Brighton Away Drew 1 – 1
A bit of a surprise when the team to face Brighton was announced: Lumley in for McCarthy. Apparently Macca is carrying an injury, but maybe that was to save the keeper’s blushes; either way it was quite some call. Less surprisingly, Onuachu was missing after Liverpool kicked him out of last week’s game so we went to the other extreme with Armstrong and Archer up front, while there was a return to the starting line-up for Sugawara. I’m afraid he’s becoming a bit of a problem in a defence that has been error prone anyway, with his lack of awareness about where the ball and opponents are contributing towards several goals against. It could have been more when a long ball wasn’t dealt with properly but Mitoma failed to test Lumley. Neither did Rutter, in a way, with a shot against the post, but Sugawara and Mitoma were in action again, the former failing to spot the latter’s run as Mitoma headed firmly past Lumley. When Archer missed a fine chance on the edge of half time, the Premier League’s worst travellers were staring at a seventh straight defeat away from home in the competition. The overall performance, though, was decent enough, so could the team manage a rare goal on the road? The answer was ‘yes’ with Dibling and Manning in action before Armstrong saw a shot blocked for the second time in the move, but Downes was on hand to put his side level. Those in pink shirts (the Barbie Army?) were suddenly filled with confidence and had fresh legs available after Sugawara and Downes made way, Downes being in serious danger of being shown a second card. Lo and behold they had the ball in the net for an unprecedented second time on the road when the Dibling-Manning axis worked again and Archer finished nicely. With the assistant flagging, a VAR review wasn’t the worst result but when it showed the scorer onside, video ref Gillett managed to find a way of determining that the clearly offside Armstrong had interfered with play. The whole business had taken some time so it was no surprise when ten minutes to be added was announced and substitutions and general dilly-dallying meant even that was expanded, allowing Adingra to graze the post under pressure from Stephens. At the other end, though, substitute Sulemana failed to control the ball when he ran clear, but maybe VAR would have had a close look at that one too.
Three LSSC Man of the Match candidates to choose from:
5. Jack Stephens, a shame no-one seems to keep stats on blocks.
13. Joe Lumley. OK, nothing remarkable to do, but a very competent Premier League debut.
33. Tyler Dibling, once again attracting the sort of attention that can only end one way!
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