Brighton vs Liverpool, Saturday 14th, 3.00pm, AMEX Stadium.
Referee: Darren England.
Assistants: Dan Robathan, Wade Smith.
Fourth official: Tim Robinson.
VAR: Neil Swarbrick.
Assistant VAR: Timothy Wood.
In the past Brighton versus Liverpool was not a game to set the pulse racing.
Brighton were an occasional, mild foe and odd Cup thorn through the decades but, as much as anything, we’ve had a few transfers go back and forth. One of our more recent being student of the game and friend of Kop and Klopp, Adam Lallana. Previous to that there have been 3 notable players who have gone between the 2 clubs.
One was Jimmy Case, a tough tackling, hard shooting midfielder from the Kenny-era. Bob Paisley moved him on. He admits contributing to his own downfall: "I left Liverpool when I was 28. I think it was just that - without being controversial - you get in a few scrapes, you're breathalysed and you're caught fighting in a hotel in Wales like me and Ray Kennedy were, and the club didn't look upon that too kindly." In the summer of 1981 he was transferred to Brighton & Hove Albion. Case had always been naturally fit. "I never looked after myself. You used to drink like a fish. When I trained I trained hard and drank when we were allowed to drink with the lads. Always enjoyed myself. I used to eat and still do eat whatever I want to eat. I've never had a problem that way." Case retired well into his 40’s. Times have changed eh !
Mark Lawrenson, an exquisite defender was bought for a club-record fee for Liverpool and became the most expensive defender in Britain. "I was nervous as a kitten," Lawrenson remembers when he met Bob Paisley: "I had on my best suit, shirt and tie, my best bib and tucker. I went down to reception and the doorman spotted me and said 'Mr Paisley is waiting for you in his car outside.' When I got in the car I saw that Bob was wearing slippers and a cardigan. I couldn't believe it. That was my first meeting with Bob Paisley and I knew I'd come to the right place. They'd just won the European Cup and there was this fellow, who everyone in football thought was an absolute god, driving me to the ground in his slippers and cardigan! I thought 'You'll do for me!’"
One of my favourite minor Liverpool players over the years was Michael Robinson. He came to Liverpool from Brighton in Joe Fagan time. He had a short time with the Reds, his boyhood favourite club. Once while having a goalless run he was called in to see Fagan. "'The boss wants to see you.’ He recalls walking down the corridor to Joe Fagan's office thinking, 'Well, that's it, I'm not playing.' When I got there, Joe said, 'Michael lad, I was making a cup of tea this morning and my wife was reading the Echo and saying I was going to leave you out.' 'And I was worried about that because you're worth your weight in gold.' 'Before I go and talk to the press I want you to see the team I'm going to give them.' He handed me a piece of paper with the numbers 1 to 11 blank apart from no 10, where it said Michael Robinson. 'That's the team, laddie.' 'You and 10 more.' That night I scored twice.”
Robinson, who was playing with Ian Rush, was by his own admission not very skilful and could have been in better physical shape. Even though he was always going to fade in comparison playing with Europe's most lethal striker it did have its advantages: "Ian Rush made me look brilliant in the air," Robinson confesses. "When I jumped up and headed, the ball would always go to Rushie. He could read my body; the way I jumped up Ian would deduce where the ball would go. He worked it out before I had. Rush never knew which bloody knife or fork to use, but on the pitch he was a genius.”
Thanks to LFC history for the stories there. Hats off to Sir Bob and Joe Fagan.
Nowadays Brighton are standard bearers for a new breed of football club. Resurrected from ruin and life in the lower leagues. New ground, (bye-bye The Goldstone Ground). Clever background management. Good recruitment. Clear relationship with a feeder club in Europe. Excellent coherence with managers. They are financially stable and with recent sales of Ben White and Cucurella have laid down a marker with respect to transfers. They get what they want these days. According to our legion of you tube transfer experts we are looking at Caicedo, their midfielder. Well I reckon all that’s all we’ll be doing come the weekend.
Sitting comfortably in 8th place in the table, one point behind ourselves, they have successfully negotiated Graham Potter’s early season exit and have kept up results and performances. They spanked Frankie’s Blues 4-1 at Woodison last time out. They’ll be full of confidence and looking to do the Mersey double on Saturday. Our recent record against modern, relevant Brighton is mixed. Pretty much 50-50 over the last few seasons.
We are all obsessing about our painful, injury ridden, age warped transition but Brighton seem to be going through an evolution of their own. Their most recent league game saw a bunch of players, some new, all bought at ridiculously low prices (I heard the entire team cost less than Alex Iwobi) but with real quality. Sanchez is a good keeper, Veltman (highly rated) has been readied, Estupinan and the much coveted Caicedo are part of a young exciting Equador team. Mitoma seems to have hit the ground running, I had never heard of Sarimento and Ferguson (Irish, hallelujah) and they have Trossard, Lamptey, Lallana and (my man of the World Cup Final) Mac Allister (who should be playing for Ireland but, for some reason chose Argentina !!). Sprinkled around them are a bunch of seasoned EPL pro’s. They deserve to be where they are in the league and, weird as it is to say it, this is a game of equals given our unending difficulty in keeping players fit and endless capacity to give away goals. Brighton will expect to win.
Wow, even writing that feels strange.
Brighton are the current holders of “The Sporting Director Of The Year Award”, “The EPL Hipsters Cool Club Choice” and perennial competitors in “The Best Away Of The Season if you manage to stay for the weekend”. The concourse in the Amex was where one of the great recent songs, “Bobby’s song” was properly launched after the aforementioned Bobby scored to give us a 1-0 EPL victory. They’ve never been to Europe although they are close to it in every sense. These days it’s good to be a Seagull. The weekend was also kind to them as they slipped into the 4th round of the Cup and got a kind draw at home against either relegation threatened Wolves or a splutteringly inconsistent, misfiring, gift-bearing Liverpool. They’ll fancy themselves a nice little cup run there.
As for us. Lord help us (and me). Where do you start ? So close and yet so far. It feels like a once omnipotent, all conquering force has run out of fuel. Like a panzer group stuck on ice. The tanks are peerless. The crew battle-hardened and willing, everyone knows what to do but they can’t move anymore and an orchestrated blitzkreig has now become a bunch of befuddled Bambi’s. Forgive all my mixed metaphors folks. I have some of my Mum’s old LP’s at home and while the covers are fantastic, when I play them, regularly the needle skips about, chunks of songs disappear and then inevitably the needle gets stuck and the same line with crackling, aged distortion, echoes eerily on and on…
It would help our collective cause if we stopped (a) conceding first, giving teams goals, particularly with their first decent attack (b) mentally collapsing when we do (c) in general, stopped getting injured. Overall, in my opinion, it looks like this team, squad, needs an emotional and energetic reset. They are great individuals who have given us the best of rides over the longest of spells and I’m not pinning it on anyone. I love this group of players and coaches but it’s a crazy watch these days. Lord only knows what it’s like to be playing. A football season and a football team both have a slow evolution. No matter what we want and however people call for dramatic change it’s highly likely that when Saturday comes it’s going to be the same deck of cards to choose from. One thing I can gaurentee It won’t be boring and I doubt it’ll be scoreless.
So what’s it going to be ? Maybe Jimmy Case & Co had a point. A proper blowout anyone ?? No, thought so. Strap yourselves in. It’s a south-coast lottery at 3.00pm on Saturday.
