Yves Bissouma wasn’t missed in Brighton and Hove Albion’s return to winning ways against Brentford.
That could prove to be just as significant in the future as bringing an 11-game sequence without a league victory to an end is to the more immediate advancement of Graham Potter’s team.
Bissouma, normally the heartbeat of Brighton’s midfield, was out through suspension as first-half goals by Leandro Trossard and Neal Maupay, against his former club, at the Amex Stadium lifted the home side back into the top half of the table.
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The Mali international served a one-match ban for accumulating five bookings, a punishment applied for the Brentford game after Brighton’s visit to Old Trafford on December 18 got postponed because of a COVID-19 outbreak at Manchester United.
Potter devised a formula that successfully camouflaged the absence of the 25-year-old he has come to rely upon to sit in front of his back four.
There is no like-for-like replacement for Bissouma among the players currently available to Potter. Moises Caicedo was bought from Independiente del Valle of Ecuador in the last January transfer window to eventually fill Bissouma’s shoes but the 20-year-old Ecuador international is on loan to Beerschot in Belgium.
Potter used Adam Lallana, Jakub Moder, Enock Mwepu and Alexis Mac Allister in a midfield mix against Brentford, which worked sufficiently well for Bissouma’s watching brief to pass by virtually unnoticed.
He’ll be available again to face Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday evening.
Whether he will still be a Brighton player next season is another matter.
Trossard’s opening goal, looping over the goalkeeper…
🎥 @SkySportsPL pic.twitter.com/2pa1vWbmRK
— The Athletic UK (@TheAthleticUK) December 26, 2021
Bissouma’s future was the subject of considerable speculation in the summer, when Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal were all linked with him. In the end, Brighton’s big sale was not Bissouma but Ben White’s £50 million move to the latter.
The loss of the versatile White from the options in the centre of defence has been absorbed without needing to sign a replacement.
A fourth clean sheet in 11 matches, achieved without their injured captain Lewis Dunk, leaves Brighton with the fifth-best defensive record in the Premier League at 17 goals conceded in their 17 games so far.
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The accomplished manner in which they turned Bissouma’s suspension from a potentially damaging blow into a minor inconvenience hinted at no cause to get too worked up if his future becomes a topic of debate again next summer, by which time the midfielder will have only a year left on his contract.
Brighton’s win last night was their first in the five league games Bissouma has been absent for this season. Their midfielders were instrumental, providing the assists for both goals.
Mwepu picked out Trossard with a pass over the top of the Brentford defence, which the Belgian finished with aplomb, lifting a volley over advancing goalkeeper Alvaro Fernandez. Lallana and Moder then combined with an exchange of passes to set up Maupay for a ruthless finish into the roof of the net from just outside the penalty area.
Aside from the contributions to the goals, the assisting trio and Mac Allister offered between them a blend of fluency, athleticism, control and intensity.
Potter sometimes had Lallana and Pascal Gross in central midfield when Bissouma was sidelined from mid-September for a month by a knee injury. Lallana, at 33, doesn’t have the sustainable energy he had in his prime years for Southampton, Liverpool and England, while Gross lacks a change of gear.
The younger legs of Mwepu, Moder and Mac Allister, the latter making only his third league start of the season, ensured there was plenty of physicality and poise in the engine room. This enabled Lallana to exert control until he began to run out of gas together with Mac Allister; the limited first-team minutes under his belt catching up with the Argentinian.
Potter sensibly brought Gross and Steven Alzate on for those two on 85 minutes to help see the game out. Alzate is only just back from the ankle surgery which had kept him out since late September.
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Lallana, who captained the side with Dunk out of the picture for a few more weeks with knee ligament damage, loved the personality of the overall performance.
He said: “We ran for each other, tackled for each other. If things didn’t go well, we bounced back up and got on with the game. That brings good momentum, a good feeling. We were getting in good areas, winning the ball back well and we capitalised with two outstanding finishes.”
Reflecting on his midfield’s display, Potter said: “They played with real energy and understanding.
“We tried to nick balls off them (Brentford), press high, which is not easy to do because they’ve got a good structure and they use their front players well.
“They rotated when they needed to, attacked the back line when they could, so it was a good performance.”
Potter couldn’t shed any light on whether Brighton will lose Bissouma again at the beginning of next month — for longer this time. He’s been named in the Mali squad for the upcoming Africa Cup of Nations, which runs from January 9 to February 6 in Cameroon.
Bissouma, embroiled in a dispute with Mali’s football authorities, hasn’t represented his country for over three years.
But if that changes, at least Potter knows he has a range of alternatives.
(Photo: Bryn Lennon/Getty Images)
