Brighton got back to winning ways against Ajax in the recent Europa League after a disappointing (and concerning) run domestically. But if they want their continental form to carry into the Premier League, there's one little trick they urgently need to add to their arsenal...
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00:00 Hello there everybody, this is 442 and my name is Adam Cleary, tactics enthusiast, personality
00:09 higher let's face it and founding member of the Worried About Brighton Club.
00:13 They had like no wins in 8 games or something, pundits were smugly saying bubbles may have
00:18 burst, alarm bells for me and I assume Brighton fans were starting to ring, quite gently perhaps
00:24 but they were ringing.
00:25 But not to worry too much though because they just bent Ajax over 2 games in a row and smashed
00:31 them which was very pleasing to see because they did it doing quintessentially Brighton
00:35 things.
00:36 Those Dutch boys learned this season as many did in the Premier League last season that
00:39 if you don't give Brighton the respect they are due, if you try and take them on at the
00:43 game they want you to play, they will just take a bit.
00:47 And we covered this extensively on the channel last season, Brighton love to have this sort
00:50 of 7 player build out shape that's all designed to get one or two killer passes either bounced
00:56 off a midfielder or into the wide players, something like that.
00:58 They've not really been able to do this in the Premier League as easily as they would
01:02 like to this season but Ajax seemingly just didn't care.
01:06 And that second goal was about as quintessentially perfect a Roberto de Zerbi Brighton goal as
01:10 you could ever possibly see.
01:12 It starts in Brighton's own half, they're knocking it about, they're inviting the opposition,
01:15 they are daring them to try and press them high and when they do they get a really quick
01:19 bounce pass out of centre midfield that opens up the entire final third by which point they've
01:24 got men over, they've got options, they've got space and when they get into that space
01:29 they kill them dead.
01:30 Just look at this, in one quick bounce pass from Matoma Brighton go from this situation
01:34 in their own half to this situation in the opposition half and because they've successfully
01:39 lured so many Ajax players up the pitch they end up with a man over in the final third,
01:43 Adingra comes in on the right hand side, look at all the space he's got here and he makes
01:48 it 2-0.
01:49 What a game, what a result, what a performance, it's so nice to see because we haven't seen
01:53 an awful lot of it.
01:54 In fact since they beat Bournemouth back in September the two Ajax results are the only
01:57 two wins they've managed to get.
01:59 They got absolutely stuffed off Aston Villa, they played well against Liverpool but couldn't
02:03 get the win, they drew with Fulham, they drew with Everton, you can see why there was a
02:07 little bit of concern about what was going on.
02:09 And it isn't a case that Brighton have been found out, it's just that for every single
02:12 system that exists there are ways to try and mitigate that, to play against it, to reduce
02:17 its impactfulness and more and more teams are finding success doing the obvious things
02:21 to try and stop Brighton.
02:22 Like as we said before their build up is very effective because what they do is they push
02:26 all four of their attackers really high up, your two-part to reach over there, we'll imagine
02:31 the defence here and that creates loads of space in this part of the pitch for them to
02:35 build out from the back.
02:36 And because they'll spend a lot of time keeping the ball in an area the opposition would simply
02:40 love to win it back in, eventually the temptation forces them to press really high, to try and
02:45 go man for man, to try and force a really good turnover and eventually some Brighton
02:49 player will get free of a marker, someone else will show short, play one really quick
02:54 pass into them and they are away.
02:56 So why have we started to see that working less and less this season?
03:00 Well, ladies and gentlemen may I introduce to you, Sean Dyche.
03:04 You see last season in what remains the biggest 'f**k me how did that happen' result of the
03:08 entire campaign, Everton, who looked like they were dead search to get relegated, beat
03:12 Brighton 5-1 who looked like they were dead search for European football.
03:16 And the way he did that was by looking at Brighton's system of 'well come on then, come
03:20 and press us, come and leave a load of space' and then just going, and this is my best Sean
03:23 Dyche impression, you ready?
03:25 No.
03:26 And instead what he did, you'll have to imagine this is Everton now and not Brighton, was
03:28 just go to two incredibly disciplined banks of four.
03:33 In fact this isn't even accurate because they were far, far narrower than this.
03:37 They denied Brighton all the space possible in their own half and made no attempt whatsoever
03:42 to press them in their half.
03:44 This and I'm going to have to make it even deeper because it was nowhere near the halfway
03:47 line is what is known as a low block.
03:51 It is very structured, it is very disciplined, it stops the teams that are really good at
03:55 playing through you from playing through you and instead forces them out wide into the
03:59 flanks where their last resort tends to be to put a cross into the box.
04:03 But of course that's fine because you've got loads of players in that area and you tend
04:07 to have bigger, stronger footballers who are just going to head that away.
04:10 It plays into your hands, not theirs.
04:13 Now of course, quick caveat here, this is just a system which means it's just an idea.
04:18 Loads of teams have this idea against Brighton but what matters is the execution of it.
04:23 If you want a single manager in world football to execute this well, it's Sean Dyche.
04:28 A man who loves two banks of four so much I'm astonished he doesn't have eight children.
04:34 You can just see that, can't you?
04:35 Sean Dyche coming downstairs on Christmas morning, all eight of his kids neatly arranged
04:40 in two rows of four, matching pyjamas, all of that.
04:44 Single tear rolling down his cheek with pride as his wife hands him a packet of strepsils
04:49 to unwrap.
04:50 It's a beautiful sight.
04:51 Anyway, yes, so the key to the execution of this is obviously staying disciplined, staying
04:54 in your shape, but more importantly, moving together as a unit.
04:58 Because you can already see from this, there is a little bit of space down the flanks and
05:01 yes you are hoping the team will go out there rather than trying to play through the middle.
05:04 But you can't just be letting them have that.
05:06 You can't just let them have unlimited crosses into the box.
05:09 When the play does come out to this side, the whole team has to shuffle over as a unit
05:15 to deny the space there as well.
05:17 They have to do that together.
05:18 And this has been Brighton's problem because Dyche showed it worked last season, he showed
05:22 it worked again this season.
05:23 So other teams now, they just don't even really try to find a counter to Brighton's system.
05:28 They just think, well, we'll sit as deep and as compact and as tight as we can, stop them
05:33 playing through us.
05:34 We'll not get invited up the other end of the pitch to leave loads of room for them
05:37 to exploit.
05:38 We'll just do this and then we'll try and hit them with a really purposeful counter
05:42 attack.
05:43 Again, Everton 5-1 last season, they hit them with like five counter attacks.
05:47 And this inability to play through this stuff is reflected in the numbers as well.
05:50 Because last season, Brighton were fourth in the league behind only Man City, Arsenal
05:54 and Liverpool for the number of successful passes they were able to make into the final
05:58 third of the pitch.
05:59 The amount of times they were able to get somebody on the ball in this area.
06:02 Compare that to this season's numbers, they've dropped to eighth in the division for that
06:05 exact same statistic.
06:07 Which is obviously not a huge drop off, I'll grant you, but you go from being one of the
06:10 best in the league to just kind of average at it.
06:13 That shows they're struggling to enact their own game plan.
06:15 And as well in their other favourite route to goal, their high turnovers, you can see
06:19 the tide starting to turn there as well.
06:21 Because the thing is, while bizarrely they do still lead the league in the number of
06:25 shots they've gotten from a high turnover, showing that they are really, really good
06:28 at turning those into chances, they're actually 11th in the league for the number of total
06:34 high turnovers.
06:35 Now if that sounds a little bit confusing, that's because it is.
06:38 But think about it this way, like I said, they are really good at turning high turnovers
06:42 into chances, that's why they're top of that particular stat, but teams are giving them
06:47 far fewer chances to actually do that.
06:49 They're far more cautious on the ball when Brighton are trying to press, because they
06:53 know they're going to do that.
06:55 But just back to the real problem, which is their inability to break down a low block
06:59 like this.
07:00 How do you do it?
07:01 Because loads of teams get low blocked against Man City face a low block every single game.
07:04 Liverpool face a low block every single game.
07:07 And Brighton proved last season they're just as good at creating chances and scoring goals
07:10 as those two teams, so how do they solve that problem?
07:13 Well the solution, and this is a trick Brighton are yet to master, is in the switch of play.
07:18 Now you of course, like me, remember the old switch of play from when you used to play
07:22 ball as a kid and you'd always have some bellend standing on the other wing shouting
07:25 "switch it, switch it" every time you got the ball because they just wanted it.
07:30 But that is quite literally the most effective way to break down a low block, because they're
07:34 not going to come out, they're not going to leave any space behind, so you have to find
07:37 some space to play in.
07:38 And as you can see here, you can do that.
07:41 This is literally a Pep Guardiola thing, like Manchester City and Liverpool were the undisputed
07:45 masters of the switch of play last season.
07:48 The two teams that probably faced low blocks more than anybody else.
07:51 They led the league in terms of the number of total passes that travelled 40 or more
07:56 yards across the width of the pitch.
07:58 And the reason you do that is because for how disciplined this system is, it still can
08:02 only cover so much of the pitch.
08:04 You've only got so many men, so if you overload massively one side and really force them over
08:10 here to try and stop you playing, it creates loads of space on the other side.
08:14 All you have to do is find a way once you're in this situation to get the ball as quickly
08:19 as possible to the opposite flank to find players in that space.
08:23 Now it's not easy, obviously it's one of the hardest passes to play in football and as
08:27 soon as you do they're going to start shuffling back over the other side to stop that space,
08:30 but it is going to take them time.
08:32 And you can wind up, as Brighton literally did in the Everton game, with a very rare
08:37 one-on-one situation.
08:39 And Brighton, understandably given the way they like to play, are very reluctant to play
08:43 that kind of pass.
08:44 They rank 15th in the league this season, right near the bottom, for the total number
08:48 of switches of play.
08:50 But the thing is, when they do do them, do do, they're incredibly effective.
08:54 It's how they got their equaliser against Everton.
08:56 You can see here they've got the ball on the right-hand side, Everton have one, two, three,
09:00 four, five, six, seven players in that half of the pitch.
09:03 They're moving it around and then all of a sudden someone gets their head up and finds
09:07 Matoma on the opposite flank.
09:09 And that, if you watch that game, is pretty much the most space any Brighton player found
09:13 himself in, in the entire 90 minutes.
09:16 Now of course the goal itself is incredibly spawning, it comes off Young's leg and it
09:19 flips over, pick for Ted, but it comes about because Matoma finally got himself in a bit
09:23 of space, he finally isolated a defender, he went one-on-one with him and when that
09:28 happens, things can just happen.
09:31 And things happened.
09:32 So bottom line here, Brighton are still really, really good, but teams now have a way of playing
09:36 which does make life far more difficult for them and if they want to counteract that,
09:41 they need to become a long ball team.
09:44 Granted not front to back, we're talking side to side here, but it's still a very long ball.
09:49 So you could sort of make the argument that over two games in two seasons, Sean Dyche
09:56 sort of forced Brighton to go route one.
10:01 Well not route one, like route A or whatever you're going to call that, but that's interesting
10:06 isn't it?
10:07 Anyway just a quick one on that because it is Friday and I do really want to go to the
10:09 pub.
10:10 If you're a Brighton fan or even if you're not, let us know what you think of that in
10:12 the comments.
10:13 Have you found that this season?
10:14 Do you find teams are giving you far more defensive compactness to deal with?
10:19 Do you think Zerby's going to have solutions for that?
10:21 Do you think maybe the fact you've lost a couple of players is starting to tell?
10:24 Fire, remember them?
10:25 Yeah, loads of money, that did actually happen.
10:28 All opinions welcome in the comments below.
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11:03 next time, that's Brighton, who I hope have turned a corner now, ooh that went in, and
11:08 I'll see you soon, goodbye.
11:10 That never happens, that never happens.