4 April 3, 2022The Sunday Times 2GS
Football Premier League
Maupay sends his penalty over the bar as Brighton have to settle for a draw
pool’s right back delivered a Beck-
ham-like cross and Jota’s movement
reminded Anfield veterans of Robbie
Fowler.
Jota is quickly developing a reputa-
tion of his own at Anfield, however,
having scored more headers than any-
one else this season in the Premier
League. Few were as good as this one
as he bravely got to the ball ahead of
the diving Ben Foster and directed it
into the net. Foster could hardly
believe it as he picked himself up.A
s Jürgen Klopp walked in for
his post-match press confer-
ence, Kevin De Bruyne had
just scored for Manchester
City, prompting Klopp to
remark before he had even
sat down that “one of your
questions is now gone”.
The excitement about Liverpool
going top of the league had quickly
been punctured, but there was plenty
more for Liverpool fans to take from
this game. Sandwiched in between
the international break, a Champions
League quarter-final first leg away to
Benfica on Tuesday night and a top-of-
the-table clash next weekend against
Manchester City, this was a banana
skin that Liverpool managed to avoid
slipping up on. Just.
Mohamed Salah returned to the
starting line-up but Trent Alexander-
Arnold was on the bench, having
recovered from a hamstring injury,
alongside Sadio Mané and Luis Díaz,
whose long journeys on international
duty last week were deciding factors
in them not starting the game.
Joe Gomez stood in well for Alexan-
der-Arnold and in Diogo Jota, Liver-
pool have a striker who is deadly
whether playing out wide or through
the centre.
A close game swung decisively Liv-
erpool’s way in the 22nd minute.Liverpool
keep the heat
on with tenth
win in a row
Within the space of 60 seconds Wat-
ford had a great chance when Joao
Pedro played through Juraj Kucka.
The Watford midfielder had a good
game overall but, one on one with
Alisson, he could not produce a shot
powerful enough to beat the Liver-
pool goalkeeper, who batted the ball
away. In barely the blink of an eye, Liv-
erpool were ahead.
Thiago Alcântara moved the ball on
to Jordan Henderson, who swept it
out to Gomez on the right wing. Liver-LIVERPOOL
Jota 22, Fabinho 89 (pen)^2WATFORD
0Diogo Jota scores
his 14th league goal
of the season, and
his third in three
games for
LiverpoolFoster7Samir6
Femenia7
Kamara7Pedro6
Hernández7Kabasele7Louza6
Kucka6
Sissoko7Sarr64-3-3Alisson7Matip7
Robertson6
Gomez6Jota7
Salah6Henderson7Firmino6Van Dijk7Jones6
Alcântara64-3-3Star man Diogo Jota (Liverpool).
Substitutes: Liverpool Fabinho (for Jones 62,7),
Mané (for Salah 69, 6), Milner (for Alcântara 89).
Watford T Cleverley (for Louza 78), E Dennis (for
Hernandez 78), J King (for Pedro 78).
Referee S Attwell.BRIGHTON & HOVE ALBION
0
NORWICH CITY
0Maupay fluffs his
lines for Brighton
Neal Maupay could and maybe
should have won this game for
Brighton & Hove Albion. But the
mindgames of Tim Krul, Norwich
City’s goalkeeper, and maybe the
state of the striker’s own thinking,
ensured that a golden opportunity
from the penalty spot to get his side a
first win in seven games went
missing.
It is a scenario that his manager,
Graham Potter, lamented after a good
performance if not end result for his
Brighton side.“Maupay will bounce
back,” said Potter, “as long as he
continues to put in the hard work.
“Neal Maupay, he’s a human being,
he’ll be low tonight, that’s normal,
but I think he’s had these experiences
before. Against Leeds he missed a
couple of chances then in the
following game he scored so that’s
the life of a striker and he has to deal
with that,” he added.
“He’s got the support from us, the
support of his team, and the
supporters, which was really
important, so he’ll bounce back.
“I don’t know the ins and outs of
his brain, of-course, but he’s a human
being. I’ll hypothesise he’ll be
disappointed like the rest of us with
the recent results, he’ll want those to
improve, for his own situation to do
better. But the logical part of his
brain knows to fix that with hard
work and do his very best, which I
think he does.”
The battle involved two teams who
had lost their past six Premier League
games, a wretched run that Brighton
did all they could to move away from.
Norwich, for all their likely
impending swift return to the Sky Bet
Championship, gave a robust account
of themselves and as epitomised by
their captain, Grant Hanley. He put in
a strong defensive shift and his side
rode their luck for a while, with Krul
having a particularly excellent time
between the sticks. His point-blank
save from Joel Veltman’s second-half
header in particular ensured that
honours remained even and that a
point apiece would be the outcome.
Brighton passed and moved
without an end product, and for a
side who drew many of their early
Premier League fixtures, the likes of
Danny Welbeck, Maupay and
Leandro Trossard will feel that this
was a match they should have
grabbed by the scruff of the neck.
But Norwich, despite only having
won four Premier League games all
season, almost stole the three points
when Sam Byram, who had handled
under pressure from Lewis Dunk to
concede the penalty, was picked out
by Teemu Pukki’s cross but he skied
his effort from 10 yards out leaving
the Brighton manager to wonder
what could have been
Potter added: “Our performances
have been strong in the last six games
apart from maybe at Newcastle,
where our level dropped a little bit for
different reasons. So today,
performance-wise, I can’t complain
too much about the overall
performance apart from the last bit,
so that’s positive for us.
“Anything can happen, that’s life.
The only thing you can do is focus on
the next day, the next training
session, the next match, and that’s
what we’ll do. We’ve got Arsenal next,
which is a tough match, but we’ve
proven in the past against some top
teams we can perform, that’s what
we’ll need to do.”Star man Grant Hanley (Norwich City).
Brighton (3-1-4-2): R Sanchez 6 — J Veltman 6,
L Dunk 6, M Cucurella 6 — P Gross 6 — T Lamptey
6, L Trossard 6, A Mac Allister 6, S March 6 (J
Moder 82; J Sarmiento 87) —N Maupay 6
(E Mwepu 79) , D Welbeck 6. Booked Lamptey.
Norwich City (4-1-2-1-2): T Krul 6 — S Byram 5,
B Gibson 5, G Hanley 6, D Giannoulis 6 —
B Gilmour 5 — P Lees-Melou 6 (J Rowe 61, 5),
M Normann 6 — K McLean 5, (K Dowell 92) —
T Pukki 5, M Rashica 5 (C Tzolis 80). Booked
McLean.
Referee S Hooper.
Attendance 31,245.Tusdiq Din
1
Point picked up
by Brighton
(yesterday) in
the Premier
League since
February 12half proved the difference between
the sides, as Villa’s inferiority
complex continued.
Ollie Watkins gave Gerrard’s side a
chance of salvaging something with a
late — and controversial — penalty,
but Wolves held on to complete their
second double over their neighbours
in three seasons.
Gerrard’s side have now taken only
four points out of 39 against teams
above them this season, including
losing their past three games, to West
Ham United, Arsenal and Wolves.
But it was the way Villa meekly
surrendered the contest until it was
too late that infuriated Gerrard most.
“The biggest frustration for me
was we never got into a local derby
until half-time,” Gerrard said.
“We never showed we really cared
enough until the 70th minute when
we had a war with Wolves, because itMeek Villa
undone by
Jonny on
the spot
WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS
Jonny 7, Young (og) 36 2ASTON VILLA
Watkins 86 (pen)^1Steven Gerrard will go down as the
man who failed to win a Premier
League title after an infamous slip,
and two of his Aston Villa players did
the same to conspire to lose this West
Midlands derby.
First John McGinn then Ezri Konsa
inexplicably tumbled to the Molineux
turf to allow João Moutinho to set up
Daniel Podence in the build-up to
Wolverhampton Wanderers’ first
goal, which was thundered home,
Gerrard style, by Jonny Castro Otto.
Jonny’s angled drive and an
Ashley Young own goal in the firstTim NashPaul Rowan