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PL: Brighton vs Arsenal | Tuesday December 29th | KO: 18:00 GMT | Amazon Prime

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Sebastes

Statbomb Merchant
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Country: Sweden
I dont need stats to tell me el neny is good player or a player I have watched many times not being better. Bissouma is better player than el neny and xhaka clearly. We lack pace and strength in our midfield and cant recover much. We really using stats to argue el neny being good player? Also Bissouma is capable of more than he is doing at brighton. I can see that. El neny nor xhaka is capable of doing more than they can

Yesterday el neny had smith rowe, saka, martinelli and auba ahead of himself. Bissouma had Jahanbakhsh, Grob, Mcallister and propper. That was brighton b team we played statistically dead even game in every sense. we scored on our chance and they didnt
If he’s so clearly the better player, why doesn’t it show? Why do Xhaka and Elneny have better progression numbers? If he’s that good at it and does it so easily, then why doesn’t he actually do it?

I reckon he’s a “false positive” to some extent in that he looks good, but has little to actually show for it when it comes down to the point...

I’ve played with and coached such players myself and it’s so easy to get attached to them. I think Xhaka is one as well, your eyes deceive you and you think he’s better than he actually is (in some aspects).

To be perfectly clear - I’m not saying I think any of our central midfielders bar Partey is good. Or even good enough for that matter. We need to replace Elneny, Xhaka and Ceballos. Willock might come good eventually but should really be loaned out.

But I am saying that I don’t think Bissouma is all that.
 

Gunner-Union

Well-Known Member

Despite this being youtube, there is no way xhaka, ceballos or el neny has this level of strength and recovering ability. He is also clearly quicker than them and can blow past players. I look at McKennie at juve and he became a starter for juve because he can do things none of their midfielders can do. Pace, power and ability to recover the ball. And he is benching technicians like Arthur. We are crying for legs in midfield. Arteta has adopted to this by telling el neny and xhaka to drop deep. he gave up on them having the recovery needed to press higher because once they are done they are out of the game


McKennie would have suited us and the pl perfectly a good all round midfield engine that has pace, strength and dribbles past the press. I thought at the time when he went to juve we should have gone in for him. He’s on loan and if they buy him it’s only 25m
 

Breezy

Active Member
McKennie would have suited us and the pl perfectly a good all round midfield engine that has pace, strength and dribbles past the press. I thought at the time when he went to juve we should have gone in for him. He’s on loan and if they buy him it’s only 25m

Think the Juve deal included an obligation to buy.
 

Rasmi

Negative Nancy

Country: England
If he’s so clearly the better player, why doesn’t it show? Why do Xhaka and Elneny have better progression numbers? If he’s that good at it and does it so easily, then why doesn’t he actually do it?

I reckon he’s a “false positive” to some extent in that he looks good, but has little to actually show for it when it comes down to the point...

I’ve played with and coached such players myself and it’s so easy to get attached to them. I think Xhaka is one as well, your eyes deceive you and you think he’s better than he actually is (in some aspects).

To be perfectly clear - I’m not saying I think any of our central midfielders bar Partey is good. Or even good enough for that matter. We need to replace Elneny, Xhaka and Ceballos. Willock might come good eventually but should really be loaned out.

But I am saying that I don’t think Bissouma is all that.
we just see things differently. You talking about stats and stats is the reason we are where we are. Stats company we bought recommended we sign el neny, xhaka and mustafi because they had very good stats numbers. Stats is the reason why Houston Rockets are a laughing stock in the nba. I watched the players enough time to think he is a player who would flourish in a better team based on my eye test. No stat can change that. If our great statistic team is so great why couldnt they find McKennie who was available for loan in the summer?
 

Macho

In search of Pure Profit 💸
Dusted 🔻

Country: England
https://theathletic.co.uk/2291911/2020/12/30/maupay-brighton-arsenal/

Potter’s misguided tinkering caps Brighton’s year of woe at the Amex

Graham-Potter-Brighton-1-scaled-e1609318027484-1024x684.jpg



Baffling. How else can you describe Graham Potter naming the four strikers he has in the squad on the bench for Brighton & Hove Albion’s 1-0 defeat by Arsenal?

Brighton fans, like Swansea supporters before them when Potter was in charge of the Championship club for a season, have become accustomed to the head coach selecting a line-up that leaves them wondering who will play where and in what system.

That is the Potter way — fluidity and flexibility — but it was a step too far this time, even accounting for the rapid turnaround after Sunday’s 2-2 draw at West Ham.

Changes to the team, six of them in total, were understandable to cater for fatigue and knocks but some of the decisions were hard to fathom. Top of the list was Neal Maupay’s absence from the starting XI.

Danny Welbeck? He had a slight knee injury after the West Ham game. Playing safe by limiting the 30-year-old to a place among the substitutes against his former club, so soon after his seventh start in eight matches, was not surprising.

Aaron Connolly missed out against West Ham because of a groin injury, so Potter was also loath to risk the 20-year-old Republic of Ireland international from the start. Andi Zeqiri, signed from Swiss side Lausanne in October, is still raw. Potter has limited the 21-year-old to 18 minutes to date as a substitute against Sheffield United.

Yet leaving out Maupay is an entirely different matter when you are in a perilous position near the bottom of the table, in urgent need of adding to only two wins so far. The diligent Frenchman, the club’s top scorer last season with 10 goals, is leading the way again this season with five.

He ended a drought of eight games, the type of dry spell all strikers go through, with the opening goal at West Ham. Maupay indicated in an interview with the club website in the build-up to Arsenal’s visit that his confidence had been restored.

He must have been itching to go again but Potter opted instead for Alireza Jahanbakhsh, who has never played as a No 9 before for the club. Argentinian Alexis Mac Allister made his first Premier League start of the season behind the Iranian winger.

Potter explained: “Ali’s been training well and pushing to play, and so has Alexis. It felt like a good opportunity to use those guys and then you can use Neal at the back-end of the game was the thought, which saves his workload as well.”

That is all very well, except that Potter, in common with his predecessor Chris Hughton, has not demonstrated much faith in Jahanbakhsh up to now. The 27-year-old had started only one of the previous 15 league games this season, in the 3-0 defeat at Leicester earlier this month, where he was substituted early in the second half.

He started three of the 38 league games under Potter last season. Suddenly pinning faith on Jahanbakhsh at the expense of Maupay, who was the match-winner in both meetings with Arsenal last season and has contributed more than 25 per cent of Brighton’s Premier League goals during his head coach’s reign, was very odd.

It was not the only strange choice. Bernardo, the Brazilian left-back seemingly destined for a January exit after being used so sparingly by Potter, suddenly appeared on the left side of midfield. Bernardo offered energy and an aerial outlet against Hector Bellerin. He justified his inclusion in those terms but why now and not sooner for only an eighth Premier League start out of a possible 54 since Potter’s appointment?

Potter also drafted in Davy Propper for his first league start of the season following injury and illness, along with Joel Veltman and Pascal Gross.

Out, together with Maupay and Welbeck, went Adam Lallana (injured), Solly March, Leandro Trossard and Ben White, whose run of 63 consecutive starts with three clubs across three divisions (Peterborough, Leeds and Brighton) ended after his statuesque part in West Ham’s second equaliser from a corner.

The changes were vindicated, to a degree, by a bright performance in the opening 45 minutes, when Arsenal were non-existent as an attacking threat but ultimately, Brighton were beaten.

Potter says that he has no regrets about fielding an outfield line-up consisting of five defenders and no strikers.

“Not at all,” he says. “If the performance wasn’t good in the first half, you could say it was disjointed and we’d lost a bit of cohesion but the performance, in the first half especially, was really good, so was the understanding. The guys that came in; all of them did well and have put themselves in a good position. That’s what we need going forward.”

Not as much as Brighton need victories to ease themselves out of trouble.

Alexandre Lacazette’s 66th-minute decider, within 29 seconds of his introduction, leaves Potter’s strugglers with one league win from the last 14 matches. It also completes an annus horribilis at the Amex.

One home league victory out of 17 in 2020, against Arsenal in June, is a nightmare statistic, the lowest total in Premier League history for a calendar year (excluding promoted/relegated sides).

Bringing on Maupay and March immediately after Lacazette scored rather than making alterations a little earlier when it was clear Arsenal had attacking momentum after half-time compounded a bad night for Potter.

He is fortunate that COVID-19 has led to an empty or near-empty Amex for most of the year. Supporters are resorting instead to venting their dissatisfaction via social media in increasingly exasperated numbers.

There is no evidence that owner-chairman Tony Bloom is losing faith in the long-term project under Potter, whose four-year contract was raised to six years after 13 matches last season.

But the longer Brighton go without a win, the more that faith will be severely tested.
 
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