De Zerbi frustrated with team’s reaction after red card
Brighton are now without a league victory in six games – their worst run under De Zerbi – and their opening run of five wins in six matches feels like a long time ago.
Brighton hit the Europa League heights on Thursday with a 2-0 win away to Ajax but had nothing left by the end of this disappointing Premier League performance.
Roberto De Zerbi’s overstretched squad took an early lead over a Sheffield United side that went into the game at the bottom of the table and without a single point on the road. But their energy and inspiration drained away and by the end the Blades were well worth the point that took them up to 19th place.
Simon Adingra put Brighton ahead after five minutes with his fourth goal of the season. But they had to play the final 20 minutes with ten men after Mahmoud Dahoud was sent off for a challenge on Blades substitute Ben Osborn, and Adam Webster’s own goal levelled the scores after 74 minutes.
A frustrated De Zerbi collected a yellow card after a conversation with fourth official Andy Madley but his complaints afterwards were unfocused. He said: “I don’t like 80 percent of English referees. I don’t like their behaviour on the pitch.”
But he added: “I accept everything” and he had no real objection to the sending-off. “I think he [Dahoud] has the experience not to make this mistake but it can happen in football.”
His frustration was most probably the result of his team’s inability to react to the dismissal, United’s goal coming while the defence was still regrouping. “We have to kill the game,” he said. “When we have to defend and suffer we have to suffer with more order, with more energy. Because after the red card I didn’t like the team. We lost order and we defended in a bad way.”
Brighton are now without a league victory in six games – their worst run under De Zerbi – and their opening run of five wins in six matches feels like a long time ago.
For United, a second successive match without defeat, following on from the previous weekend’s first win of the campaign, at home to Wolves, suddenly holds out hope that the Blades might not be dead and buried after all.
“I’m not bothered, not yet,” manager Paul Heckingbottom said. “What is relevant is how we played against a good team. In the last two games we have been the stronger team finishing the games. We are getting the rewards from trying to be positive.”
Brighton equalled the Premier League record for scoring and conceding in consecutive matches, 16, set by Everton between September 2012 and January 2013. They have still not kept a clean sheet in the Premier League since a 3-0 victory away to Arsenal on May 14.
Evan Ferguson, who signed a new five and a half-year contract last week, might have made a difference but was kept out of the squad with a back problem. Irish forward Mark O’Mahony, from Carrigaline, County Cork, was on the bench after a prolific scoring spell with Brighton’s under-21s but did not come on.
It did not seem that Ferguson would be missed when Adingra took possession on the left, cut inside past three defenders, got a return pass from Facundo Buonanotte and tucked a low shot past the right hand of Wes Foderingham.
Brighton had now scored in 28 consecutive Premier League games but could not find a second. And United were already finding a foothold in the game when Dahoud was shown a red card after 69 minutes when his studs scraped the back of Ben Osborn’s calf.
Suddenly Brighton’s composure was gone. United were on the front foot and they were level five minutes later when Jayden Bogle’s driven cross was turned into his own net by Webster.
“It was important we stayed in the game,” Heckingbottom said. “In the second half I was pleased with all of it.”
Brighton: Steele, Gross, Webster, Van Hecke, Igor, Gilmour, Dahoud, Buonanotte, Lallana, Adingra, Fati.
Subs: Pedro, Mitoma, Baleba, Veltman.
Sheffield United: Foderingham, Baldock, Trusty, Robinson, Bogle, Souza, Norwood, Thomas, McAtee, Hamer, Archer.
Subs: Osborn, Ben Slimane, Osula.
Referee
: J Brooks
