Seagull Strikers

Brighton make the long trip up to Joie Stadium on Friday to face Manchester City, a team that beat the Albion twice last season. Both games were tightly contested and I’m pretty confident the 2-1 loss would have been a draw had the game been 5 minutes longer. In that sense, any points against City is an improvement, however, the odds are against the Seagulls with the Opta supercomputer placing City as 2nd favourites for the title.

City had a difficult start away to Chelsea and despite threatening in spells they lacked a cutting edge with many of their shots heading straight for Hannah Hampton. Their goal came from a Greenwood free kick that had a touch of fortune about it and whilst you could be happy with a 2-1 loss to the WSL champions, their finishing left a lot to be desired.

City’s 9 shots off target and failing to score with 5 shots on target is in stark contrast to Chelsea who were incredibly efficient with 2 goals from 3 shots on target. Of course, many teams struggle to create chances so its impressive that City were able to create as many as they did. City will be looking to correct their shooting accuracy against Brighton and will hope to give Nnadozie a harder time.

My concern is that City limited Chelsea to 8 shots and Brighton enter having failed to score from 18 shots against Villa. Ironically, both sides need to be more efficient in front of goal and on paper.

There is a lot more to come from Man City this season. Bunny Shaw spoke recently about how she has only started three games with Hemp and Miedema (on of them to Brighton) due to unfortunate injuries. Hemp was very dangerous ending the season as the top assister (8) despite only playing 10 WSL games. That is a seriously scary front line and hopefully Brighton play them before they can fully click and gel as a unit.

With no Champions League fixtures for City, they’ll have a lot of training ground time to work on attacking patterns of play. Perhaps, its good we face them so early on in the season.

In defence City are waiting on the fitness of Alex Greenwood and Lily Murphy who suffered injuries at the tail end of the Chelsea game. They may still be waiting for Kerolin too who had a shortened pre season due to Copa America.

Man City have had a solid transfer window with Grace Clinton joining for a fee on deadline day to prevent Manchester United losing her for free next season with Jess Park going the other way. Laura Weinrother joins on a permanent basis and Jade Rose joins her in defence as a versatile defender. Last season they conceded 28 goals in the WSL compared to 15 the season before and City will be hoping they pair can help them bring back that rock solid defence. Of course they have lost Chole Kelly permanently and Jill Roord was a surprise loss to FC Twente.

Last campaign, Man City topped the possession stats holding an average of nearly 62% with Hasegawa dominating the midfield. A staple of their play was moving through the wings before cut backs into the 18 yard box created goal scoring opportunities. Our full backs will have be to defensively aware of these opportunities and we’ll have to progress the ball faster up the pitch to make the most of what little of the ball we may get.

In wider news, there are some new changes at the Joie Stadium with a buggy park introduced and alcohol now allowed in certain areas of the stadium. It’ll be interesting to see what new women’s sport specifics the new Brighton stadium pick up.

I hope all fans travelling up to Manchester have a good time. Unfortunately, work and school aged children mean we can’t make a Friday night game in the North.