As a fan this game made me run the full gamut of emotions. I was disappointed, angry, sad, hopeful, surprised, excited, relieved and a whole lot more in between. Except for a whirlwind last 10 minutes though, Brighton were average at best, and ultimately we can’t allow a dramatic comeback to paper over the cracks.

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The start of the game was back and forth, neither side really able to show any of the quality that has seen Albion overcome Manchester City and Leicester take points off Manchester United this season. There were one or two half chances, but on a slick pitch dampened by constant rain prior to kick-off, both teams found it hard to keep control and build methodically.

The Foxes were doing a good job of pressing when Brighton had the ball and consequently it was hard to find any real pockets of space in which to develop our passing game. The Albion did manage to win some corners and a free kick that Maisie Symonds flashed across the box, but Leicester mopped them up without any real difficulty.

Then just before the half-time whistle came a moment of controversy. Lena Petermann charged down Emma Kullberg’s clearance, the ball fell kindly in front of her and she drove in an excellent finish from range. At first glance though I was almost certain that Petermann had handled the ball. I waited patiently for the FA Player to load up so I could watch the replay and to my dismay not only did she handle it, she almost saved it like a goalkeeper in front of herself. Now if the argument was that it was deliberate, you could argue that it wasn’t – BUT – if you gain an advantage from ANY handball that leads to a goal it should be disallowed. It’s a well known and easy to apply RULE. Additionally you may not make your body ‘unnaturally bigger’, well in the picture below provided from a better angle (h/t Ben), clear as day, she has her arms sticking straight out. There is absolutely no way that goal should have stood and everybody knew it too. The WSL even chopped the clearance off their Twitter/X post of the goal itself later on, presumably so nobody would question the validity of the decision. More to come on that later.

It was as if that goal stunned the Seagulls as they came out after the break and immediately conceded another one. A well worked move straight from the kick-off caught them colder than Brighton beach in December, Jutta Rantala picked up the ball with acres of space in the box and tucked home a tidy finish into the top right corner of the net. 2-0 down and scant hope that we could find our way back into the game.

Little changed until the 63rd minute when Katie Robinson came on for Veatriki Sarri. I must confess I had been campaigning for Sarri to see more time, but unfortunately she did little to influence the game on this occasion. The same can’t be said of Robbo, as she looked to drive forward immediately and the momentum slowly but surely started to shift towards the seagulls. The addition of Tatiana Pinto for Symonds also bolstered our offensive output. The first goal itself though came from almost nowhere.

Maria Thorisdottir cleared a loose ball mid-way into Brighton territory. It carried long and high towards the Leicester area and the foot race was on between Elisabeth Terland and Sophie Howard as to who would get there first. Fortunately for the Albion it was Teri, who took a couple of small but important touches, before slotting it past the onrushing Janina Leitzig. All of a sudden Brighton had some urgency, and with the prospect of substantial time being added on, everybody started to believe.

The equaliser came from another deep ball, this time deliberate, from Sophie Baggaley. She was able to find the head of Pauline Bremer who nodded the ball out to Poppy Pattinson on the left wing. With time and space to pick out a teammate, Pattinson put an inch perfect cross into the 6-yard box where Terland was waiting to head the ball home. 88 minutes, 2-2, the game was alive!

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We had one or two half chances in the remaining minutes, including an opportunity for Teri to score her hat-trick, but she slid her finish wide of the post. From two goals down you’d have to say it was a point well-earned, but the performance overall was well below where the team needs as we approach the winter break.

Style & Philosophy

I think my real bugbear at the moment is for all the talk of bringing the team together as a unit, developing a style of play and so on, we don’t actually seem to be markedly better than we were last season. Yes I know Manchester City, but I counter with West Ham, Spurs and now Leicester – all teams we have to beat at home if we want to avoid a relegation battle. Even Liverpool who absolutely thumped us were held yesterday by Bristol City, so relying on a couple of teams to be truly awful? Those days are numbered. For context, last season, 9 games – 7 points, this season, 9 games – 8 points.

Excuse me whilst I do some amateur analysis here. In this game we had just 33% possession, and under half the amount of passes (294 vs 594) as Leicester. Our pass accuracy was also worse, 62% to their 77%. So that tells me we’re not a side who can maintain control and use ball progression to cause the opposition any real danger. However, we did have more shots, 17-12, and more shots on target, 7-3, which means when we did attack we were more dangerous than the Foxes in doing so. Looking at both of our goals Albion were clearly more effective on the counter, and bringing Katie Robinson on to run at them changed the game because suddenly their defence had to worry about balls in between and behind the lines.

The difficulty comes that when you look at the squad, we are not built to play on the counter attack. We simply don’t have the pace or dynamism to beat teams that way. Look at the way van de Sanden, Haug, Holland and latterly Kiernan, destroyed us away at Liverpool – they’re the clear example of that style, we’re not at that level – and I don’t think we even want to be. Yes it worked to an extent against Leicester, but as much as anything it was the change in tactics that caused them issues and once we got one back even their manager effectively put the equaliser down to ‘fear’.

At the moment one of three things is true, or a combination of them. Either we’re a possession and passing team who routinely have less of the ball than the opposition and a low pass accuracy rate, we’re a counter attacking team with almost no raw pace and outstanding transitional ball-carriers, or we don’t know what we are. I’m not sure which one frightens me more.

Notes

• I’ve yet to see one single media outlet professional or amateur call out that handball decision online. I’d love to know why. It feels like there’s a culture of silence that mistakes are allowed to happen with no recourse. I am absolutely not advocating that we pile on the referee – goodness knows they have a tough enough job – BUT just ignoring the issues doesn’t make them go away. As a game we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard.
• I’m not an advocate of long-ball tactics but boy did it work for us in this game. I’m sure we won’t be hoofing it everytime we get possession, but it does beg the question if we might be better off being more direct with our play in the future depending on the opposition.
• It was very much an average performance from the starting 11 so it would be hard to single anyone other than Terland out for particular praise given that she scored both goals. Equally I wouldn’t say anyone had a complete nightmare.
• We definitely improved once Robbo came on and the play stretched out. I sometimes feel like she’s handcuffed to a tactical role when she plays the full 90 which nullifies a lot of her pace and creativity. I wonder if she couldn’t be utilised differently to make the most of her obvious talent.
• On a personal note it was fantastic to meet a few of you at the game. We are building this community brick by brick and a good way to start is just to have a few friendly faces to say hello to or break down the match with at full or half time. I will bring more stickers to the Bristol City game too – promise!