Brighton 3-2 Manchester City wins WAB Memorable Moment of 2020-21
It was the perfect way to end the campaign at the Amex so it will come as little surprise that Brighton 3-2 Manchester City is the winner of WAB Memorable Moment of the Season 2020-21.
8,000 Albion fans were allowed to a home game for the first time in 15 months. They were treated to a stirring comeback as Brighton recovered from 2-0 down to pull off an almighty shock against the Premier League champions, sparking a quite incredible meltdown from Pep Guardiola at the final whistle.
Brighton had faced City eight times in top flight and FA Cup since winning promotion in 2017. They had lost all eight, scoring just twice and conceding 21 along the way.
Things looked like they would follow this pattern when it took less than 120 seconds for the visitors to take the lead through Ilkay Gundgoan, a fine way to welcome back a raucous crowd. Within nine minutes, City were down to 10 men after Danny Welbeck cleverly drew a foul from Joao Cancelo.
When you have a team costing billions of petrodollars, then a red card is not the disaster it necessarily is for other clubs. City even shorthanded should have gone onto win the game, as it looked like they would when Phil Foden made it 2-0 early in the second half.
What happened next was completely unexpected. Leandro Trossard put Premier League Player of the Year Ruben Dias on his arse not once, not twice, but three times to pull one back for the Albion.
22 minutes later and the scores were level when Adam Webster produced a bullet header that Glenn Murray would have been proud of. The momentum was all with Brighton now and four minutes after the equaliser, the Seagulls had their winner through Big Dan Burn.
It was the most Burn goal imaginable as he fell over the ball when attempting his initial shot. He looked like a baby giraffe who had just been tranquilised when having a second bite of the cherry from the rebound, this time beating Ederson before tumbling to the ground to be bundled by his teammates.
Brighton managed to see out the final quarter of an hour with Guardiola throwing a hissy fit at full time, storming down the tunnel and refusing to shake Graham Potter’s hand.
Just four months earlier following Manchester City 1-0 Brighton at the Etihad Stadium, the City boss had described Potter as the best English manager in the world.
It is quite amazing how easy Pep found it to give praise after beating Potter’s Brighton for the third time with an aggregate scoring now reading Citizens 10-0 Seagulls.
Surprisingly, Guardiola was less impressed when Potter had found a way to beat him. Not only that, but with Brighton recording the biggest share of percentage any opponents has had in a Premier League game against City under Guardiola.
Forget any narrative about Brighton 3-2 Manchester City being a lucky victory – the Albion fully deserved their success and that is why it took the Memorable Moment of the Season honours with a massive 75.86 percent of the vote.
In second place behind beating the current champions came beating the former champions. Having defeated Spurs 1-0 at home three days earlier to pick up only their fourth Premier League win of the season, Brighton secured win number five at Anfield by the same scoreline against Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool.
Yes, the Reds were in a right old rut at that point in the campaign but that still should not detract from the Albion’s achievements. Whereas Burnley had ended Liverpool’s 68 game unbeaten league run at Anfield a couple of weeks earlier with a backs to the wall performance, Brighton went to Merseyside and outplayed their hosts for a deserved three points.
Steve Alzate claimed the only goal of the game in a magnificent team performance. Robert Sanchez barely touched the ball and it could and probably should have been more, Burn missing a glorious first half chance when he managed to put an effort into the Kop from six yards out after falling over (again) whilst shooting. At least he learnt from that comical moment by the time Brighton 3-2 Manchester City came around.
Liverpool 0-1 Brighton earned 12.97 percent of the vote, leaving Jason Steele’s penalty heroics at Newport County to finish third in Memorable Moment of the Season with 5.58 percent.
Steele’s evening at Rodney Parade will go down as one of the most ridiculous Brighton performances of all time. Before the game reached the dreaded spot kicks, he had spent the preceding 120 minutes looking like a cornflake competition winner whose prize was to play a game of professional football for the day.
There was the backpass he got in such a mess with that he found himself almost heading the ball into his own goal. He then single handedly presented Newport with their equaliser in the final seconds, inflicting another 30 minutes of football on his teammates.
To go from being a comedy figure to hero in the space of one penalty shoot out was quite something. Steele kept out four Newport kicks – all of them outrageously good saves too – to ensure that Potter and the Albion were spared the considerable embarrassment of elimination at the hands of League Two opponents.
Clearly, all that time spent drinking in Hove and playing golf at Singing Hills has done something right when it comes to saving penalties for the Albion’s third choice goalkeeper.
WeAreBrighton.com Brighton Memorable Moment of the Season 2020-21 – The Results
Beating the current Premier League champions – 75.86%
Beating the former Premier League champions – 12.97%
Jason Steele penalty heroics – 5.58%
Ben White England call up – 3.01%
Percy Tau makes his Brighton debut – 2.11%
Brighton 1-0 Spurs – 0.45%
Previous Winners: Brighton 2-1 Arsenal (2020), Doing the double over Palace (2019), Manchester United home (2018), Wigan Athletic home (2017) Sheffield Wednesday home (2016) Fulham away (2015), Forest away (2014), Palace home (2013), Doncaster home (2012), Charlton away (2011), Southampton away (2010).
