Brighton and Hove Albion produced a superb turnaround to stun Manchester City 2-1 and hand Pep Guardiola’s men a second successive defeat.
City appeared poised to bounce back from their 2-0 home loss to Tottenham last Saturday after Erling Haaland capped his 100th Premier League appearance with his 88th goal in the division.
However, City failed to put the game to bed, and James Milner’s penalty restored parity in the 67th minute.
Brighton were not content with a point, though, and Brajan Gruda capitalised on more defensive frailty from City as he secured the points in the 89th minute, dealing Guardiola and his team another early blow in their bid to challenge to regain the Premier League title.
Brighton v Manchester City
Haaland wasted an early opportunity when he shot straight at Bart Verbruggen and then dragged wide from the edge of the box, those chances coming either side of Kaoru Mitoma forcing James Trafford to turn behind at the other end.
Verbruggen was equal to Haaland’s far-post header in the 25th minute, but there was nothing he could do nine minutes later as the Norwegian prodded in from close range after Omar Marmoush had worked his way through a crowd in the Brighton box.
Brighton struggled to lay a glove on City in the first half thereafter, and they were fortunate not to fall further behind on the hour mark when Oscar Bobb stabbed wide from Marmoush’s low left-wing cross.
That let-off seemed to fuel the Seagulls and, after Yankuba Minteh was denied by a strong save from Trafford following a quick Brighton counter, they were handed a route back into the game from the penalty spot.
Matheus Nunes was ruled to have handled Lewis Dunk’s volley at the far post, and former City midfielder Milner stepped up and sent Trafford the wrong way with a cool penalty into the bottom-left corner.
Brighton then continued in the ascendancy. Minteh flashed an effort wide at the end of a jinking run into the box, and Trafford was required again in the 88th minute to produce an incredible stop as he clawed away Jan Paul van Hecke’s deflected close-range effort.
Yet Trafford cut a forlorn figure a minute later as Brighton completed the turnaround, Mitoma playing through Gruda, who displayed superb composure in rounding both the City goalkeeper and Rayan Ait-Nouri before rolling the ball home to seal the hosts’ first win of the campaign.
