not seen a side looking to be put out of their misery so quickly after half time, the start of the second half we were all over them - completely the opposite of what you'd expect. That's why I love us under Andoni, we go for the throat.
