Brighton vs. Liverpool: *Bumper* Post-Match Analysis

(EDIT: Changed the main image to this picture, via The Athletic, with Dominik Szoboszlai with ball in stride, under control. Goal in front of him. Eight yards out. Defenders getting back on the line wouldn’t deny a goalscoring opportunity – see Cody Gakpo at Spurs when four on the line couldn’t stop the shot, and all it needs is a shot. Lack of attempt to play the ball overrules the double-jeopardy law, and so it’s 100% a red card by the laws of the game, and would have meant 45 minutes against a side 2-1 down after the penalty. But no. Liverpool have had four red cards this season, each ‘subjective’ and each bullshit in terms of consistency. If this isn’t DOGSO, then we may as well all just find ways to justify things, such as I’m not really bald, as clearly I have *some* hair on my head. Meanwhile, Matteo Kovavic got a yellow for a red-and-a-half's worth of achilles/ankle rakers.)

Paul Tomkins, Andrew Beasley, Daniel Rhodes and other TTT regulars will give their thoughts on the match for 24 hours after the game, so the article received via email is unlikely to be the final version. There's statistics from the match and videos too.

Post-Match Thoughts

Paul Tomkins

Ah, Brighton. The Reds' big bêtes noires last season, so a point, away, is not to be sniffed at; even if from a winning position.

The Seagulls were so exciting last season, with a new high-risk variation on playing from the back that drew its prey onto them, and struck on the break in a game of chicken, which they tended to win.

They deserved their praise, albeit there were always those quasi-religious types who talk of the only way – the pure way – to play football. Roberto de Zerbi was the messiah.

Such zealots remind me of those really annoying fundamentalists from years ago who’d come up to you in Tescos and say you’re going to hell if you don’t stop masturbating (although sometimes it was the Tescos security guard, and I conceded that the supermarket was indeed neither the time nor the place).

Brighton bettered Liverpool several times last season, but that was a slower, older Liverpool, pressing poorly from the front; now, the press is a bit deeper. The legs are fresher, faster. The two defeats came away, and the draw was at Anfield.

Roberto de Zerbi has been a breath of fresh air, but in football it can soon go stale.

Plus, the rise in expectations brings more pressure. The European competition brings more fatigue, more travel time, less preparation time.

I think he's the real deal, but as soon as you lose your point of difference (as others do the same as you), you also lose your element of surprise.

Next to go is your team's confidence, or your players' fitness and freshness, and it becomes something entirely different; a crisis, and then playing confident, risky football gets much harder. But this remains a free hit for them: the pressure is still on Liverpool to win, even at the Amex.

Some teams now sit back against them, in a mid-block. Others have gone man-to-man on their defenders to stop their passing options and force long clearances. But mostly it's the rubbish teams who defend with 11 and hit them on the break who actually beat them. Sometimes it’s the shit that’s toxic.

Roberto de Zerbi has nailed his Can't Buy Me Love. But can he conjure his Rubber Soul? He's not even at Revolver, let alone Sgt Peppers.

Still, the game needs its innovators, even if that innovation gets swallowed up at an ever-increasing speed.

It's also a reminder, on Jürgen Klopp's eighth anniversary (and the 33rd of my first trip to Anfield), of how elite managers and top coaches have to evolve to stay relevant.

Liverpool played more like Brighton this season, matching them; but obviously hampered by two attacking suspensions and one injury from the ludicrous sham of last weekend, with Luis Díaz's insanely disallowed goal also contributing to Cody Gakpo's injury and Diogo Jota's red card in a roundabout way. Extra effort against Spurs with ten and then nine men, with the scoreline “corrupted”, had various costs.

In what could have been a cagey “you have it”, “no, you have” game at the back on the south coast (which is how it started), it actually unfolded into an exciting, interesting and testing game, with lots to discuss.

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