An excellent fightback saw us come from two goals down to pick up a battling point on the south coast on Saturday afternoon.
Despite a good showing in the first period at Brighton’s Amex Stadium, we found ourselves trailing 2-0 just before half-time after Yankuba Minteh raced clear to open the scoring early on and Yasin Ayari’s screamer doubled the Seagulls’ advantage.
But we gave ourselves a lifeline in the 43rd minute when Richarlison finished from close range for his third goal of the campaign and finally levelled it up after a dominant second period, Jan Paul Van Hecke putting through his own net with eight minutes left. The result maintains our solid start to the new campaign, just the one defeat in our opening five Premier League matches and only three goals conceded.
Thomas Frank made three changes to the team that started against Villarreal in midweek with Joao Palhinha, Wilson Odobert and Destiny Udogie recalled – the latter two making their first starts of the season. The opening few minutes were played almost entirely in the Brighton half and we had a couple of half-chances which were denied by some good defending from the hosts. Instead, Brighton hit us with a quick break in the eighth minute, Minteh set free by Georginio Rutter and he streaked clear of our defence, rounded Guglielmo Vicario and slotted into an empty net.
We were continuing to play some good football to get into the final third without testing Bart Verbruggen although Richarlison went close when firing into the side netting on 24 minutes. Vicario then kept out an Ayari drive and Bajan Gruda hit one over from distance before Odobert skewed a half-volley wide at the other end as the game started to open up and just after the half-hour mark, Brighton doubled their lead. Lucas Bergvall’s clearance fell to Ayari and his fierce 25-yard shot flew past Vicario.
But we were back in the contest two minutes before the break. Palhinha won the ball in midfield and we were on the attack, Rodrigo Bentancur and Odobert combining for Mohammed Kudus, whose shot fell at the feet of Richarlison and he swept home from close range to leave us just one behind at the interval.
Similar to the first half, we were quick out of the blocks at the start of the second period too, enjoying plenty of possession in the opposition half with the final ball just letting us down. At the other end, Lewis Dunk tried to score with an audacious quick free-kick from inside his own half but it sailed over Vicario’s crossbar. We made our first change on 61 minutes when Xavi Simons replaced Bentancur and the Dutch international forward was quickly in the action, hitting a 20-yard drive just wide before forcing Verbruggen into a fine save stretching to his left. Unfortunately, he then scuffed a great chance wide after great work down the right from Kudus.
The pattern of the game was set, us on the front foot and pushing Brighton back while the home side tried to hit us on the break whenever they could. It wasn’t that often though as we were dominating the game and Richarlison had another sight of goal with nine minutes left but shot tamely at Verbruggen. The deserved equaliser finally came moments later, Kudus delivering a teasing cross which was missed by Dunk, it may have come off Palhinha but it definitely hit van Hecke, wrong-footing Verbruggen and nestling in the back of the net. The closing stages saw penalty appeals waved away after Simons went down in the area while, for Brighton, Ayari went for the spectacular 10 yards out when Danny Welbeck was better placed. In stoppage time, Kudus cut inside and hit a left-foot drive which flicked off Dunk and flew just over the bar, the final chance of an enthralling contest.