Brighton 3-2 Man City: How do you like the Albion now, Pep Guardiola?

Brighton 3-2 Man City was just about the perfect return to the Amex that the 7,945 Albion supporters in attendance could have wished for after 15 months of near-empty stadiums.

The final score was of course very nice but there was so much other classic Brighton stuff going on to appreciate. Only the Albion could welcome fans back with a defensive catastrophe inside 180 seconds, leading to a much earlier than expected first cry of “FOR **** SAKE BRIGHTON” from one supporter who wasted no time in getting back into the swing of things.

Before kick off, there was bafflement over Graham Potter naming both Jason Steele and Christian Walton on the bench. Having two relatively experienced goalkeepers in the matchday 20 seemed a waste of a space which could have been used to give a youngster experience of the first team environment, unless of course Potter had some cunning plan to sneak more than one goalkeeper onto the pitch. We have missed trying to fathom exactly what is going through the mind of the Brighton boss pre-game.

It would not be an evening at the Amex without a pie shortage. Nor would it be an Albion home game without half time stragglers late to return to their seats missing a goal, in this case City’s second.

So far, so familiar. But then the final 40 minutes showed us that perhaps this Brighton side have developed in the time we have been away as they launched an extraordinary comeback to beat the Premier League champions. Football, bloody hell as a man from the other side of Manchester once famously said.

Brighton would have wanted to make a fast start. Not only due to supporters returning to the stadium, but because Paul Barber has another new home shirt to flog, revealed as the teams came onto the pitch for kick off.

Whether it is acceptable to release a new kit at a cost to customers of over £60 a time after just one seasons use – especially when supporters only witnessed the previous shirt in person on two occasions – is a debate for another time.

From a purely aesthetic point of view, the newest number looks like one of the best home shirts for many season. The throwbacks to the 1980s continue with this one appearing to pay tribute to the kit that Barry Lloyd’s Albion wore in the 1987-88 Division Three season. It is easily the nicest of the Nike era.

Not that it got off to the best of starts. It had been in use for a little over two minutes when it conceded it’s first goal, Riyad Mahrez twisting and teasing Dan Burn before delivering a cross to the far post where Ilkay Gundogan escaped the attentions of Pascal Gross a little too easily to convert.

Six minutes later and we had our first glimpse of the difference fans in stadiums can make. Joao Cancelo failed to deal with an awkward bouncing ball over the top, ending up tangling with Danny Welbeck as Dat Guy looked to bear down on Ederson’s goal.

“Off off off off” came the chant from the Brighton faithful and remarkably, referee Stuart Attwell listened to show Cancelo a straight red card.

It looked a harsh decision and you have to wonder if Mr Attwell would have dismissed Cancelo so willingly were it not for the pressure applied by supporters.

Brighton now had over 80 minutes to play against 10 men. Having already seen the Albion rely on an 87th minute Welbeck equaliser to scramble a point against a short-handed Sheffield United last time 2,000 fans were in the Amex, there cannot have been many Seagulls supporters thinking that their man advantage over City would actually be that beneficial.

Those feelings would have intensified when the in-form Welbeck limped off with a hamstring problem on the half hour mark. In a funny way, Welbeck suffering injury might be good in the long term for Brighton if it puts potential summer suitors off and means there is less competition for the Albion re-obtaining his signature. Keeping him for 2021-22 should remain one of the club’s overriding summer priorities.

On in Welbeck’s place came Leandro Trossard. The early goal, the red card and both sides making substitutions before 30 minutes had been played seemed to impact the rhythm and there was not much else of note to happen in the first half, save for Ederson slipping over when taking a goal kick to the first sarcastic HOOOOOOORRRAAAAYYYYYYY of post-lockdown football.

It is amazing how such a simple noise at another man’s misfortune can bring so much joy and be so missed when you have been denied hearing it for many months.

Having conceded within three minutes of the first half, Brighton managed to go a whole four minutes of the second half before seeing City pop another one in.

Ben White had done an outstanding job keeping Phil Foden quiet, to the point where it would not have been a surprise to hear that Pep Guardiola had sacked off his half time team talk and gone straight to Tony Bloom with one hundred million petrodollars to secure the services of White for next season there and then.

Foden is too good a talent to be pocketed for long, however. A barnstorming run which started in his own half saw Foden surge down the left wing, past White and then Adam Webster before smashing an unstoppable effort across Robert Sanchez.

Foden celebrated by cupping his ear to the Brighton fans, who had bizarrely booed him in the first half. Presumably those fans will be singing his praises if he leads England to glory this summer at Euro 2020 (in 2021).

Another player who will fancy his chances of going far in Euro 2020 (in 2021) is Trossard, who had his place confirmed in the Belgium squad on Monday.

That our favourite vampire has made it into such a talented group of 26 Red Devils says much about his ability. What lets Trossard down is his lack of consistency – he either plays like Diego Maradona circa 1986 or Chris Holroyd circa 2010.

Thankfully, Trossard chose Brighton 3-2 Man City to have one of his Maradona days. He got the Brighton party started with an individual goal every bit as good as Foden’s, leaving the Premier League’s best defender this season Rúben Dias on his arse three times when faking and faking and faking a shot before lashing past Ederson.

Incredibly, City began timewasting once Trossard had made it 2-1. The only way Ederson could have resembled Casper Ankergren anymore as he laboured to take every goal kick would have been by whipping out 20 Marlboro Light and a four pack of Carlsberg.

It was quite surreal seeing City’s billion pound squad resorting to such measure against a Brighton side featuring £3.5 million Wigan man Burn and a goalkeeper who has spent the past two seasons with Rochdale and Forest Green Rovers.

Rather wonderfully, it has absolutely no impact either as Brighton found an equaliser through a fine Webster header. The impressive Jakub Moder linked up with Gross down the right, leading Der Kapitan to deliver one of his beautiful whipped balls into the box which Webster rose like the proverbial salmon to meet. From 2-0 down against the champions to 2-2. This was not supposed to happen.

Better still was to come when Burn of all people hit the winner. It was the most Burn goal you could imagine as he appeared to stumble and trip over his own legs in the box, like a baby giraffe slowly tumbling to the ground after being shot with a tranquiliser dart.

Ederson saved Burn’s first scuffed effort and Burn made even more of a mess out of the second yet that somehow helped as the ball spun between the glove of Ederson and the leg of Oleksandr Zinchenko to make it Brighton 3-2 Man City.

Guardiola once said his dream was to play with a team made up entirely of midfielders. Now he found himself in Good Old Sussex By The Sea conceding two goals in the space of four minutes to two defenders from a Brighton side who had no recognised centre forward on the pitch for two thirds of the evening, pairing Trossard and Alireza Jahanbakhsh together in-between Welbeck’s forced withdrawal and the introduction of Andi Zeqiri.

Following Burn’s goal, Brighton had 15 minutes to negotiate and hold on for a famous win. The Albion would probably have been expecting to come under a lot of pressure, but apart for Sanchez making a somewhat unorthodox double save from Gabriel Jesus and VAR taking a look at what turned out to be a brilliantly timed tackle on the same City player from Adam Lallana, the champions rarely threatened.

The full time whistle was greeted with an almighty roar and an outpouring of joy all round, except from on the City bench. As Potter went to shake Guardiola’s hand, Guardiola and his coaching staff refused to engage with the Brighton boss before they scurried down the tunnel.

Cast your mind back four months to when the Albion were preparing to go to the Etihad Stadium and you may remember Guardiola describing Potter as the best English manager in the Premier League.

Turns out Pep finds it easy to be complimentary when his side have stuck nine goals in their previous two games past Brighton, but as soon as Potter delivers a deserved 3-2 victory over Man City then the mask slips. Classy.

Guardiola’s beef though just served to make the result all the sweeter. Potter led the players on a lap of honour afterwards, including Shane Duffy for whom this provided a scaled-down goodbye that would not have been possible had he completed the season at Celtic ahead of another likely move this season.

The notable man missing was Glenn Murray who, whilst no longer an Albion player, could surely have been allowed to take part. Fingers crossed that means the club have bigger and better plans to thank Murray for his nine years service, 111 goals and two promotions.

All season we have talked about what a striker with the finishing ability of Murray could do in this Brighton team, but against Man City there was no need for any such conversation.

It was a night where Potterball worked perfectly, proving that on their day the Albion can be a match for any side in the Premier League – even the champions of England who might well become the champions of Europe in less than two weeks time.

The trouble is those days for Brighton are too few and far between. The Albion have beaten Liverpool, Spurs and now City this season and yet failed to win against Sheffield United, West Brom, Fulham, Burnley and Crystal Palace.

If Potter can find a way to overcome the division’s lesser sides in 2021-22, the sky is the limit for Brighton. If he cannot, then the Albion will struggle to do much more than tread water in the top flight… again.

In a strange season, it seemed apt that the curtain came down on the home campaign with a strange result. Brighton 3-2 Man City is a nod to what the future might hold, fingers crossed with 30,000 of us back in the Amex to witness it from August. And to scream “FOR FUCK SAKE BRIGHTON” inside of the first five minutes, of course.