Brighton & Hove Albion might have acquired a reputation over the years as the consummate spotters and developers of raw young talent, but it is the veterans who are leading the way for Fabian Hürzeler’s team as they regain momentum after a slump.
Last week the focus was on the 40-year-old James Milner as he broke the Premier League appearance record in their win against Brentford, and this week the starring role was played by Danny Welbeck.
At 35, Welbeck is arguably playing the best football of his career, and it was he who struck the winner at the end of a breathless opening 15 minutes in which all three goals of this match were scored. It was Welbeck’s tenth league goal of the season, meaning that he has now reached double figures in consecutive campaigns, having not done so in any of the first 16 seasons of his career.
“It’s no coincidence,” Hürzeler, the Brighton head coach, said of the fact that Welbeck is putting up the best numbers of his career deep in its autumn. “It’s his effort, how he behaves as a professional. He seems to be in his best shape. When you see him working, how hard he works is just impressive, he always tries to push himself.”
Seven-and-a-half years after he last appeared for the national team, an England call-up is still probably a long shot, but Welbeck is at least making sure he pushes himself into Thomas Tuchel’s considerations. He took his goal beautifully, controlling Jack Hinshelwood’s headed pass with a brilliant first touch off his thigh to knock the ball away from Murillo and create the space to fire home.
When the ball hit the net, only 21 seconds had elapsed since the restart after Morgan Gibbs-White’s equaliser for Nottingham Forest. Had they been able to hold on to parity for longer than a gnat’s blink, it would have been a valuable point for Forest, on a weekend when Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United both lost. As it is, they remain in severe peril, and in search of their first point under Vítor Pereira, their fourth head coach of the season.
Pereira oversaw an immediate and dramatic upturn in form when he took over at Wolverhampton Wanderers last season, securing seven points from his first three games, but Wolves did not also have European football to contend with. Speaking after the match, he suggested that Forest were fighting against fatigue as much as any of their rivals.
Gómez put Brighton ahead in the sixth minute
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The head coach said that he had to adjust his team’s pressing tactics because in the first half they had given up space because his players were naively “trying to press as if we have a full tank of energy”. A tactical change to a back three — the system with which Pereira had such success with Wolves — followed, which seemed to give Forest more security, and he said afterwards his team would “need to have more than one system to face the next games”, despite the lack of training-ground time as they navigate two competitions.
Brighton had taken the lead within six minutes. It was a horrible passage of play for Neco Williams, the Forest left back, who missed his attempt to clear a long bouncing ball from Jan Paul van Hecke, and then, when given a second chance to clear, headed the ball straight to Pascal Gross. The Germany international chipped it back towards Diego Gómez, who let the ball bounce and then caught it perfectly, the connection on the angled strike so pure that you could hardly blame Matz Sels, who got a glove to the ball but could not keep it out.
Forest hit back. It came down the same side of the pitch, with Callum Hudson-Odoi’s clever dummy flummoxing Mats Wieffer and allowing Igor Jesus to burst in behind the marooned full back. Jesus passed inside to Gibbs-White, whose swerving strike was always fading away from the dive of Bart Verbruggen.
But defensively, Pereira’s team looked wide open. After Welbeck made it 2-1, Brighton had chances to add a third, the clearest of them falling to Kaoru Mitoma, who showed wonderful skill to dribble through the centre of the Forest defence before being denied by the chest of Sels. The Belgian was having a strong game and produced another good save from Hinshelwood’s header from Van Hecke’s cross.
It took Forest only seven minutes to equalise, through Gibbs-White …
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… but Welbeck restored Brighton’s lead 21 seconds later and after three goals in the first 15 minutes, the next 75 minutes were goalless
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Brighton continued to have the upper hand after half-time. Gross came close to sneaking a low free kick in at the near post, but Sels made another fine save. For Forest, Gibbs-White made one dazzling run on the counter, hurdling two challenges as he carried the ball 70 yards, but he could not pick out a team-mate with his dinked cross. A scintillating Brighton move, started by a Welbeck back-heel on the edge of his own box, set up Wieffer to strike, but he chose to pass and ruined the chance.
Pereira threw on Dilane Bakwa, and then Dan Ndoye and Taiwo Awoniyi, giving Forest an entirely new front three as they chased the game, and from a free kick won by Ndoye, delivered by Elliot Anderson, Awoniyi had a gilt-edged chance, but could not make the right connection with his header.
They remain only two points above the relegation zone, and with Manchester City up next, Pereira’s job doesn’t get any easier.
Brighton & Hove Albion (4-2-3-1): B Verbruggen — M Wieffer (J Veltman 71min), J-P Van Hecke, L Dunk, F Kadioglu — J Milner (C Baleba 86), P Gross — D Gómez (S March 86), J Hinshelwood, K Mitoma (M De Cuyper 90+1) — D Welbeck. Booked Wieffer, Mitoma, Dunk.
Nottingham Forest (4-2-3-1): M Sels — O Aina (D Ndoye 82), N Milenkovic, Murillo, N Williams (L Netz 56) — I Sangaré, E Anderson — O Hutchinson (J Cunha 56), M Gibbs-White, C Hudson-Odoi (D Bakwa 74) — I Jesus (T Awoniyi 83). Booked Anderson.
Referee A Madley.
Attendance 31,427.