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“A rare night off for the Hardest Working Man in Football, Alexis Mac Allister,” emails Justin Kavanagh. “Somehow, I’m having trouble picturing him with his feet up on the couch, with the meaty aromas of an Argentinian grill wafting in his patio door on the springtime air back in Liverpool. After the season he’s had, goodness knows he’s earned his steak and Malbec tonight.”
The midfielder is not in the Liverpool squad at all tonight so won’t be facing his former side. But what a player. The way he sets the tempo for Liverpool and keep things ticking over is invaluable, just as he does for Argentina. Sometimes one only notices someone’s true quality when they are not there.
On Liverpool’s left wing, Federico Chiesa gets his first league start of the season in the penultimate match of the season. That tells the story of how poor the Italian has been although Chiesa signed a four-year contract last summer so there’s potentially a long way to go in his Liverpool career. Either he has to shape up next season and deliver on the early promise of his career or he won’t get anywhere near this Liverpool XI again. Maybe a loan deal, back to Italy, would suit all parties.
Fascinating that Brighton have benched Mitoma again tonight for the third game running, despite the Japanese scoring twice in those three games. In those three games, Fabian Hürzeler has preferred João Pedro, Simon Adingra and Yankuba Minteh at left wing, but Mitoma has come on to great effect from the bench. I’m just not sure Mitoma thought he would be playing that role when Brighton turned down a bid €65m (£54.4m) from Al-Nassr in January. Mitoma has two years remaining on his contract.
The teams!
Brighton: Verbruggen, Wieffer, Van Hecke, Webster, Estupinan, Baleba, Ayari, Minteh, Gruda, Adingra, Welbeck.
Subs: Rushworth, Igor, Dunk, Mitoma, Gomez, O’Riley, Veltman, Hinshelwood, Howell.
Liverpool: Alisson, Bradley, Quansah, Konate, Tsimikas, Gravenberch, Szoboszlai, Salah, Elliott, Gakpo, Chiesa.
Subs: Kelleher, Gomez, Endo, Van Dijk, Diaz, Nunez, Jones, Robertson, Alexander-Arnold.
Fresh from scoring against Wolves, Brajan Gruda starts in the No 10 role for Brighton. Wieffer is retained as a makeshift right back, preferred to Hinshelwood or Veltman, while Simon Adingra comes in on the left wing ahead of Tariq Lamptey.
Kostas Tsimikas, Jarell Quansah, Harvey Elliott and Federico Chiesa all come into Slot’s XI, with Andy Robertson, Virgil van Dijk, Curtis Jones and Luis Diaz all dropping to the bench following the last outing against Arsenal. This is still a strong Liverpool team, just not quite as strong as it could be.
Preamble
Liverpool may have taken the phrase ‘on the beach’ a little too literally in the last week – with manager Arne Slot pictured at Wayne Lineker’s beach club in Ibiza alongside former EastEnders actor Dean Gaffney Dean Gaffney (no, really) and the rest of the squad in other cultural destinations like Dubai for Trent Alexander-Arnold’s leaving do – but let’s see what sort of shape they are in tonight.
Brighton (a) is a tough gig, even when the champions are firing on all cylinders and actually have something to play for, so this will likely be a tough test for Slot’s brave boys. The Seagulls are still in with a shot of Europe: finishing eighth is still a viable (although not certain) route to the Conference League. There are two ways that the eighth-placed team can get a place in the Conference League:
1)
Chelsea finish seventh and win the Conference League. Champions League: 1st to 5th, Man Utd or Spurs as Europa League winners. Europa League: 6th, Crystal Palace as FA Cup winners, Chelsea as Conference League winners (7th). Conference League: 8th
2)
Chelsea finish sixth and win the Conference League, while Newcastle finish seventh. Champions League: 1st to 5th, Man Utd or Spurs as Europa League winners. Europa League: Newcastle (7th), Crystal Palace as FA Cup winners, Chelsea as Conference League winners (6th). Conference League: 8th
In either of these scenarios, the Premier League would have 10 teams – half of the Premier League – playing in Europe next season. Here is the current league table before kick-off. Brighton are ninth but only need a draw tonight to go into the final day in pole position to claim eighth.
So, quite the cherry for Brighton to play for, particularly as they have never won a major honour and would likely be the runaway favourites to win next season’s Conference League if they qualify. There’s a bigger question over whether the budgets of English teams in European’s minor competitions (West Ham 2023, Spurs/Manchester United 2025, etc) renders the rest of said competitions rather predictable but this is just a humble preamble and we won’t be answering those questions here!
Instead, let’s look forward to a sun-drenched evening of football in Sussex, as the best team in England visit one of the nation’s most exciting sides.
Kick-off: 8pm BST.
