Bristol Rovers will hope to turn around a bad week this Saturday, but coming up against the league leaders will not make that an easy task. Brighton have lead the division since the eighth round of games and have never looked back. At the moment they sit just a single point clear at the top of the table, though they do have two games in hand over second placed Bournemouth, but nevertheless the Gas will be hoping to help knock Brighton down from their lofty position.
There has been little news on the Rovers front since the midweek loss to MK Dons, although there was something going on the behind the scenes on Friday, Chris Lines revealing via Twitter that youth team coach Jerry Gill has been removed from his post at the club, a tweet that was deleted later that day. The announcement will come as a surprise to many Rovers fans as Gill was having a successful season in charge of the youth team, though it seems that the appointments of Dave Penney and Martin Foyle, as well as Paul Trollope remaining on the club payroll during his 'gardening leave', have taken their toll on the clubs wage bill, ultimately resulting in the release of the former Birmingham City full back. Since then the club have officially announced the departure of Gill having conducted 'a thorough review of the management and coaching structure at the football club', leaving Darren Patterson to return to his previous role in charge of the youth team.
For Brighton there has been just a single transfer in and a single transfer out. It was right at the start of the month that manager Gus Poyet captured Plymouth winger Craig Noone who has since gone on to score one goal for the club, the second in a 2-0 win over Colcehster. Noone had scored four goals for Argyle before his £300,000 swap to the Withdean, catching the eye on a number of occasions. There were rumours of winger Elliot Bennett wanting out from Albion, Norwich reportedly showing interest, however nothing came of this, despite the 22 year old handing in a transfer request.
Rovers have won only one of their last sixteen league fixtures, that coming in the shape of the 3-1 win over Swindon Town towards the end of January, and their home form has quite rightly left them in the mire, having won only four games at the Memorial Stadium, less than a third of the matches played there, scoring only 15 goals in the process. Rovers have only managed to keep two clean sheets at home this season, both games finishing in stalemates.
Brighton's form has been almost impeccable this season, they remain unbeaten at home and only Charlton have lost less away games. That being said three of their four defeats on the road have come in their last six with only one win in that sequence. Don't let that fool you though they are on decent form overall and have not lost against any of the sides currently in the bottom half of the table. They have also dumped two Championship sides out of the FA Cup, namely Portsmouth and high flying Watford, and have failed to score in only one game since the turn of the year, couple that with the fact they have only let in ten goals on the road this season you can expect Rovers to have to score at least once to gain a point on Saturday, not to mention that if they survive for two minutes at the Mem then they will have gone five hours without conceding.
Superstitious Rovers fans will not look kindly upon the next fact that I am about to reveal. In each of the last three seasons the sides have been in the same division the first match played has resulted in a draw while the second has seen the Seagulls come out on top. The first meeting this season resulted in a battling 2-2 draw, Marcos Painter scoring a late own goal to give Rovers a point, one of only four sides to take something from the Withdean. In that regard it looks ominous for Rovers and you certainly wouldn't bet against a win for the visitors. That's the last seven games in this head-to-head that Brighton have gone unbeaten, the last Rovers win coming in August 2004, Lee Thorpe and Richard Walker scoring to give Rovers a Carling Cup win over the then Championship side. Peter Beadle scored the winner the last time Rovers beat Albion in the league, that result being as far back as April 1996.
The only link between the two squads is James Tunnicliffe, currently on loan at Rovers from Brighton, but due to the Sussex side being his parent club the big central defender will not be allowed to take part in the upcoming tussle.
This Saturday's referee will be Pat Miller. The Bedfordshire official has been in charge of 20 games this season, handing out 72 yellow cards and 6 reds, including 8 bookings in a League 2 fixture between Barnet and Stevenage and 7 yellows and a red in a Championship game between Reading and Barnsley.
Rovers will be able to once again call upon Danny Coles and Chris Lines after the pair served the final game of their suspensions against MK Dons in the week.
Stuart Campbell and Dave McCracken are major doubts after both were removed from the midweek game with hamstring injuries.
Bulgarian midfielder Radostin Kishishev could make a return to the Brighton squad after recovering from a back injury.
Defender Jim McNulty is out for the rest of the season after having an ankle operation while midfielders Jamie Smith and Alan Navarro will also be unavailable with a broken metatarsal and a ruptured cruciate ligament respectively.
Dave Penney knows that he is running out of time and that his team need to start earning points soon, saying:
"What we need to do is get some consistency, the goals we're conceding are poor.
"There's nobody firing them in from 25-30 yards into the top corner, you can criticise any goal but the ones we're conceding are poor from our point of view.
"Every game you don't get points in is a worry, the games are ticking by and we need to pick points up quickly if we're to get out of this position."
Brighton assistant manager Mauricio Taricco came out and spoke to the Brighton media, commenting that despite the massive gulf between the sides in the table, anything can happen in League 1:
"Bristol are having a tough time at the moment but that doesn't mean anything in this league. They are going to be at home and from their point of view they need to win more than us, and that will make it tough.
"We also want to win because out target is to win the league and get promoted but at the same time they need a win to survive in this league. At the moment they are in a very difficult situation so that's going to make it a difficult game for us.
"It remains up to us though, so we have got to be ready for Saturday and we must play better than we did on Tuesday night if we are to win the game."
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