Goals have dried up for Brighton & Hove Albion and Fabian Hurzeler’s side have stopped winning as a result. A 0-0 draw against Brentford at the Amex Stadium on Friday night stretched their barren run without a Premier League victory to six matches. They have only scored six times across this period, compared to 11 goals in the preceding six games.
Hurzeler made five substitutions in the second half, including three attacking changes, but they could not find a way through against opponents who secured only their second away point of the season. So, what is going wrong in the final third of the pitch? Hurzeler turned to Julio Enciso against Brentford, giving the 20-year-old Paraguayan international his first league start of the campaign at the expense of £40million record signing Georginio Rutter . Enciso is back in Hurzeler’s good books after a change of mindset in training but he missed an opportunity to shine.
Advertisement Enciso attempted eight shots in the first half, the most by a player in the opening 45 minutes of a Premier League game since Luis Suarez for Liverpool against Aston Villa in March 2013 (also eight). No player has tried more shots in an entire Premier League match this season than Enciso had in the opening 39 minutes. Some were better than others.
He was unfortunate to curl a right-foot effort against a post early on after a pass out by Brentford goalkeeper Mark Flekken was intercepted by Carlos Baleba . By contrast, a horribly skewed volley from jus.