To cheer myself up after Brighton exited the FA Cup against Wolves, I visited our local café in Rowfont the following morning.
It is always a good place to talk football with lots of different opinions. I must admit, I did not expect the first conversation to be from one supporter to say he read on social media that “Brighton could not hit a donkey’s arse with a banjo.”
I thought that was very unfair and unkind. I wanted to have a food fight with him. Then I remembered how old I am and thought what the local gossip pages would say over a man in his 60s throwing breakfast around a café.
Instead, I settled with consoling myself that I would never say that about my team. Even when the chances that did not go in the net were as numerous as they were against Wolves.
The stats showed Brighton had 72 percent possession and 18 shots. Wolves only managed nine. The problem for the Albion being that just two of those shots were on target, matching the home side.
Brighton had seven corners to three for Wolves. All those numbers suggest this was not as bad a performance as a lot of people have labelled it, even if the Albion were lacking in the only stat that really matters – goals.
The other café topic centred around Valentin Barco, making his Brighton debut having recently transferred from Boca Juniors in Argentina.
Boy, I was impressed, and so were others. Barco showed a real creative side in the 10 minutes he was on the pitch. It is going to be very exciting watching him play for the Albion over the coming years.
Another player worth keeping an eye on – and one I brought up in the café myself – is Yasin Ayari, if his display for Blackburn Rovers in their FA Cup penalty defeat to Newcastle United on Tuesday night is anything to go by.
Blackburn really looked like they wanted to win the game. Their passion, speed of play and determination to win every second ball was terrific.
It was so unfortunate that their captain Dominic Hyam missed the decisive penalty in the shootout as Newcastle went through to the quarter finals.
Ayari came on in the 63rd minute and epitomised everything good about Blackburn, He was sharp, quick and never let Newcastle have an easy ride.
With Roberto De Zerbi without so many midfielders, maybe Ayari should be recalled ASAP if that option exists? He looks like a great prospect.
That lack of midfielders amongst a very high injury list of nine meant Roberto De Zerbi sought reinforcements from the Under 21s for the trip to Wolves, with Cameron Peupion making his full Albion debut.
Peupion joined the Albion from Sydney FC in August 2020. Having just come back from Australia myself, I know our Seagulls Down Under and general football fans in Australia will have enjoyed and taken pride in seeing Peupion in the starting XI.
The game was broadcast on BBC Radio Sussex and shown live on iPlayer… if you could find it. It seems I was not the only one who struggled with that, the option to watch only popping up at 7.40pm with kick off five minutes away.
Straight into the Molineux tunnel went the cameras. I hardly had the chance to take in what was occurring before my phone buzzed madly, saying Brighton were 1-0 down.
Hang on a minute, how can this be? The teams aren’t even on the pitch yet! I then remembered the way my Galaxy Watch went off on holiday in Portugal, telling me the Albion had scored before it happened on the television.
I have decided that a time delay is okay when it works in our favour. You can celebrate Brighton scoring twice. When it breaks bad news, then it is not so good.
Once the television caught up, I saw precisely how the Albion conceded. Jean-Ricner Bellegarde broke down the left extremely quickly and put in a cross which Jason Steele thought best to punch away. The punch went straight into the path of Mario Lemina, who with a flailing leg put it back past Steele.
It was a poor goal to concede. The number of goals Brighton have conceded early this season is concerning. Should the Albion not be thinking of settling the game in the opening stages to prevent opponents constantly doing this? De Zerbi and Andrea Maldera looked shocked.
Still, me being positive concluded that there were 88 minutes now to get back into the game. Brighton soon started putting together some great moves, leading to Jakub Moder curling just wide and Ansu Fati asking for a penalty after being held in the box.
Steele redeemed himself by saving a second Wolves goal when he tackled Belgarde head-on. It was a great if unusual save, coming from a weak Igor Julio back pass.
Facundo Buonanotte was taking his fair share of knocks to earn free kicks. It looked like Buonanotte was being targeted and may explain why he missed a sitter of a header.
After that, I had to shutdown the commentary from iPlayer. It was dreadful. Both commentators seemed to know nothing about Brighton but everything about Wolves.
There were lots of other Albion fans saying the same on social media. Thank goodness Johnny Cantor and Warren Aspinall were there on BBC Sussex to save the day.
The first half finished 1-0 and although Brighton did not create many openings in the second half, it was not for the want of trying. We just needed Julio Enciso to shoot from 30 yards and all would have been okay.
Then the 95th minute arrived and Steele had the chance to send the game to extra time. Waved forward for a corner by De Zerbi, the ball dropped to the goalkeeper at the back post.
Steele made contact but could only poke it wide having not worked on shooting in training. There is such a fine line between hero and villain and Steele trod it very closely at Molineux.
With so many players out injured, seeing off Wolves was always likely to be a tall order. 2023-24 remains a learning curve for Brighton in terms of what it takes to fight on four fronts.
You can bet that Tony Bloom will be taking notes and making sure the Albion are better prepared in future, providing the manager with a greater complement of players to sustain the workload.
Onwards and upwards. De Zerbi and the players will move on quickly from what happened against Wolves and so must we.
Hopefully, Barco will still be the talk of the café after Saturday’s trip to Fulham – with less mentions of banjos.
Tony Noble @Noble1844Tony
Seagulls Best Ever Season Volume 2 charts Brighton’s record breaking 2022-23 campaign through the eyes of Tony Noble, an East Stand Upper season ticket holder at the American Express Stadium. It is available from Waterstones, WHSmith, Amazon Bookstore and all good bookshops as well as the Albion Superstore at the Amex and via this link.
