Four takeaway thoughts after the Brighton vs West Brom game

Here's a look back at Brighton's 1-0 loss to West Brom at The Hawthorns on Saturday (February 27) and where it went wrong for Graham Potter s men. The main caveats being that Brighton should have won the game 99 times out of 100 and the referee made a terrible call. Here's four more bigger picture things I took away from the defeat at West Brom.

Formation change

Potter turned to a 4-2-3-1 formation for this one, and in the post-match press conference he highlighted the reason for this was to fit Aaron Connolly in to make runs in behind the deep block of West Brom. Unfortunately Connolly didn't repay his manager's faith in him this time after missing a great opportunity to score.

Also by changing formation it seemed like it put the team out of that natural rhythm they've being picking up when playing a 3-5-2, which produced wins against Leeds, Spurs and Liverpool.

The 3-5-2 was working well of late and I do question why it was changed to a more defensive set up against lowly West Brom.

xG

As per the xGPhilosophy on Twitter: "Brighton have scored one goal from 7.79(xG) in their last three matches." The xG scoreline, which is in brackets, looks like this: West Brom (1.13) 1-0 (3.14) Brighton. Meaning Brighton failed to score some great chances, as we know. And West Brom had very few chances.

I could have done a whole article on xG but it's getting quite monotonous to say "Brighton won the xG again". The question is when will this team regress to the mean? When will it start averaging out, and this very good side start being rewarded for their performances?

Potter said in the post-match press conference he was aware of the xG metric but it's the points on the actual table that bothers him, which is fair enough but I think he's acutely aware that he is doing a good job but his strikers are letting him down.

I think a new striker is needed, maybe bring in a sports psychologist to sort out the lack of confidence in front of goal and maybe a clear-out of those who haven't being doing their job. The bad finishing really does seem to be like a huge weight hanging over the players' heads going into each game, which then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Can't kill games off

The side lacks the ruthlessness and initiative to kill games off. Going into every game now I expect Brighton to score exactly one goal, miss a handful of opportunities and then gift a silly goal away.

Albion can't go ahead and stay ahead, but they can go behind and fight back. Think of the comebacks against Wolves, or West Ham last season, Liverpool at home this season, to name a few. But there's no examples where the side stormed ahead and won the game comfortably.

Maybe with time and experience it will come, but to be a top 10 side you've got to be able to take the game to the opponent, finish your chances and hold your lead more often than not.

Solid defense

If I was a Brighton defender in this side I'd quite frustrated knowing I'm doing my job but being let down by those further up the field. Brighton of late have looked much more solid at the back, which might be down to playing White in his natural position and bringing Sanchez in between the sticks.

It's a great foundation to build on: Webster, White and Dunk with Sanchez behind them is one of the dark horse best defensive set ups in the league. It would be good to have a dark horse strike force too to compliment that.