Key events
13 min: Szoboszlai sends the corner to the near post, but Brighton clear their lines without fuss.
12 min: Wirtz looks for Gakpo again, this time with a long pass down the left. Gakpo reaches the ball this time and wins Liverpool’s first corner of the afternoon.
11 min: Wirtz has the chance to release Gakpo down the middle but overhits the through ball. Verbruggen claims.
10 min: Szoboszlai spots Verbruggen off his line and tries to beat the keeper from the halfway line. He gets the distance but not the direction.
9 min: Wirtz sends Frimpong into space down the right. Frimpong enters the box and opens his body to shoot, but Kadioglu does just enough to put him off. He cuts back instead for Szoboszlai, who leans back and lashes wildly over the bar.
8 min: Ekitike goes down again. Dunk hauls him up. Gross offers him a low five of friendship. Ekitike slaps it in the frustrated style. He knows his race is run today. He departs down the tunnel, a picture of sadness. On comes Jones in his place.
6 min: Ekitike is back on, but still hobbling around. “The fact a road traffic incident caused this when the ground is in a city known for its green streak and is literally next to a train station feels like a story of just how car-centric this country still is,” observes David Howell.
5 min: Ekitike doesn’t look happy at all. He’s got a dead leg and can’t put any weight on it. He hobbles off shaking his head. He’s having a lot of trouble. He’ll be given time to see if he can run it off, but Jones is warming up, just in case.
4 min: Now Milner comes clattering into Ekitike, who stays down in some pain. No favours granted to Milner’s old team.
2 min: Milner catches Szoboszlai on the back of the neck with a forearm, but there’s no free kick. On the touchline, Arne Slot emits an unambiguous: “No free kick?! Aw [word redacted by Family Website editor] hell!”
1 min: Liverpool do the PSG thing of hoicking the kick-off straight into touch near the corner flag, rugby-union style.
Liverpool get the ball rolling. The Amex continues to fill up, and the atmosphere crackles.
The teams are out, ahead of this delayed 12.45pm kick-off. Brighton in their blue and white stripes, Liverpool in red. Plenty of fans in their seats now, albeit the stadium isn’t totally full yet. A lovely sunny spring day in Sussex by the Sea.
Arne Slot speaks frankly to TNT. “You cannot compare a home game, a Champions League night against Galatasaray, to Brighton away … but you have to take the positives … we know we face a different opponent today … we have to be even better to get a result here today … [Brighton] have good players … their manager is always able to come up with a very good game plan … his players are able to execute that plan … very intense … only play once a week … they can train on that game plan … it is important to have two very good goalkeepers and we have that … there is hardly any room for error any more … we have made quite a few errors this season … the main ones was dropping points in extra time … now we are in this situation … though I don’t think we have to win eight, we have to play every game as a final … get the most out of the game possible … let’s see what it is today.”
In last week’s episode …
Florian Wirtz has been chatting to Steve McManaman on TNT Sports. Happily for you, for me, for all of us, David Tindall scribbled down a few choice words from the interview and published them in this morning’s Matchday Live blog, in an MBM-friendly cut-and-paste-able format. So here they are.
Wirtz said: “Everyone in the world knows that the Premier League is the most intense and physically it was maybe a bit more than I was thinking but there’s always difficult things on the pitch where you have to adapt. Maybe you have also a bit more responsibility for more people who are supporting you and wanting you to do good.
“When I was at Leverkusen, I could have more time on the ball and maybe turn easier. Here you have to be so ready, with your first touch you have to be away already because otherwise there are three people on you and smashing into you. That’s maybe also a big difference. I have to be faster in my decisions.”
Pre-match postbag. “A little over a month ago, Brighton lost at home to Crystal Palace, and the home fans let loose with the first real round of substantial postgame booing that Fabian Hurzeler had ever heard there. (Rightly so, too, they were on a 1-6-5 run going back to the start of December.) We neutrals reacted like, whoa there, that’s serious, that just doesn’t happen at Brighton. Now here we are with Liverpool and the squad being booed off at Anfield after blowing it against Tottenham last weekend. And it’s the same reaction: ‘Whoa there, that just doesn’t happen at Anfield.’ If I’m Arne Slot, and I have the chance to greet and catch up with Hurzeler before the game, I’m thinking I might see if he’s up for talking about it” – Eric Peterson
“Liverpool has been quite consistent in not being consistent so am preparing myself for a familiar pattern of a first half struggle followed by a desperate second half to try and save things. But hey, am happy to be very wrong” – Ian Copestake
Kick-off delayed
Kick-off has been delayed until 12.45pm. The result of a traffic incident on the A27. Long queues on the roads leading up to the Amex, and so a lot of fans are still to make it into the stadium. Seeing we’re on the south coast …
Hürzeler’s side can get into the top half of the table with a win this lunchtime. They’d leapfrog over Everton into eighth spot, for a couple of hours at least. (Fulham host Burnley at 3pm and Everton welcome Chelsea at 5.30pm, but with Newcastle not in action until tomorrow’s north-east derby, a top-half spot come bedtime would be guaranteed.) Liverpool can move into fourth with a win; Aston Villa don’t play until they host West Ham tomorrow. Sumer The business end of the season is icumen in.
Brighton boss Fabian Hürzeler talks to TNT Sports. “We try to stick to your principles … don’t over-react … don’t get too depressive … don’t focus on the lows … keep the work ethic high … I am a big believer of this team … of the quality of the players … they stepped up … showed ownership and responsibility … we have been able to manage the key moments of the game … every player knows his role … it is so important to do the small margins right … we need to play intense today … we have to be really tight … press like a very compact team … I always see football as an event … fans spend a lot of money … we want to win with our identity … we are not known for set-piece culture … playing with courage … being innovative … how you want to be seen.”
Brighton have won three of their last four Premier League fixtures, so it’s no wonder they’re in an If It Ain’t Broke mood. They’re unchanged from the 1-0 win at Sunderland last Saturday.
Liverpool make two changes to their starting XI after the 4-0 rout of Galatasaray. Mo Salah and Alisson are both injured, so in come Cody Gakpo and Giorgi Mamardashvili.
The teams
Brighton & Hove Albion: Verbruggen, Wieffer, van Hecke, Dunk, Kadioglu, Milner, Gross, Gomez, Hinshelwood, Minteh, Welbeck.
Subs: Steele, Rutter, Baleba, Kostoulas, Boscagli, Mitoma, Ayari, De Cuyper, Veltman.
Liverpool: Mamardashvili, Frimpong, Konate, van Dijk, Kerkez, Gravenberch, Mac Allister, Wirtz, Szoboszlai, Gakpo, Ekitike.
Subs: Woodman, Gomez, Chiesa, Jones, Robertson, Nyoni, Ramsay, Morrison, Ngumoha.
Referee: Darren England
VAR: James Bell
Preamble
This particular fixture hasn’t gone well for Liverpool of late. Brighton are unbeaten in three, though that kind of buries the lede: the Seagulls have won two of those three fixtures, a 3-0 thrashing in January 2023 and a come-twice-from-behind thriller last May. Throw in a staunch 2-2 draw in October 2023, and Liverpool won’t be fancying this at all.
But they have already beaten Brighton twice this season, in both league and cup at Anfield. They’re also coming off the back of their performance of the season, against Galatasaray, in which Mo relocated his mojo. And while they lost in the FA Cup in January 2023, Liverpool did win at the Amex in the League Cup in October 2024.
Yes, these two clubs usually give each other a game. Which is probably the best place to leave this preamble, because not only is it a fool’s errand to try to unpick all of the above, these are two of the most currently unpredictable teams in the land, capable of wonder or woe on any given day. So good luck predicting the outcome. Given there has only ever been one goalless draw between these two clubs in 45 meetings, and that back in 1961, we’re hoping for some more of that sweet, sweet wonder. Kick-off is at 12.30pm GMT. It’s on!