EFL League Cup 3rd Round
American Express Community Stadium, Falmer
Admission: £15.00
Programme: None
Attendance: 8,838
For my midweek entertainment this week, I decided to pay a visit to the Amex, mainly seduced by the rare opportunity to see Swansea City in action locally. Having spent four years in West Wales, I attended every home match I could at The Vetch, and inevitably I retain a strong soft spot for the Swans despite the passing of the many years since then.
Brighton have made a terrific start to their fifth consecutive season in the Premier League, sitting in fourth place following four wins and a defeat from their opening five league games. Tonight's squad would not contain many first-teamers however, but even with a young team who have hardly played in the Premier League so far this season, they beat another Welsh side, Cardiff City, 0-2 away in the previous round of this competition. After missing out in the Championship play-of final in May, Swansea have had a difficult start to the new season, having lost their manager Steve Cooper, replacing him with MK Dons' Russell Martin, and continuing to lose their best players. In the Championship, they won just one and drawn four of their eight league games so far. To reach tonight's tie, Swansea won 0-3 at Reading in the first round, and then despatched Plymouth Argyle 4-1 in the second round.
Inevitably, the teams lined up for this evening quite different to recent league fixtures, and although Brighton fielded a mainly under 23 side, exciting rising star Tariq Lampey would be making his first appearance after nine months out injured, and other players with decent Premier League experience included defender Dan Burn, midfielders Steven Alzate, Alexis MacAllister and Jakub Moder, and striker Aaron Connolly.
On a clear evening, this game started off at a fast tempo, somewhat end to end, but it was Swansea who created the better chances, the best of which in the first came on 7 minutes when Liam Bullen forced a great save from the Brighton keeper Luke Steele. But Brighton opened the scoring on 33 minutes when Alexis MacAllister slipped the ball for Aaron Connolly to run onto and into the penalty area, and his shot took a deflection off a sliding defender to take the ball past the keeper and into the net. And the double act teamed up again on 37 minutes when Brighton doubled their lead. Again MacAllister played a low diagonal path forward for Connolly to run onto and at a defender, before cutting inside and firing in a low curling shot from the edge of the area beyond the keeper's dive and into the net. Connolly came close to sealing his hat-trick on 43 minutes when Jakub Moder passed the ball to him close to the penalty area, but he drilled his shot low just wide of the right hand post.
Swansea were probably slightly unfortuante to be two goals behind at the break, but they started the second half strongly to try and get back in the game. On 47 minutes, a first time clipped shot by Liam Cullen hit the crossbar, and as the ball dropped, it was headed up and down onto the roof of the net, while on 50 minutes, a volley by Morgan Whittaker 12 yards out forced another good save from Steele. On 59 minutes, Swansea were almost gifted a goal when the Brighton keeper ball passed to a defender, a Swansea player put in a tackle, diverting the ball to a team mate just outside the six yard box, and he passed the ball to Smith, who struck the ball onto the crossbar and away. But Brighton weathered the storm, and slowly gained control over the match, creating some reasonable chances to extend their lead, and in added on time it was their turn to rattle the woodwork, this time subsititute Pascal Gross firing a free kick against the crossbar. But they had done enough to seal their progress to the next round, where they will face a trip to Leicester City. Swansea can consider themselves unlucky, but paid a heavy price for not being clinical enough
Video highlights can be viewed by clicking here
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