PL2 Preview: Saints vs Brighton

THE MATCH

Saints B vs Brighton U23s
Premier League 2
St Mary’s Stadium
Monday 30th November, 7pm GMT

It’s the first competitive match at the St Mary’s Stadium for Dave Horseman’s side on Monday, with Brighton the visitors.

Saints will be looking for four unbeaten in all competitions, following a well-earned draw at league leaders Liverpool last time out.

Kingsley Latham made a string of impressive saves to keep out the hosts last Saturday, whilst Saints could have gone ahead themselves through Tyreke Johnson and Alex Janekwitz.

Brighton fell foul to a late Blackburn comeback last weekend; going ahead through Jensen Weir but conceding a 95th minute winner by Samuel Durrant following Connor McBride’s penalty equaliser 12 minutes from time.

LAST MEETING

The last match-up between these two sides came over a year ago at Staplewood Campus on November 1st 2019.

Brighton ran out 4-1 winners over a youthful Saints side featuring several Under-18s players at the time.

The likes of Kameron Ledwidge, Jack Turner and Pascal Kpohomouh all started for Saints, who conceded two late goals to make the scoreline look far worse than what the performance reflected.

Kornelius Hansen got Saints back into the game at 2-1 on 42 minutes, before Taylor Richards scored two goals in stoppage time for the visitors.

MANAGER’S NOTES

Following the point at Liverpool, Horseman said: “They obviously hit the post but the boys showed a bit of grit to block a few things, then second half we were more on the front foot.

“Actually we should have scored a few and the boys are a bit disappointed we didn’t win the game in the end.

“A lot of our prep [for Liverpool] was actually done watching Brighton vs Liverpool and they were a really, really good team.

“Some powerful front men, some really good footballers, lovely style of passing around and they played out against them than we did today.

“So it’ll be a tough game. I’m sure the first team staff will be there so it’s another opportunity for the boys to show they’re making slight progress to maybe training on pitch one and two with them on the pitch during the week.”