Match Review: Brighton 0-1 Manchester City

Brighton may have seen their dreams of reaching the FA Cup final ended at the hands of Manchester City at Wembley, but their performance against Pep Guardiola’s multi million pound squad has set the standard for the rest of the season.

Whilst it is true that City weren’t anywhere near their imperious best, the Albion should be receiving far more credit than they are for stifling the threat of one of the best attacking teams on the planet. Some ‘experts’ were damning in their analysis, calling Brighton a Championship team who had dragged the Citizens down to their level which is, not to put too fine a point on it, complete bollocks.

City managed just four shots on target all evening, scoring just one. Maty Ryan made only two saves of any real note, denying Raheem Sterling twice. Although chances were few and far between at the other end as well, Brighton could quite easily have sent the game into extra time when Shane Duffy headed down an Anthony Knockaert corner and Glenn Murray looked set to score, only to see Aymeric Laporte clear the ball from off Murray’s foot and over his own crossbar. Knockaert also had a late penalty appeal turned down after he was felled in the box by the same City defender.

Referee Anthony Taylor probably got that one right, but he made a right mess out of a controversial first half incident involving Kyle Walker and Alireza Jahanbakhsh. The two clashed just past the 30 minute mark with Walker putting his head into Jahanbakhsh’s face.

Now by the letter of the law, that’s a red card. You cannot go around headbutting people, no matter how light the contact is. VAR was called and then there was complete dismay as Mr Taylor showed both players yellow cards rather than dismissing Walker as his actions clearly demanded.

Would a red card have made any difference to the outcome of the game? Possibly not as on their day, City could play with eight men and still have enough to beat Brighton. It might have been nice to put that theory to the test though and you’d certainly think that the Albion’s chances would be boosted if the reigning Premier League champions lost their first choice right back.

But Walker remained on and City secured the win thanks to Gabriel Jesus’ fourth minute goal. When that went in, there were fears that a cricket score could have been on the cards. It says much about the Albion’s performance after that early setback that it was the only goal of the game.

And some goal it was too. You won’t see a better cross than the one that Kevin de Bruyne delivered from out on the right, a searching ball in placed perfectly out of the reach of Shane Duffy and straight into the path of Gabriel Jesus who stooped low to head past Ryan .

In a funny way, conceding so early might have actually done the Albion some good. There’s absolutely no doubt that Chris Hughton’s game plan would have been to do everything possible to contain City and then try and sneak a goal from a set piece. By going 1-0 down before we’d even reached the five minute mark, that meant those tactics were pretty much out the window as we had to go and make something happen ourselves to rescue the match.

There was certainly more ambition than we’re used to seeing when Brighton take on a top six side, which will hopefully transfer to the Premier League as there are still games with Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal and City again to come in the league.

Maybe now Hughton has seen the benefits of trying to go at the big boys a little more, he might not be quite so conservative when it comes to facing them next time. If we can nearly sneak a draw off of a quadruple-chasing City side by actually trying to get into their half, then why not do the same against Spurs and Arsenal as well?

That’s one thing to take from Saturday. The other is that if we perform like this against Plucky Little Bournemouth, Cardiff City and Newcastle United in three of our final four home games of the season, then relegation really shouldn’t be a worry.

The relegation zone is five points away at the minute but the next 10 days will be pivotal. If the Albion lose to Bournemouth on Saturday and Cardiff win away at Burnley, that gap will be cut to two points. The Bluebirds then come to the Amex next Tuesday; if they win that one as well then they would overtake Brighton and leave us staring into the abyss.

For the final lesson from Saturday was that being a Premier League club is bloody brilliant. Most of us already realise that, but days like the one we had at Wembley really hammer it home. If we can become an established part of the top flight elite over the next three to four seasons, then cup semi finals and possibly even finals could become a more frequent event.

Who doesn’t want to see Wembley turned into a sea of blue and white with 34,000 Brighton fans packed into the stadium? The day from start to finish was just fantastic and the players were more than deserving of the standing ovation they received at the final whistle.

The FA Cup dream may be over, but we don’t want the Premier League one to be as well. Play like we did against City and Brighton should survive. That’s the challenge now.