Match Report: Albion 1 Scunthorpe 1

4:45pm Sunday 18th March 2007

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It goes against the grain but Dean Wilkins may have to resign himself to abandoning his footballing principles for good, or at least all the while Albion are in League One.

The route to success at the Seagulls' current level seems to be pretty basic. Keep it tight and make sure you have got one prolific goalscorer, or preferably two.

That, in a nutshell, is the method which has lifted Scunthorpe from mid-table last season to, almost certainly, the Championship next season.

It is working in a sense for Albion as well for the time being. When they were beaten at Brentford last month they looked in serious relegation trouble.

Wilkins switched to a diamond formation in midfield and opted for a much meaner and more direct approach, getting the ball forward more quickly to the front men.

The result? Three wins, three draws and one defeat in seven matches with a couple of clean sheets and, with Alexis Bertin protecting the back four in his holding role, only six goals conceded.

If replicated over the course of a season, they are the sort of stats which would be good enough for at least a play-off place.

Bas Savage equalised on Saturday with his fourth goal in those seven games, a remarkable launch to his Albion career considering his previous net shyness.

Whether he can sustain such an impressive ratio throughout an entire campaign must be doubtful. At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, the Seagulls still need a livewire like Scunthorpe's 25-goal Billy Sharp to emulate their rise from mid-table obscurity to the summit.

Former Albion centre half Andy Crosby, now leading Scunthorpe towards the promised land at the age of 34, said: "The majority of the Brighton players have come through from youth level and it is their first full season for some of them so they are going to get better.

"One or two of them are great individually on the ball but it is not always about pretty football. We found that out last year. We played well in lots of games but conceded far too many goals.

"It has been totally different this year. We have only conceded 28 goals so we have made ourselves hard to beat and we have got two goalscorers who take chances consistently. That is what successful teams have got."

Sharp did not score for once. In fact, it was a pretty frustrating afternoon for League One's leading marksman.

Adam El-Abd, switched to left-back to accommodate Joe O'Cearuill in the absence of back spasm victim Kerry Mayo, riled Sharp throughout the first half and he was predictably booked minutes into the restart for what can best be described as persistent moaning.

He was a target for the Albion fans, too, a sure sign of respect. Goalless he may have been but Sharp's prodigious workrate and spikey attitude still marked him out as a young man going places.

Although Albion managed to shut out Sharp they could not quite do the same to his partner since January, Jermaine Beckford.

While Andy Keogh was boosting Wolves' promotion bid in the Championship with a last-gasp equaliser at Sheffield Wednesday, Beckford, his replacement, burst into life with a piece of individual brilliance which gave Scunthorpe a scandalously flattering 64th-minute lead.

In the blink of an eye he squeezed the ball through the legs of Guy Butters and slotted under the body of Scott Flinders his sixth goal in ten games since moving from Leeds.

Beckford had been pretty much out of sorts up to that stage, which emphasises the value of match-winners in the third of the pitch where it matters most.

Albion were good value for their equaliser eight minutes later. Wilkins criticised Savage and Alex Revell for not being competitive enough, especially in the air, in the first half at Blackpool.

Revell responded with his most forceful performance since returning from damaged ankle ligaments. His height out on the right was exploited to good effect and he outjumped Crosby to set up Savage's well-taken lob.

Both teams could have won it in the closing stages. Flinders, maintaining his knack of making crucial late saves, foiled Beckford with his feet and Savage skewed into the edge of the side netting when well-placed beyond the far post.

An entertaining encounter was soured by an ugly climax. Scunthorpe midfielder Matt Sparrow had already been booked when he was quite rightly sent-off in stoppage time for a bad tackle on Revell's late replacement Joe Gatting.

In the melee which followed the muscular El-Abd, not for the first time this season, went down theatrically clutching his face.

Crosby, who refused to shake hands with El-Abd afterwards, said: "I didn't know at the time that he had been caught' let's say. I think he is a big, strong lad and it may take a little bit more to make him fall down the way he did.

"It's a professional game and we all do things to win. Perhaps he thought that was the right thing but I am sure he will have one or two regrets."

Wilkins admitted: "I have spoken to Adam a number of times and he has got to learn. He needs to steer clear of trouble like that, because it is unnecessary really."

It should not detract from one of the better performances at home and Savage's first home goal yet, despite his flying start, the most telling statistic of all is one volunteered by Wilkins himself - Albion's failure to score in nine of the last 15 matches.

ALBION (4-1-2-1-2): Scott Flinders (GK), Joe O'Cearuill (RB), Joel Lynch (CB), Guy Butters (CB), Adam El-Abd (LB), Alexis Bertin (CM), Dean Cox (RM), Dean Hammond (LM), Jake Robinson (CM), Alex Revell (CF), Bas Savage (CF), Subs: Nathan Elder, Michel Kuipers, Doug Loft, Sam Rents, Joe Gatting (on for Revell 83). SCUNTHORPE (4-4-2): Joe Murphy (GK), Dave Mulligan (RB), Andy Crosby (CB), Steve Foster (CB), Lee Ridley (LB), Cleveland Taylor (RM), Jim Goodwin (CM), Richard Hinds (CM), Matthew Sparrow (LM), Jermaine Beckford (CF), Billy Sharp (CF). Subs: Josh Lillis, Neil MacKenzie (for Taylor 87), Andy Butler (for Beckford 90), Ian Morris (for Mulligan 87), Ian Baraclough.

Where does Bas Savage stand in the long list of Albion cult heroes?