Watkins and Emery prey on fine line between stunning success and abject failure for Brighton

Unai Emery’s got Roberto De Zerbi’s number, with Ollie Watkins shining as the perfect striker for Aston Villa on quite the off-day for Brighton.

Brighton have now conceded 17 goals in all competitions this term. Only Sheffield United – the eight-goal whipping boys – have shipped more than the 13 they’ve conceded in the Premier League. Stretching back to last season, Roberto De Zerbi’s side are on a run of 13 games without a clean sheet.

It’s the sort of stat fans won’t really particularly care about – Brighton had scored three goals or more in five of their six Premier League games before Saturday, when they would have gone level on points with Manchester City with a win over Villa.

But the defensive fragility will only be dismissed as part and parcel of a style of football as long as that method yields results. As soon as it doesn’t – particularly when the failings are as spectacular as they were at Villa Park on Saturday – limitations will be explored.

Brighton’s method was the same at the start of the second half as it was throughout the game, and before Ollie Watkins third sucked the wind from their sails, Brighton looked as though they would build towards their insatiable, energetic best and mount an unlikely comeback.

But in the first half, and for all but the first 20 minutes of the second, they were annihilated by Aston Villa.

In search of an explanation for the thumping, attempts may be made to use the 24 starting XI changes from De Zerbi this season – more than any other Premier League manager – to suggest an issue with team cohesion. But a positive doesn’t turn into a negative on the back of one poor result.

Part of De Zerbi’s draw – for us as lovers of entertaining football, and presumably the Real Madrid bosses – is his ability to get all members of his squad singing from the same hymn sheet. Personnel changes make no notable difference to performances and results – usually.

The anomaly at Villa Park is perhaps more an indication of the fine line between stunning success and abject failure for De Zerbi’s side, but Unai Emery deserves huge credit for being the man to consistently push the Seagulls the wrong side of that line.

Emery’s game plan was excellent. Villa pressed high, but not too high, and attacked in numbers when they pinched possession in midfield. “We knew transition was so important,” he confirmed after the game.

Unai Emery has won three of three games against Roberto De Zerbi in the Premier League.

In Ollie Watkins – who scored his second hat-trick of the season – they’ve got the ideal striker to thrive against Brighton, and the same can be said of John McGinn and Douglas Luiz in midfield, who muscled in on the Seagulls’ tippy-tappy stuff and got the ball to their forwards quickly and precisely.

We can sometimes look for complex reasons for a shock result when in fact the explanation is quite simple: one team had a bad day while the other had a good one. But it’s not just this game that suggests there’s more to clashes between Brighton and Villa – who were evenly matched last season and are now level on points this term – than ‘days at offices’, good or bad.

That’s three wins from three for Emery over De Zerbi in the Premier League, and ten goals scored. So although Brighton’s style isn’t the problem for them, it’s certainly not for Aston Villa.