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This week as he looks forward to the visit of Brighton and Hove Albion, Preview Percy dabbles in quantum mechanics to explain why Soucek and Noble in midfield didn't really work the other night. Not many previews do that. With very good reason, as you will soon discover...

Season’s greetings, I suppose, as we face the “not the Boxing Day” fixture where we play hosts to Brighton & Hove Albion. Kick-off on the 27th will be at the rather odd time of 2:15pm for the benefit of Sky Sports. Not sure what the assorted collection of n’er do wells at Eyes Up Mother Brown will be doing but I’m sure they will be on air at some stage if they can drag themselves away from dousing themselves in whatever gift selection of toiletries they get for Christmas.




So Brighton then. Wins have been at a premium for them so far this season. They have but two to their name both of which have come on the road, at Newcastle (3-0 back in September) and at Villa (2-1 in November). The remaining 12 games are split evenly between wins and draws.

It is often said that in the mid-lower areas of the Premier (or indeed any) League a team’s survival is often defined by its results not against the upper echelons but against the teams around it. If that is the case, they may be feeling that there is some cause for concern.

By and large the names in the “D” column do not make for inspiring reading and they may be thinking that more points should have been accrued from matches against Palace (1-1 away), West Brom (1-1 at home), Burnley (0-0 at home) and Fulham (0-0) away. They might have taken a bit of heart from the 1-1 draw with Liverpool but a more typical outing was last weekend’s sharing of the points with Sheffield United, against whom they laboured to come from behind, despite the visitors having been reduced to ten men in the first half. Brighton might have nicked all three late on but it would have been a little flattering.

In the debit column they have come off second best to Chelsea (3-1 at home) Man Utd (3-2 at home with the winning penalty coming by fax three days after the end of the game), Everton (4-2 away), Spurs (2-1 at the toilet bowl), Southampton (2-1 at home) and Leicester (3-0 away). All of that left them in 16th place with 12 points from the 14 played so far after the weekend’s matches.

Daisy, the socially distanced support bubbling personal assistant with the beautiful smile informs me that, whilst several first XI players came in during the window, there were a lot of “undisclosed” and “free-transfer” list entries, suggesting that the funds expended may not have been massive.

The first proper arrival of the season came in the form of sometime fashion model Adam Lallana. Brighton is Lallana’s third south coast club with him having started off in the Bournemouth youth set up, before moving along to Southampton. He spent six years up at Liverpool but his later years up there were punctuated by injury and his appearances became more and more sporadic meaning that the non-renewal of his contract at the end of last season was inevitable. So having progressed from Bournemouth, Southampton and, eventually, Brighton, the Big question remains: What did Portsmouth do to upset him?




The fee of roughly £900,000 paid to Ajax for Joel Veltman was governed lass by market forces and more by the fact that that was the release figure contained within the player’s contract. The 28 year old defender has gained 28 Dutch caps and has three Eredivisie and one KNVB Cup winner’s medals in his cabinet at home. He was also played by Bill Murray in the films Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II.

Swiss-born striker Andi Zeqiri arrived from Lausanne for an undisclosed fee reported as being in the region of £3.6m. He made his debut as a sub in last weekend’s draw with Sheffield United as the Seagulls chased the equalizer that eventually came via Danny Welbeck. Zeqiri has been quite prolific at age-group international level, scoring 11 in as many games for the Swiss U21 side. However he recently announced that he was going through the process of picking up a Kosovan passport to enable him to play for the country of his Albanian-Kosovan ancestry.

On the other hand, Welbeck is a familiar sight to English supporters. He arrived on a free from Watford following their relegation last season. He has two goals in 8 games for the Seagulls this season, which is as much as he managed in 18 for the Hornets last season. Like Lallana, his career with the higher-placed clubs in the league, as Arsenal used to be back then, was hampered by injury and a broken ankle brought a full stop to his life as a Gooner. Although Watford might have seemed a convenient move for the player, relegation was always likely to herald a parting of the ways, presumably Premier League wages in the Championship being an issue for the Hornets. He has a one-year deal down at Falmer.

And so let’s move on to the Wild and Wacky world of Association Football. The rumpus over diving continues apace. Callum Wilson appears to have widened his repertoire from the sneaky handball and incurred the wrath of Scott Parker by not only diving to win a penalty but getting Fulham’s Andersen red-carded in the process. The penalty decision is the sort of thing that VAR ought to have overturned but not only did two qualified referees get it wrong but Scott compounded his error by adding the red card into the mix. Another winner for PGMOL.

Over the border Celtic were firmly put in their place after crowing about their belated Scottish Cup win that gave them a quadruple treble. “A world first” they shouted from the twittertop. “Not so” responded Gibraltar’s Lincoln Red Imps, who pointed to their own quintuple a few years back. It’s not as if Celtic were unfamiliar with the Imps – after all they did lose a first leg So-Called Champions League tie to them 4 years ago.

And so to us? It was a disappointing result which really did not convey a true reflection of the match. Yet again we were left to think of what might have been had the officials been competent. Silva’s dive to deny Bowen a totally legitimate goal was embarrassing as was their habit of clutching their heads every challenge to relieve the pressure when on the back foot.




Referees – quite rightly – will stop play when there is the merest hint of a head injury. What I would like to see is referees make a judgement call and cautioning players for feigning injury when it becomes clear that that is what has occurred. It would require precisely zero amendment to the laws of the game – merely for referees to apply them. However, as we know most referees consider many of the laws to be “optional” and this is one of them. I also wouldn’t mind them giving penalties when players are barged out of the way to allow goalkeepers a free run. One such challenge on Haller was so blatant one can only speculate why neither Kavanagh nor VAR thought it worthy of consideration.

The Bowen goal in particular came at a time that might have made a significant difference to the match. However, in the end, three lapses of concentration cost us dearly – including conceding two goals to, arguably, the worst player on the pitch. That said we lacked a cutting edge and the return of the skipper, nice though it was to see him again, cannot be said to have been an unqualified success- on a number of occasions Noble and Souceck found themselves tackling themselves as they embarked on a twin quest to disprove the Pauli Exclusion Principle.

The match just went to prove what we have been saying all season. When all are fit we have the makings of a half-decent side. However, the lack of both investment and a coherent policy for what investment there is means that we are only ever a hamstring or two away from disaster. Which is a worrying enough prospect even before you throw in the fact that our record with soft tissue injuries is not great. The next time anyone on that tabloid radio station tries to berate a caller who has the temerity to suggest that the current owners are not very good at running the club maybe whichever room-temperature IQ presenter is acting as the owners’ mouthpiece might like to give his views as to whether a club that has now had to field two ‘keepers on the bench TWICE can be said to be well-run.

There was further good news for Lampard junior – he will now be able to enjoy his Christmas lunch without fear of digestive problems courtesy of the oral colonic that Carragher decided to administer in lieu of conducting an interview. Probably best not to wind up Carragher for a bit – being spat at would be even more unpleasant than normal.

There’s little news on the injury front – deadlines prohibit me from waiting for the manager’s pre-match update – so all I know at the moment is that Antonio and Lanzini both have a small chance of making an appearance unlike Masuaku who will be out for a while.

Prediction? This is one I think we will win. What I have seen from them when they have been on the box hasn’t been that inspiring really and assuming we can get what we have performing, even without a couple of players we ought to have enough to take the points. So Mr Winstone please take the £2.50 I had absolutely no intention of giving to carol singers and place it on a 3-1 win to us.

Enjoy the game!





When last we met at the Olympic: drew 3-3 (Premier League Feb 2020)

You know that stat they keep throwing up on the screen about points lost from winning positions? This was one of those. Diop and a brace had given us a 3-1 lead. Gross pulled one back and despite VAR revealing a Murray handball in the review, the officials spotted it and ignored it meaning that we dropped two vital points.


Referee: Simon Hooper

Allowed a number of frankly quite disgraceful challenges on our players when we faced Hull in the League Cup earlier this season. Hopefully someone will remind him of his duty of care to players this time around.


Danger Man: Leandro Trossard

Belgian playmaker who seems to be at the heart of their attacking intent


Percy’s Poser

Last time out we took a 3-year-old letter a letter from the Kensington & Chelsea Times for the following warning

Readers should avoid buying what looks like the best seat in the house at XXXXXXX XXXX XXXXX

Well done to Mrs Lily Awake-Nervous of Laindon who spotted that the missing words were “Holland Park Opera”. Apparently if you sit in seat A26 your view of the orchestra is blocked by the conductor. Don’t you just hate that.

Meanwhile the Brighton Argus has provided the following little snippet from which we have nicked a few words…

XXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXX after police spot man acting suspiciously by roadside

Good luck everyone!


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