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STILL IN THE RELEGATION ZONE...
Sunday, 10th April 2005 . |
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Flying High
Report: (Brighton 1 - 1 Leicester) |
It is
easy to get paranoid about referees and to start thinking there
is a conspiracy against you, but the
man in the middle for today's game was
one of those officials who clearly set out to try to be the centre
of attention - and once again it was a
dodgy penalty decision which gave
him his first glimpse of the spotlight.
One
caller to the post-match phone-in reckoned the ball did indeed
touch Joe Dolan's hand in the area,
but it was ball to hand if anything,
and none of the Leicester players appealed, so they clearly didn't
expect to get anything out of it.
David
Connolly - who later in the game should have been given a
straight
red card for flooring Dan Harding off the ball - dispatched the
penalty with aplomb.
What we
all crave from referees is consistency above all else, and the
official bottled far clearer penalty
decisions later in the game. A McCammon
clash with Ian Walker was interpreted by Ian Hart as a penalty
and a possible sending off for Walker:
but nothing given. Jake Robinson was
blatantly felled when through on the right side of the penalty area
and again nothing was given - but if
he dived, why wasn't he cautioned?
Adam El-Abd
even handled towards the end when under pressure but he missed
that one too.
It is a
shame there was such focus on the referee because the real
centre
of attention should be the Albion's gutsy performance against
all these odds.
From the
outset, Brighton took control of the game and forced a string
of corners in a rip-roaring first 20
minutes.
The 3-5-2
formation has worked well before this season and once again
it
gave us a solid shape. El-Abd was magnificent at the back, and put
in what was probably his best ever
performance. Dolan looked a little jittery
at times, but nevertheless won some important challenges against
the awkward De Vries.
Dean
Hammond had a right old battle with Danny Tiatto which always
threatened to explode. Hard man Tiatto
incurred the wrath of the Withdean
South Stand with some rather theatrical stuff, and, when he
was
eventually booked, Levein took him off before he got sent off. That was
the fate suffered by Leicester's Stephen Hughes for two
bookings
- both for kicking the ball away. How dim was he? Mark McGhee's double
substitution, which saw Robinson and Jones replace Dolan
and Hammond, brought a new dimension to Albion's forward play. It wasn't
long before Robinson somehow squirmed his way through to the
right
byline, and delivered an inch-perfect cross onto McCammon's head.
Unfortunately
Big Mac contrived to head it wide. But Robinson's darting
little
runs and Virgo's muscle eventually caused sufficient confusion
in the Leicester area and a loose ball
fell invitingly to Reid to lash in
an equaliser with his left peg.
A goal
from an unlikely source, but one that was richly deserved for
all the collective effort.
Leicester nearly stole a second but
Guy Butters, covering magnificently on
the goalline, headed a goalbound effort clear as Blayney was caught
out of his goal having advanced to
make a point blank stop. It was the 2nd
goalline clearance of the game because Harding had also stopped a
certain goal in a similar vein earlier
on.
Not that
Blayney could be faulted: he made at least three crucial stops
at different stages of the game.
The man of the match by some distance
was veteran centre forward turned centre
back Dion Dublin. He was magnificent throughout, on the ground
and in the air, and probably
single-handedly prevented Brighton taking the
three points they arguably deserved.
But
gaining a point at least brought an end to the losing streak and
this sort of performance provides a
good platform on which to build at Turf
Moor next Saturday.
Nick
Turrell
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