After an incredible performance against Everton last week, could the Albion head north and continue to fly high by beating Manchester City on Sunday? In a word – no. Did they put in a good performance and give the Sky Blues some genuine trouble? In a word – yes. More words do follow…

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I have decided in my infinite wisdom not to simply rehash sections of the games any more. SheGulls is too big now for me to spend so much time writing words that have already been written several times elsewhere. For instance, a full recap of the match can be found HERE on the Albion website, expertly conveyed by Bruce Talbot. There are also a myriad of ways to view the highlights should you so wish.

What I can do, and will continue to do, is give you my thoughts on every game, taken from notes made at the time and upon reflection after the final whistle:

Notes

• Brighton pressed high for the entirety of the first-half. It was risky, but it was also ambitious – not two words that would have been used to describe our style of play for the last few years.
• As with Everton it worked too, several times we won the ball up the field, or found ourselves in possession with plenty of options in attacking areas, but we were never really able to carve out an outstanding chance.
• In particularly Poppy Pattinson and Bruna down the left-hand side linked up well together, and with others, to develop some good opportunities. Perhaps they benefited from City concentrating on hat-trick hero Kiko Seike and Fran Kirby who truthfully were kept relatively quiet.
• The game started to open up and after about half an hour and I wrote down ‘not sure that bodes well for the Albion’. I just felt their team with time on the ball and space, would outplay our team in the same circumstances. So it proved, but as a demonstration of how far we’ve come, like for like, player for player – they only beat us by one goal.
• We know illness hit the camp this week and some players did look leggy in the second-half leading to some ‘technical errors’ which Guro Bergsvand alluded to in her post-match press conference. She also said they ended up going backwards instead of forwards too often as the match wore on. An honest assessment and one I’d agree with.
• The interplay can still be sloppy at times. Jorelyn Carabali almost gifted City a goal with a wayward ball across our back-line after 6 minutes, and Vicky Losada still just has a few too many misplaced passes in the buildup.
• Likewise playing out from the back, Guro got caught on the ball just outside our own box, but recovered well to block the subsequent shot, and Maria Thorisdottir had Sophie Baggaley to thank after some ponderous play led to Jess Park going clean through on goal. City I think could sense the nervousness creeping in and Baggaley herself looked equally uncomfortable several times when she had to recycle the ball and not just clear her lines.
• Their goal was about as predictable as can be. I had said on various podcasts and in articles this week that if we played the same way against City as we did against Everton, the weak link would be the right hand side of our defence. I see the logic, Poppy drops back into the left-back position, everyone slides right, Maria Thorisdottir becomes the de facto right-back, and we have a solid block of four defenders when required. The problem is, one, Maria is not a full-back, and two she doesn’t have the pace to deal with the likes of Lauren Hemp – or in this instance Kerstin Casperij. Hemp fronts Maria up, waits for the run of Casperij in behind and completes the pass down the line. Casperij plays a first-time ball across the face of goal and Bunny Shaw taps it home. Simple as ABC, and sadly I think most of us saw it coming a mile off. Was it Maria’s fault? Not at all, but she needed help over there and when it didn’t come, they scored. In this game that’s all it takes.
• In truth the score should have been about 3-1. City in particular were pretty woeful in front of goal and had it ended a draw there would have been some serious wringing of hands in their dressing room.
• Marisa Olislagers looked like she was marking, at least zonally, Jess Park for the majority of the game. It was telling that Park was perhaps the least influential of all Man City’s attacking talent – at least in my opinion. What a signing Olislagers looks to be by the way.
• Speaking of players that have had an excellent start to the campaign – Poppy played incredibly well yet again. I thought she had her best game in an Albion shirt last week and this week was just as good. Not being handcuffed to left full-back is really helping to unlock her obvious talent. She was composed all game, dug the team out of trouble once or twice and looked a danger down the left as mentioned above.
• I thought the ref, Stacey Pearson, was ok, she needlessly booked Poppy after two innocuous fouls, possibly for dissent – but neither were fouls so I think Poppy had the right to complain. I would have! Otherwise though she was pretty consistent and thankfully after inserting herself into the game early on, was fairly anonymous in the second half.
• Big thank you to all the travelling supporters who made the journey up! We heard you!

For more in depth analysis (well we try) please do give the SheGulls Podcast a listen. New episodes recorded the Monday after a game and released asap after that!

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