On Saturday night, Brighton will play against Chelsea in a friendly match, Brighton's first outing of the preseason. Instead of playing at home or making the journey up to London, both clubs will cross the Atlantic Ocean to play in front of the rapidly growing base of Premier League consumers in the world's largest economy. Of course, the first time Brighton plays in the new world I will be on the wrong side of the pond somehow. That's okay, I didn't really want to see Brighton play in my hometown anyway.
The club published a squad list for the matches in the States and I'll give a position-by-position rundown.
Goalkeepers: Tom McGill, Carl Rushworth, Jason Steele, Bart Verbruggen
Robert Sánchez is the only first team goalkeeper not included, so there won't be a summer redemption for the number 1. That's a shame, I think. His shot-stopping showed great was superb at times, and I thought his distribution was good enough for the team's style. He also brought a swagger into the goal that I love to see. Unfortunately, he made too many large mistakes and it doesn't seem like he is going to repair the burned bridge between himself and the manager.
I wonder if all four goalkeepers will get to feature on this tour or if we will see Steele and Verbruggen fight it out for the starting spot.
Defenders: Lewis Dunk, Pervis Estupiñán, Tariq Lamptey, Jan Paul Van Hecke, Imari Samuels, Ed Turns, Joël Veltman, Adam Webster
LBs - Pervis, Samuels
CBs - Dunk, JP, Webster, Turns, Veltman*
RBs - Lamptey, Veltman*
The back line sure looks very thin at the moment, especially compared to the other position groups. Samuels has never featured for the senior squad and Turns only played in two early round League Cup games last season. They should both be licking their chops at these opportunities as they should see plenty of game time in these matches. Michal Karbownik does not make the trip so I expect he will be transferred out soon. Offiah also might have been expected to travel with the team, perhaps a loan is imminent.
Midfielders and Forwards: Steven Alzate, Yasin Ayari, Benicio Baker-Boaitey, Facundo Buonanotte, Moisés Caicedo, Mahmoud Dahoud, Billy Gilmour, Pascal Groß, Jack Hinshelwood, Adam Lallana, Solly March, James Milner, Kaoru Mitoma, Cameron Peupion, Jensen Weir, Simon Adingra, Julio Enciso, Evan Ferguson, João Pedro, Deniz Undav, Danny Welbeck
Jakub Moder and Jeremy Sarmiento don't make the list due to injury, unfortunately. Marc Leonard and Andy Moran probably to be loaned out.
The way I see it, De Zerbi has three pairs of positions ahead of the defense: pure central midfielders, or double pivots, which I will call CMs; pure wingers; and forwards, which can be played by strikers or number 10s, so I will just call it the forward position. I am going to dig into this deeper in a later post, but by my current reckoning, there was basically no difference in the attacking midfield spot and the striker spot last season, which is why we saw two strikers at times and it didn't seem to change the system. Some players will be listed in multiple spots because they can play in multiple spots. I'll use an asterisk on those players.
CMs: Alzate, Ayari, Caicedo, Dahoud, Gilmour, Groß*, Hinshelwood, Milner!, Weir*
Wingers: BBB, Buonanotte*, March, Mitoma, Adingra, Enciso*
Forwards: Buonanotte*, Groß*, Lallana, Peupion, Weir*, Enciso*, Ferguson, João Pedro, Undav, Welbeck
Some notes on my categorization of some of the players. Milner can play anywhere, and though he has played as often as a wide attacking player as he has in central midfield, I don't think he will do that at Brighton. He will of course be cover at outside back as well. Alzate, Ayari, and Groß can definitely play further forward, but I don't think they will do so very often considering the depth Brighton has in that position.
Bearing in mind that each of those categories plays two players at a time on the field, there aren't that many minutes to go around. It will be very interesting to see who gets to play, and whether De Zerbi is using these matches more as warm-ups for the season, or as try-outs for the squad. It is also important to note that Brighton will play Saturday, Wednesday, and Friday, so perhaps there will be more playing time on offer than I might think with such a short turnaround between the Brentford and Newcastle United matches.
Chelsea Expectations
Chelsea has had another extremely busy summer so far, with a new coach and a massively different squad list. Of the 16 blues that played in their 2-1 loss to Brighton on April 15th (the match with the Enciso winner), only 8 are in the US. Brighton are missing just two players that featured in that match (Mac Allister and Sanchez). There is of course the obvious intrigue in this match surrounding the potential transfers of Caicedo and Colwill, not to mention the rest of the recent history between the two clubs. Chelsea has already played a match against Wrexham in Charlotte, which they won 5-0. Fotmob thinks they played in a 4-2-3-1 formation. New signings Nico Jackson and Christopher Nkunku both featured in the match.
Of course this is a friendly match which does not matter in any way, but you do have to think that the Seagulls might have a bit of a special interest in this match. Considering the gulf between the two sides last season and the relative stability that Brighton have enjoyed, I do expect Brighton to look much better than Chelsea in this one. I am eager to see some of the new players, especially Mahoud, Adingra, and João Pedro. It is early in the pre-season still, but I hope that they can show some level of understanding of and commitment to the style that worked so well last season.
Hopefully I will be able to write up an analysis of the match before the next one against Brentford on Wednesday.
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