Ups and Downes on the South Downs - with SW6 clubs lying in wait

Brighton & Hove Albion (1) 1 v Southampton (0) 1

By Kaz Mochlinski at the Amex Community Stadium

Premier League

Matchweek 13

Talking Points

It is never a trivial achievement to go above Manchester City in the Premier League table on a better head-to-head record. Even now, with City in a period of crisis. Even temporarily.

Even though it was attained only by drably drawing at home with the league’s bottom team, as Brighton & Hove Albion managed to do in finishing deadlocked at 1-1 against Southampton.

The result was enough for Albion to move level with Manchester City on points, goal difference, and goals scored. Only their 2-1 defeat of City earlier in November separated the sides in the standings, for a couple of days anyway.

That unusual outcome was almost the solitary memorable takeaway from an otherwise forgettable Friday night on the South Coast, as Brighton on this occasion failed to justify the recent hype surrounding them.

Their fans seem to still be unconvinced, with a surprisingly significant number of empty seats in the stands and a subdued atmosphere - in conrast to the positive buzz about Albion in the rest of the football world.

A big contributory factor was felt to be the much-loathed scheduling switch dictated by TV, from a weekend afternoon which remains the overwhelming preference of the vast majority of supporters.

This was just one aspect of an evening when a lot of what is wrong with the Premier League happened to be very prominent, from players persistent simulation to the not unconnected inconsistency of refereeing.

The VAR system even found a new way to embarrass itself by taking more than four minutes to reach a decision - and disallow a goal adjudged by almost all neutral observers to appear entirely legitimate.

Both sets of coaching staff received yellow cards, and the ugly confrontations between them continued after the final whistle. Down in the dressing room area, mutual accusations of a lack of respect were loudly made.

To his credit, the Southampton manager Russell Martin sensibly sought to calm down the emotions at the end, cautioning: “It doesn’t really matter. We’re both just trying to win football matches.”

The yellow card shown to the Brighton head coach Fabian Hürzeler will be the one with the most short-term impact, as it was his third of this season and he will now be banned from the touchline for the next game.

That will be at Fulham on Thursday, while by coincidence Southampton are due to face the other club from London SW6 on Wednesday when Chelsea will head down to the South Coast.

The challenges for the two capital city neighbours could hardly be more different in this case. Brighton have made their best ever start and Southampton their worst ever start to a Premier League season.

The Seagulls are in the top four Champions League qualifying places, whereas the Saints continue to be adrift at the foot of the table, with just one win and five points from their first 13 games.

So it was a major irony that the travelling Southampton support wildly celebrated the 1-1 draw at Brighton, watched in silent disappointment by those Albion fans who had not departed early.

It was justified for Southampton’s first away point of the current campaign after six successive defeats. Conversely, Albion appeared to be unhappy despite having risen, briefly, up to second place.

That is the highest position Brighton have ever occupied this far into a league season. But the expectations around the Sussex side have grown remarkably quickly and sometimes still the Seagulls struggle to fulfil them.

One of the most misleading statistics of this season may be that Brighton have stayed unbeaten at home in their first seven matches in the league (including wins over Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur, and Manchester City).

As any Albion aficionado will point out, that sequence contains frustrating failures to get more than a draw against Ipswich Town, Nottingham Forest, Wolverhampton Wanderers, and now Southampton.

The Saints were an absolutely typical Brighton banana skin in anticipation, and it duly transpired that way. Indeed, if not for the hotly-debated VAR decision, it would have been even worse.

The very likeable Hürzeler did not hesitate to acknowledge as much: “We have already had bad experiences with games like these at home. This can’t be our identity, this can’t be our style of play.”

And he also admitted: “It’s not the best emotions to feel after a match. But that’s also a part of football - negative emotions. We didn’t deserve anything this time. But we will work hard and we will be better next time.”

Hürzeler was grateful for Kaoru Mitoma having given Brighton a first half lead. But ultimately the equaliser was more than fitting - with Flynn Downes scoring his first ever Premier League goal… on the South Downs.