Fabian Hurzeler has only been at Brighton & Hove Albion for a matter of months but, already, the head coach has introduced a new word to the Premier League’s lexicon: ‘Bananenschale’.
Hurzeler spoke about the German equivalent of a banana skin, or unexpected slip up, in his press conference before the visit of Wolves to the Amex Stadium.
The concept in his homeland stems from a cartoon called Fritz. “He’s the main character of jokes — when he slips on a Bananenschale and falls down — so I know these jokes,” Hurzeler said. “They are funny, but hopefully we won’t see a Bananenschale at the weekend.”
That proved to be wishful thinking.
Hurzeler is in charge of a club that are Bananenschale experts. Saturday’s 2-2 draw against Wolves, when the hosts were 2-0 up in the 85th minute, extended Brighton’s record in games against teams languishing in the relegation zone to only 12 victories out of 46; a shocking win rate of 26 per cent.
It is a familiar failing that has haunted them throughout their time in the Premier League, a stint now stretching into an eighth successive season. The latest damning exhibit is arguably the most infuriating example of the lot.
Fans have become accustomed, particularly at the Amex, to a regular pattern of wastefulness against struggling opponents. Brighton have contrived to conjure disappointing draws, and sometimes defeats, despite enjoying plenty of possession. They have tended to be undone either through a lack of craft to create clear-cut chances or missed opportunities to penetrate low-block defending.
Yet neither of those familiar failings particularly undermined them against Wolves, a team who arrived on the south coast bottom of the table and with the worst defensive record in the division. A flourishing understanding between Danny Welbeck and Georginio Rutter saw to that.
Just before half-time, Rutter slipped a pass through the visitors’ stubborn rearguard for Welbeck to convert his sixth goal in nine league games. The evergreen former England and Arsenal forward, 34 next month, is already only three goals short of his career-best Premier League tally for a campaign, achieved twice with boyhood club Manchester United.
Each of his last three goals have been set up by Rutter, the £40million ($51.8m) club-record summer purchase from Leeds United. The other two were against Tottenham and at Newcastle, the latter of which saw Welbeck stretchered off with a lower back injury.
Both of those goals were winners (3-2 from 2-0 down at home Tottenham, 1-0 at Newcastle). This time there was breathing space, Welbeck’s replacement Evan Ferguson ending an 11-month goal famine — and seemingly any threat of another Bananenschale — with a clinical right-foot finish in the 85th minute.
Everyone inside the ground thought that was job done — including some fans in the away end who left early, resigned to a seventh defeat in succession. So, unfortunately for Hurzeler, did his players.
Poor defending from a corner allowed Rayan Ait-Nouri to halve Wolves’ arrears in the 88th minute. The 93rd minute equaliser by Matheus Cunha following a counter-attack — with a shot which deflected in via Jan Paul van Hecke — arose from an inexplicable error by substitute Mats Wieffer.
Moments earlier, the Dutch midfielder was in possession midway inside the Wolves half with team-mates Yasin Ayari, Ferguson and Julio Enciso in space to his left. Wolves midfielder Tommy Doyle was outnumbered four to one. Wieffer had three choices to seal the deal — run the ball into the corner, run at Doyle and have a shot at goal or execute a simple pass to one of his colleagues to finish Wolves off.
Brighton had this 4-on-1 opportunity in stoppage time…
But Wolves won the ball back and scored seconds later! https://t.co/UaQjTZtcrq pic.twitter.com/fyqQHuINyK
— Premier League (@premierleague) October 26, 2024
He ended up taking a fourth option: passing the ball straight to Doyle to launch the counter raid that led to the points being shared.
“I didn’t talk to him (after the match),” Hurzeler said. “Mats is a great personality. He will be disappointed, and of course he should be disappointed, but in these moments you can show your character, you can grow as a person.”
Apart from the Tottenham comeback, Hurzeler’s side are counting the cost of two other home draws in September — 0-0 with promoted Ipswich, who are still without a win, and 2-2 against Nottingham Forest. Although Forest are much improved this season, they trailed 2-1 until the 70th minute and played from the 83rd minute with 10 men after Morgan Gibbs-White was sent off.
The six extra points would have put Brighton a point behind Manchester City although, for context, in other matches they have gained points that they did not necessarily deserve.
It would be easy to be wise after the event by questioning the disruption stemming from five substitutions made by Hurzeler from the 72nd minute when, in fact, most of them worked. Ferguson’s goal was set up by fellow replacement Tariq Lamptey and Brajan Gruda won the ball back to set up Wieffer’s numerical supremacy.
Bringing on the Dutch international summer signing from Feyenoord to help see the game out — albeit at the expense of the impressive Carlos Baleba — also made sense with the upcoming schedule, as did switching from a back four to a back five from the 80th minute to combat the growing second-half threat from Wolves.
Hurzeler was unlucky as well to lose Lewis Dunk from the centre of defence due to a calf issue in the warm-up on what would have been his 250th Premier League appearance, all of them starts. We will never know whether the talismanic skipper — Welbeck took over as captain — would have made a difference in that frantic finale.
As it is, the next three fixtures — against Liverpool home and away (in the Carabao Cup and the Premier League), then Manchester City at the Amex before the November international break — will not fall into the Bananenschale category. The next game that applies comes at the end of November, when Wolves’ bottom spot replacements Southampton are the visitors.
(Top photo: Shaun Brooks – CameraSport via Getty Images)
