Missing out to Middlesbrough in 2016 a blessing for Brighton

Middlesbrough v Brighton & Hove Albion, Saturday 7th May 2016. The final game of the Championship season between second and third in the table at the Riverside Stadium would decide who would join Burnley in winning promotion to the promised land of the Premier League. And net a cool £170 million in the process.

Brighton had to win if they wanted to enter the top division for the first time since 1983. Middlesbrough would hold onto runners up spot with a draw or victory, ending their seven year absence from the Premier League.

A tense 90 minutes of football played out, after which nothing could separate the sides. It finished Middlesbrough 1-1 Brighton and Boro were back in the big time, promoted by virtue of having a better goal difference by two.

The best thing that could have happened to Brighton? Quite possibly. Let us explain by going back to that famous lunchtime in Middlesbrough…

Brighton went to the Riverside without Lewis Dunk, suspended following the 1-1 draw with Derby County when he picked up one of those braindead red cards he used to specialise in.

That meant club captain Gordon Greer returning at centre half, hoping to end his Brighton career with a flourish.

A combination of injuries, the form of Dunk and the emergence of Connor Goldson meant Greer had been gradually phased out by Chris Hughton over the course of the 2015-16 season. He would be released a few weeks after the draw with Boro.

Other than the absent Dunk, Brighton were at full strength. The Riverside was rocking before kick off, the atmosphere doing what it could to warm up a chilly, murky day on Teesside.

The size of the task facing the Albion was laid out by Boro having only lost twice at home all season. Brighton meanwhile had drawn 12 times on the road as the conservative Hughton tended to value not getting beaten over attempting to win matches, certainly in the first half of the season when he often named Liam Rosenior on the left wing.

Hughton’s approach had changed with the January acquisitions of Antony Knockaert and to a lesser extent, Jiri Skalak. Knowing that three points were needed, he went with Knockaert and Jamie Murphy down the flanks at the Riverside.

Boro playmaker Gaston Ramirez would become the centre of attention for more than one reason. It was his dangerous free kick touched back across goal by David Nugent which enabled Cristhian Stuani to give the hosts a 19th minute lead from a matter of yards.

Middlesbrough sat back after that, inviting Brighton to try and break them down whilst attempting to play on the counter.

Stuani could have made two more but a Goldson block denied him. He then beat David Stockdale to a loose ball when a Ramirez pass caused confusion in the Seagulls defence but the lobbed effort was a little too high and landed on the roof of the net.

Half time in the away end was a mixture of despair that the Albion had never really got going and hope that Hughton would extract more from his players.

Nobody wanted such a memorable campaign to end with a whimper in a town where the Wetherspoons famously ran out of turkey two weeks before Christmas four-and-a-half-years earlier.

We will never know whether Hughton used the lack of Christmas dinner as motivation in his half time team talk. We do know though what whatever he said worked as Brighton equalised 10 minutes after the restart.

Knockaert whipped in a free kick which Dale Stephens met with a header at the back post. The angle seemed impossible and yet much to the surprise and delight of the 2,520 Albion fans crammed into a corner of the Riverside, the ball ended up in the back of the net.

Game on. Or so we thought. Four minutes after scoring, Stephens went in with a studs up challenge for a bouncing ball on Ramirez.

Referee Mike Dean instantly pulled a yellow card from his pocket. Between bouts of rolling around on the ground screaming, Ramirez found the time to show Mr Dean that his sock had a hole in and his leg had been gashed.

Mr Dean subsequently swapped yellow for red and Stephens was sent off. The red card could not have come at a worse time; Brighton had all the momentum following the equaliser.

That was lost the moment Mr Dean changed the complexion of the tie, sparking the WAB philosophy of “Never trust a bald referee.”

The Albion now had to find the second goal which would secure promotion with only 10 men. They rarely threatened in the final 30 minutes and so it was Middlesbrough rather than Brighton who followed Burnley into the Premier League in 2016.

Boro fans poured onto the pitch in celebration. Some goaded the Albion support. Others in the pubs of Middlesbrough afterwards wished Brighton well for the playoffs, where they would now face Sheffield Wednesday.

The evening was spent contemplating that meeting with the Owls, the Albion’s generally horrific record in the end-of-season lottery and cursing Mr Dean.

In the land of the greatest delicacy known to humankind, not even a chicken parmo could lift the spirits. Seagulls fans were deflated. Nobody could blame the players for feeling the same.

Brighton though gave it their all in the playoffs, only for circumstances to conspire against them. Four players had to leave the field injured in a 2-0 defeat at Hillsborough for the semi final first leg.

The Albion fielded a patched up side of walking wounded for the second leg. Unsurprisingly, they could not overcome insurmountable odds and overturn the deficit, a 1-1 draw at the Amex seeing Wednesday through to Wembley. The Owls did at least lose to Hull City.

Brighton missing out on promotion to Middlesbrough in 2016 hurt like hell at the time. But with the benefit of hindsight, it turned out to be an absolute blessing.

The Albion had just about avoided relegation to League One a year earlier. To go from 20th in the Championship with 47 points to the Premier League in the space of 18 months would have been a massive jump, even with the recruitment made possible by the riches the top fight provides.

Instead, Brighton had another campaign in the second tier. Shane Duffy came in to tighten up the defence, forming the partnership with Dunk which would be the bedrock of survival once the Albion did reach the Premier League.

Would Brighton have signed a young defender barely proven in the Championship in the summer of 2016 if they were a top flight club?

The Albion would probably not have gone for a 33-year-old Glenn Murray had they been looking for a striker to keep them in the Premier League.

And without Murray’s goals once they arrived there, the Seagulls stay in the top flight would have been very brief.

Brighton put remaining in the Championship whilst Middlesbrough went up in 2016 to good use, strengthening their squad to one better equipped to not only win promotion but also stay in the Premier League.

Six consecutive seasons of top flight football beginning when automatic promotion was secured a year after Middlesbrough went up in 2016 is proof that Brighton benefitted from the 1-1 draw that day at the Riverside.

Especially when you compare the Albion’s fate seven years later to their vanquishers. Those gloating Middlesbrough fans (and those who bizarrely continue to taunt Brighton to this day over 2016) saw one solitary season of Premier League football before Boro were relegated.

They have since rattled through six managers, finishing fifth, seventh, 17th, 10th and seventh in the Championship. Brighton have been to Wembley, defeated all the European Super League Elite Six, secured their highest ever league position, sold the most expensive full back in football history and are looking to become an established top 10 club.

Thanks, Middlesbrough. We could not have done it without you.