McCarthy: Brighton a Huge Test Tuesday, 27th Sep 2016 06:00 Town boss Mick McCarthy says tonight’s opponents Brighton and Hove Albion will be a “huge test” for his side with the third-placed Seagulls full of confidence having won their last three Championship matches. Albion, who are managed by McCarthy’s close friend and former Republic of Ireland team-mate Chris Hughton, beat Huddersfield 1-0 at home, Burton 1-0 away and, after a 2-1 reverse to Reading at the Amex Stadium in the EFL Cup, defeated Barnsley 2-0 at home last time out. “They’re a huge test, they’ve won three on the bounce, as had Leeds on Saturday,” said McCarthy, whose team go into tonight’s match 14th, five points behind the visitors. “They’ll be full of confidence. They don’t change very much in terms of the way they play, they have their way of playing. “I’d say they’re a bit more pragmatic with Chris now, they’ve got two strikers up the pitch, Tomer Hemed and Glenn Murray, and they don’t mind playing off them and with Anthony Knockaert in the team they’ve got one real spark that can create anything out of nothing. “I saw them against Brentford and he was excellent for a time but they just didn’t get the goal and they ended up losing, but he’s a real threat.” Does he expect the Seagulls to be in the running for a top two place come May? “Yes, but Norwich and Newcastle are spending far more money [than Brighton and] you’d think they are going to be contenders for the top two spots. "But we know what it’s like this league, it’s all right what they’re doing now but they get to around Christmas and [things might not be going so well]. “But I guess the difference is that they can throw a shedload of money at it after Christmas as well when the transfer window opens in the new year. But Brighton will be a top-six team at least.” Having finished third last season Brighton lost to Sheffield Wednesday in the play-off semi-final but they’ve shown no sign of a hangover in the opening weeks of this campaign. “I think that’s a great deal down to Chris,” McCarthy added. “When he took the job they had a real tough time and they were threatened with relegation for a while. I never expected that would happen with Chris because he’s a calm, consistent person, he gets the best out of people. “I was there recently to watch them play Brentford and the feeling around him for the place, there were only warm, good feelings towards him and he promotes that because of the way he is.
“Certainly in the building and in the board room, they all love Chris and I think that creates a great environment. It would have been just the same coming back [at the beginning of] this year. I expect him to be challenging, no doubt.” Brighton were able to hold off interest in some of their top players over the summer including midfielder Knockaert, who McCarthy rates as one of the top wingers in the division and who he targeted on loan from Leicester - “We asked and he didn’t want to come” - in February 2015. “Newcastle were coveting his signature, they were trying to sign him for huge amounts of money,” the Town boss said. “Burnley were trying to take Dale Stephens but they stayed strong and kept them and they’re a better side because of it. “A bit like us a couple of seasons ago when people came looking for Murph and for Didz and offering five, six, seven, eight million quid. "Marcus didn’t take it and we were a better side then when we got in the top six. So Brighton have done the same and they’re a real handful, they’ll be a threat.” Looking at his own team, McCarthy says despite the Blues having scored only four times in their last eight league games - nine in all competitions - he’s unlikely to switch his system given the dearth of frontmen available to him at present. “I’m being asked that question when I’ve got strikers injured all over the place,” he said. “To be fair, we’ve been pretty solid. That might not please everybody in terms of being pretty on the eye but I can’t afford to be out of games after 10 or 20 minutes and be a couple of goals down. “And I think it’s only the last couple of games, I think we’ve created chances in the other games, we’ve scored goals in other games and had them disallowed as well. “But I do think we’ve got to be pretty compact and make sure we don’t get overrun and with a bit of a striker crisis it makes it difficult to change it.” How important does he view his team being easy on the eye? “That’s after winning. Not everybody wins and it’s always pretty on the eye, that’s for certain. “We like to play football but it’s a progressive way of playing football. People look at it and it’s quite an attacking way of playing football, we like to play in their half, we’re not an expansive unit fanning out at the back and causing ourselves our own problems. “But we can do it better than we did it on Saturday, and we have done. We finished in the top six doing that, so there’s no complaints from me on that score.” He says it can take time for teams to adjust to players coming in or going or switches of approach: “Possibly, whenever you change it, whether that’s a change of personnel or a change of style of play, but we did play this way a lot this season as well and probably had to do because if we didn’t we’d probably get overrun in midfield. “There was many a time last season when I started 4-4-2 and within 10 minutes I thought, ‘We’re going to get done here’ and I had to change it and won games doing it. And the players like doing it, they think the system suits us.” Bartosz Bialkowski will be in goal with Jonas Knudsen at left-back and skipper Luke Chambers moving into the right-sided central defensive role in place of Adam Webster, who has joined the long injury list, alongside Christophe Berra. McCarthy has confirmed that Josh Emmanuel, 19, will be at right-back, his fourth Championship start with his second having come in the corresponding fixture last season: “He’s playing and for anybody who is playing it’s an opportunity to do well and show what he’s got,” the Town boss said. In midfield Cole Skuse will start in his usual central role with Kevin Bru perhaps alongside him with Jonathan Douglas rarely playing two games in four days. Grant Ward is over the knee problem he suffered at Leeds and will probably be on the right, with Freddie Sears on the left, while Tom Lawrence is likely to be behind lone striker Leon Best, who will be making his full debut. Teddy Bishop will be in the squad but seems more likely to be a sub having had his broken nose reset last night. If he is involved, the 20-year-old will play in a protective mask. Currently unavailable are Webster (hamstring), Tommy Smith (back surgery), Brett Pitman (ankle and knee), David McGoldrick (ankle), Luke Varney (hamstring), Jonny Williams (ankle), Luke Hyam (knee), Giles Coke (knee) and Adam McDonnell. Brighton will be without midfielder Beram Kayal, who has an ankle injury, for only the fifth time in 56 Championship matches. Ollie Norwood or Steve Sidwell will take the Israeli’s place. Left-back Gaetan Bong is suspended and Sebastien Pocognoli or Robert Hunt will replace him, while fellow full-back Liam Rosenior (ankle) and wingers Kazenga LuaLua (knee) and Solly March (knee) are also unavailable. Seagulls boss Hughton says he's looking for all three points but wouldn't be too disappointed with a draw. “We’ll go there looking to win the game, as we always do," he told the official Brighton website. "We know at this level that going to a tough place away from home and not winning but drawing the game is not a bad result. “These results build up over a season, but we always go to win the game. Even in a tougher performance up at Newcastle, we conceded two goals from set-plays but arguably had the two best chances. “We’ll definitely go to try and win the game, but we’ll have to play well, as it’s a very tough place to go.” Historically, Town have the upper hand, having won 31 of the games (28 in the league) between the sides, Brighton 24 (22) and with 13 (12) ending in draws. The teams last met at the Amex Stadium four days after last Christmas when Daryl Murphy netted his seventh goal of the season to see the Blues to a 1-0 victory at Brighton, their fifth successive away victory which equalled a club record set in 1976. Murphy seized on an error by Seagulls defender Lewis Dunk in the 32nd minute. At the end of August at Portman Road, Brighton, who had started the day second, leapt above then-top Town to head the Championship table after winning 3-2 at Portman Road. Two goals in two minutes from Kazenga LuaLua and Tomer Hemed gave the Seagulls a deserved 2-0 half-time lead before the Blues hit back via Freddie Sears and sub David McGoldrick’s penalty, but Hemed won it with his second of the afternoon. Brighton keeper David Stockdale spent the first half of 2011/12 on loan with the Blues making 18 appearances. Full-back Rosenior was with the Blues on loan for most of the 2009/10 campaign making 28 starts and three sub appearances, scoring once. Albion midfielder Jake Forster-Caskey, who is spending the season on loan at Rotherham, is the stepson of ex-Blues and Seagulls striker Nicky Forster. Leon Best spent the second half of the 2014/15 season on loan at Brighton from Blackburn and made six starts and seven sub appearances without scoring. Town assistant boss Terry Connor was a player with Brighton between 1983 and 1987. Tonight’s referee is Andy Davies from Hampshire, who has shown 29 yellow cards and one red in 11 games so far this season. Davies’s only previous Town match was the 0-0 home draw with Huddersfield last October when he red-carded Terriers striker James Vaughan for a second bookable offence in the final minute. Squad from: Bialkowski, Gerken, Chambers (c), Emmanuel, Knudsen, Kenlock, Berra, Digby, Skuse, Douglas, Bru, Bishop, Grant, Dozzell, Ward, Lawrence, Sears, Best.
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