Palace 2-1 Brighton: Eagles do double for first time in 92 years

For all of about five seconds, I wondered whether to mention Adolf Hitler in the opening sentence of this Crystal Palace 2-1 Brighton report.

But it feels necessary. Because the last time Palace did a league double over the Albion, Hitler was German Chancellor. Joseph Stalin the Soviet Union leader. Franklin D Roosevelt the US president.

King George V ruled the United Kingdom, the British Dominions and was Emperor of India. Yes, India had an Emperor. Living in London.

If that sort of colonialism sounds like something which should be consigned to somewhere around a century ago, that is because it was.

You have to go all the way back to the 1932-33 season, when Palace won 3-0 at Selhurst Park and 2-0 at the Goldstone. Those two matches were played within a week of each other.

At least Albion fans 92 years later had four months between humiliations. Not that our 1930s predecessors would have cared.

Brighton and Palace only became rivals in the 1970s. So playing the Eagles would have been just another defeat back then.

Meaning you could even argue this is the first ever double the Palace have done since the game has taken on its additional importance. If you want to feel even more depressed.

Fabian Hurzeler has proved himself rather good at adding unwanted records to his CV in his first season as Brighton boss.

First Albion manager to lose both league games to Palace in a single season for 92 years. Heaviest league defeat in 67 years. You don’t need reminding about that afternoon at Nottingham Forest nine weeks ago.

For balance – Winston Churchill to Hitler if you like – Hurzeler has also taken 10 points out of 12 from the two Manchester clubs.

Gone unbeaten against Arsenal. Defeated Chelsea twice in eight days. Has the Albion in the race for Champions League football. Or should that be had?

A top five finish appears to be slipping away after taking nil points from two important games at the start of April.

What does all this mean? I think it is that Hurzeler is one of those sink or swim managers. Brighton are either really good and secure fantastic results. Or really crap and stink the place out.

There is no happy medium. Which can be particularly problematic when you play Palace, for example. A game where you would happily take the middle ground of a decent performance and warranted draw. Hurzeler though doesn’t seem to do that.

Before Palace 2-1 Brighton, Hurzeler talked a good game about the trip to Selhurst: “I can feel it (the passion) and I think it’s also our responsibility to give them something back.”

“In the first derby, we weren’t on our highest level. We didn’t give the fans what they deserve and tomorrow it’s an opportunity for us and also our responsibility to make it better than the last time.”

“There’s already a big motivation because it’s the final third of the season. It’s about achieving something. It’s about winning something. Every game will be important and therefore the motivation is very high. We will go all in, we will try to win this game for our fans.”

Nice words. But ones the players obviously did not heed because within three minutes of kick off, Palace took the lead.

Eberechi Eze played a clever pass into Jean-Philippe Mateta. Lewis Dunk was unable to get close enough to the Eagles’ top scorer, who duly rifled into the top corner.

Eze almost doubled the advantage with a low drive across Bart Verbruggen. The Albion goalkeeper just about got a finger on the shot to divert it wide.

Brighton had their first chance when Carlos Baleba smashed a volley towards the Holmesdale End from distance. Dean Henderson kept it out with a strong hand before reacting quickly to also block the follow up from Danny Welbeck.

The only positive of Palace 2-1 Brighton arrived on 31 minutes when Welbeck became the Albion’s leading Premier League scorer.

Yankubu Minteh curled in a cross from the right and Dat Guy helped the ball on its way past Henderson. Welbeck moved above Pascal Gross and onto 31 league goals for the Albion.

He now needs seven more to eclipse Michael Robinson as Brighton’s all-time top flight record scorer. Robinson plundered 37 in the old Division One for the Albion before Sky Sports invented football in 1992.

What proved to be the winning goal arrived 10 minutes into the second half. And it was no surprise that the outstanding Eze was involved.

Palace played their way out of defence, cutting through the Albion midfield all too easily to feed Eze stationed on the left wing.

He was able to carry the ball 30 yards up the pitch, come inside and play a square pass. Daniel Munoz collected and went for goal from outside the box, beating Verbruggen via a couple of deflections.

Things became increasingly spicy from that point on, resulting in three red cards in the final 12 minutes plus 14 of injury time.

Eddie Nketiah was first to go. The former Arsenal prospect picked up a yellow for diving, followed by going in on Van Hecke just nine minutes later with a dangerously high boot.

Brighton failed to test Henderson once with their one man advantage. And that one man advantage became a two man advantage as the clock ticked past the 90 and Marc Guehi was also shown a second yellow for bringing down Brajan Gruda.

What the Albion really needed to do at this point was push on. They had 13 minutes of additional time in which to play 11 against nine. The sort of opportunity for reprieve you rarely get in football. Let alone against your fierce rivals.

Brighton instead went down to 10 men when Jan Paul van Hecke received his second booking. Mats Wieffer attempted a terrible chest back towards his Dutch compatriot, succeeding only in putting Daichi Kamada in on goal.

Van Hecke subsequently brought down Kamada. He will now serve a one match ban, meaning Eiran Cashin will have to start alongside Dunk against Leicester City next week. Based on what we saw in the 3-0 defeat to Aston Villa on Wednesday night, that should be good fun.

Not as much good fun as this though. Nine man Crystal Palace 2-1 Brighton. Eagles do the double. Having finished above the Albion in the Premier League last season. And are now just four points behind with a game in hand this time around.

Alexa, how do you delete tweets from 14 months ago about mind the gap?