By Dave P
January 9 2005

FA cup weekend and a game that we know we should be more than capable of winning. A lot of the pre-match talk being concerned with the many transfer rumours and next weeks encounter with the Russians. White Hart Lane was sold out and a fair proportion of the 36000 crowd were noisy seagulls. FA cup weekend and a game that we know we should be more than capable of winning. A lot of the pre-match talk being concerned with the many transfer rumours and next weeks encounter with the Russians. White Hart Lane was sold out and a fair proportion (over 6000) of the 36000 crowd were noisy seagulls.

Now noisy seagulls have a habit of dropping one on you and as the game started it was obvious that Albion weren't just there to be shown a thing or two and indeed they had the first decent effort when Richard Carpenter checked out the woodwork with a 20 yard drive.

It looked like another of those games where we were going to take half hour or so to warm up and our first real chances didn't come until around 20 minutes when a Kelly shot forced a corner and Keane put an effort high and wide. Brighton were still causing problems and that man Carpenter volleyed wide shortly afterwards.

On the half hour it took some resolute Albion defending to deny Keane an opportunity and then it was our turn to test the woodwork as Keane picked up a Kelly pass, chipped the keeper and couldn't believe it when the ball came back off the bar.

The breakthrough for us came on 39 minutes as Brown took a short corner and Ziegler put a cross onto Ledleys head for him to nod on and time seemed to stop as the ball looped over the keepers head and into the net. Brighton did not lie down though and it took a superb block tackle from Kelly to deny Knight and in injury time Robbo had to tip a Knight header over the bar.

Second half and within two minutes Brighton had a free kick after Ziegler was penalised harshly for a foul. Now The wall was lined up by Robbo and all was set but Keane kept pestering the ref and got the ball moved two yards further to the left. The wall re-adjusted and Carpenter curled a superb free kick round the wall and into the corner of the net. Had the kick been taken from where the ball was originally placed he would not have been able to do that. However Brighton did deserve to be back in the game and we could have no complaints.

We then started to get more and more of the posession but Brightons battling defence restricted our chances to a Defoe free kick that went over and then had a shot saved a few minutes later. This wasn't all backs to the wall stuff from Albion though, indeed they had their fair share of chances keeping Robinson busy in our goal.

The tiring Kelly was replaced by Marney and Gardner had a go from distance. Then came the finest save I have seen for many a game at White Hart Lane. Ziegler rifled a shot that was a dead cert for the top corner until Kuipers got a fingertip on it to put it wide.

Yeates was then brought on for Mendes, inexplicably from my point of view, and his first touch was a mistake that could not have done anything for his confidence. Two or three times later on after dribbling into the box one wondered if he just wasn't confident enough to have a go himself and so scoring opportunities were wasted but by then Keane had spared Spurs blushes by taking an Edman cross on his chest and hitting a clinical volley on the turn into the top corner from the edge of the box.

Brighton can maybe feel a bit hard done by as they had played very well and made it very hard for a Spurs side that had a few players not performing as we know they can. Over-confident or tired after tuesdays exertions? I don't know but a weeks rest may be just what the doctor ordered for a few of them.

Overall - Not a great performance but we are in mondays draw and that's what matters. We managed to avoid the fallout from all those seagulls.

A word for all those seagulls in the ground with their chants of "Stand up if you want Falmer". You did yourselves and your club proud. I salute you and wish you all well for the future.