BRIGHTON HAVE BECOME a paragon of how to deal with the pilfering of their players, but can they cope with the theft of their ideas?
Since he came to the Premier League, Roberto de Zerbi’s influence has extended far beyond his own team: he was hardly in England six months when Pep Guardiola hailed him as “one of the most influential managers in the last 20 years.
All great innovations in football are developed as a response to the previous great idea. Pep Guardiola’s tiki-taka was the means of dissecting the deep, low-block defences which won Jose Mourinho and Rafael Benitez trophies in Europe, and Guardiola’s founding belief was in turn met with the high pressing best preached by Jurgen Klopp.
De Zerbi’s football is a means of beating high-pressing teams: his centre-backs bait opponents into pressing them before passing around them. Guardiola’s praise of De Zerbi was not an empty phrase, as his summer recruitment leaned heavily on players with good dribbling ability – Gvardiol, Kovacic, Nunes – as these are one-man means of baiting and then beating an opponent’s press.
The flattery of De Zerbi doesn’t stop at England. Harry Kane spoke about the fact he and Jamal Musiala played as two number 10s against Manchester United in the Champions League last month, which calls to mind how De Zerbi asks Evan Ferguson and Danny Welbeck to play when they are paired together.
Paris Saint-Germain, meanwhile, went to Newcastle on Wednesday night and tried to play like Brighton, circulating the ball among their centre-backs to tempt Newcastle into a press around which they could play. Unfortunately for Luis Enrique, PSG lacked the quality in midfield to play around the pressure and the hold-up play further forward to go over it. Let’s just say that, in this respect, Kylian Mbappe is no Evan Ferguson.
But if ideas can be copied they can also be picked apart. So enter stage left Unai Emery, a man with no real philosophy beyond doing the opposite to the other guy.His Aston Villa side hammered Brighton 6-1 last Saturday lunchtime, a seismic result that was buried beneath the VAR controversy that came at Tottenham later in the day.
The seeds of this destruction were actually sowed in Brighton’s 3-1 win at Old Trafford in mid-September, as Emery built on Erik ten Hag’s initially disruptive approach. United actually started that game very well, springing a surprise by picking a midfield diamond and changing how they pressed Brighton’s centre-backs. United pressed in a front two with Bruno Fernandes in behind, which created a tight triangle that prevented Brighton from playing through the middle of the pitch.
De Zerbi fixed it by sending his centre-backs wider when in possession, which created the angles to play around United’s narrow front three. And, typical of United and their near-bovine midfield, they couldn’t react and were then soundly beaten.
Emery’s Villa were a different proposition, however. Their tactical approach against Brighton was broken down brilliantly by the Positional Play YouTube Account.
To sum it up” Villa pressed high in precisely the same structure as United when the Brighton centre-backs and goalkeeper had the ball, which gummed up the centre and forced Brighton to play out wider. But where this approach worked against United, it didn’t against Villa as Emery’s side had superior energy and tactical discipline in midfield.
When their high press didn’t work, Villa then folded into a 4-4-2 shape and pressed man-for-man, which avoided the overloads and triangles of players on which Brighton’s approach relies. And anytime Brighton did manage to get into the final third, Villa’s midfielders dropped into the back line to once again prevent the kinds of numerical imbalance that make Brighton’s wide forwards so lethal.
This forced Brighton into recycling the ball in midfield and prodding for an opening, which in turn led to mistakes in possession on which Villa preyed, scoring the bulk of their six goals from these counter-attacks.
Marseille manager Genaro Gattuso evidently watched this tape, as his side took the same approach in the Europa League last night and were 2-0 up by half-time. De Zerbi was thrilled his side battled back to 2-2, but admitted his side are currently playing to only 30% of their potential.
“We are not playing well”, said De Zerbi. “It is a very tough period. It is difficult to show our quality like last season or one month ago. It is a period we have to work.”
For all the genius of their recruitment, Brighton are also missing some of their departed gems. Moises Caicedo may have snuffed out some of Villa’s counter-attacks last weekend, while Alexis MacAllister would have been much more difficult to dispossess in the first place.
Sunday’s meeting with Liverpool is one of the most fascinating games of the season so far. Given Liverpool’s pressing is less their style than it is their identity, it’s unsurprising that Brighton were their kryptonite last season. De Zerbi’s first game in charge was a 3-3 draw at Anfield, while 3-0 and 2-1 wins at home in league and cup respectively were scorelines that flattered Liverpool. There were reasons beyond de Zerbi for this, however, as the midfield that was once the lungs of Liverpool’s brilliant team had been shrivelled and demeaned by age.
Liverpool have been rejuvenated this season, however, with the retooling of their midfield giving them the energy to press like they did at their peak. (The suspended Curtis Jones, however, will be hugely missed this weekend.) And unlike last season, Liverpool now have the physicality and the quality to press Brighton and punish any mistakes. Aston Villa, Marseille and even United have now given Liverpool a blueprint of how to force those mistakes.
De Zerbi’s job is to find a way around that blueprint. He has indirectly reinvented some of Europe’s biggest teams, but now he must change his own.
Premier League fixtures (KO 3pm unless stated)
Saturday
- Luton v Tottenham (12.30pm)
- Burnley v Chelsea
- Everton v Bournemouth
- Fulham v Sheffield United
- Manchester United v Brentford
- Crystal Palace v Nottingham Forest (5.30pm)
Sunday
- Brighton v Liverpool (2pm)
- West Ham v Newcastle (2pm)
- Wolves v Aston Villa (2pm)
- Arsenal v Manchester City (4.30pm)
