I’m confused about how I feel about Saturday.
There are things I can hang on to in order to reason with myself that we’re still in a good place, but there are a few reasons for concern.
With the intention of ending with some sort of positive, and I could go in depth and talk about creativity and the lack of imagination to break the opposition down, but I’m going to start with my biggest worry: that we’re taking our eye off what should be the first target this season – which is getting to forty points.
It’s all well and good being blindsided by our European adventure – which we’ll enjoy whatever the outcome – or thinking that we did so well last season that we surely won’t be dragged into a dogfight at the bottom, but we need to remember what got us here.
Last summer, we were giddy with a play-off final victory behind us, which meant a return to the top flight after a decade away. This was backed up by spending almost £200m and convincing the likes of Granit Xhaka to join our crusade to stay there.
We were excited just to be back in the Premier League and, from that first whistle that opened the season at home to West Ham United, every game felt huge. Every game felt like a massive cup tie that we just had to take at least a point from, because the mantra that began after the final whistle at Wembley was that we needed to get forty points.
Everything revolved around getting to that magical, mystical, wonderful total that Peter Reid’s side were the first to be relegated on, back in May 1997. We were on a mission to keep the points tally ticking over and saw every game as an opportunity to add to our total, regardless of the opposition.
In our second home game, we carried on the spirit of “Til The End” and scored twice in the last ten minutes to beat Brentford in a game that we were second best in for the most part. Then we had to withstand huge pressure at Crystal Palace to come away with a point after a battling performance, which was followed by taking a point at home to Villa after we’d gone down to ten men after half an hour.
At one point at Selhurst Park, Xhaka had to gather the troops during the game to give them some words of inspiration so that we didn’t concede, when it looked like it was only a matter of time before the hosts opened the scoring.
Tackles in games were followed by fist pumps to the crowd, and every tackle was celebrated more than most sets of fans celebrate scoring goals. But where’s that feeling gone?
This season just hasn’t begun with the same intensity. It’s felt a bit flat (arguably, other than the visit of AZ Alkmaar) – and I’m genuinely not sure why.
Is it because of what we achieved last season? Does what we did last year mean we’ll be OK by default this time around? Have expectations risen so much that we don’t need to approach games with as much focus and intensity as we did last season? Or is it because we’re not sure what we’re aiming for this season?
It might be a mix of all those things, or they might have nothing to do with it, but it feels like the connection between players and fans that built momentum during games just isn’t there yet this season.
It was a cycle that reaped so many rewards – the players would feed the fans’ appetite and we would give it back in spades. Then the players would give more, and so would the fans, and we fed each other in order to get something out of a game.
This cycle hasn’t kicked in yet this season – and my worry is that we’re not focusing enough on hitting that first target as quickly as possible, like last season, which was to get to the forty-point mark.
It seems like everyone is waiting to see what our target might be, when it’s been right in front of us all along.
Then again, I might be making too much of it.
Looking at the six Premier League games so far, we were poor in the opener against Ipswich Town but still could have won. Fulham came to town next for our first home game, and we were flat again but still took all three points, mainly because they couldn’t get a shot on target.
We woke up at Brentford and should have been out of sight by half-time, but we ended up with a point. Then we put up good shows against the two best sides in the country, which raised optimism even though we came away with nothing. That made Saturday all the harder, as we simply didn’t turn up.
But despite the fact that we had such an impressive record at home last season, our performances for the most part matched the level of the opposition, and of our three home games so far, the showing against Arsenal was way better than the other two.
And here’s where I take some positives from the game… I think.
We have to remind ourselves that Brighton are a good side in a league where there are no mugs. So many times last year, we came close to taking nothing and managed to take a point or three.
To mention a few, we were poor against Wolves at home and ended up winning 2-0. I’ve mentioned the game at home to Brentford; we were crap in the first half against Everton before we took a point, and then there was the day Bournemouth travelled north and we came back from two goals down.
At half-time on Saturday, you could argue we weren’t in a bad position. It was a pretty even game against a well-organised Brighton side, and we’d had a couple of chances to get our noses in front but didn’t take them. It was a scenario playing out that we’d seen before, but quite often we’d come out on top. On Saturday, though, we were missing that extra edge that we so often ended games with last season.
Brighton going down to ten men potentially made life more difficult for us, but we can’t get away from the fact that we weren’t getting the basics right. To start with, the two goals we conceded came from either falling asleep for an innocuous throw-in or giving the ball away cheaply. On both occasions, we didn’t recover well from the initial mistakes.
And look, hopefully this is just a blip and all will be fine.
We’ve just given ourselves a problem now because four defeats in the first six builds pressure on the next game to get points on the board, and the simple fact is that we now need results.
In fact, we need forty points – as quickly as possible – and we need to get back that intensity that got us so far in the first place.
