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Key eventsShow key events onlyPlease turn on JavaScript to use this feature90 min City have seven minutes to rescue this. That was Brajan Gruda’s first goal at the Amex, and it may be on his highlights reel forever.ShareGOAL! Brighton 2-1 Man City (GrudaBrighton counter and score! Lovely composed finish from Gruda, who passes the ball into an open goal.Share88 min Save! Trafford does phenomenally to paw away a looping ball. But then …Share84 min Half-chance for Brighton! They advance in numbers, Mitoma slips the ball out to Gruda, whose left-foot shot is too tentative.Share84 min More subs from Pep: Lewis for Nunes at right-back, and Dias for Khusanov in the centre of defence.West Ham have done it again! They lead 2-0, with a penalty from Paqueta. Graham Potter won’t be getting sacked in the morning, or the rest of the international break.Share83 min The art of substitutions lies partly in who you leave on. Hürzeler kept faith with his wingers and now Minteh finds Mitoma in space in the inside-left channel. It’s a loose pass but Mitoma improvises beautifully and almost sends a tasty flick into the path of De Cuyper. With his changes, and his non-changes, Hürzeler has done wonders for Brighton’s confidence.Share81 min City threaten again, only for Bobb to lob the ball over everyone.In the other game, West Ham have scored! Jarrod Bowen has put them 1-0 up at Forest.Share77 min City are beginning to reassert themselves. Veltman gets a yellow for a late challenge on Doku. City have a corner and Haaland gets his head to it but can’t keep the ball down.Share74 min Gruda, who did well to set up Minteh just now, dances into the box and goes down. The defender dealing with him is Khusanov, who has to be careful, but there’s no second penalty.Share72 min How will Pep react to this turning of the tide? By sending on two subs – Doku and O’Reilly for Silva and Marmoush, who was so good that you wonder if he is injured.Share72 min Lovely from Minteh! A jink, a wiggle and a shot that goes just wide.Share70 min City are rattled. Just before the pen, there was a yellow card for Khusanov, and now there’s another for Ait-Nouri.Share68 min That was Milner’s first goal for Brighton, and it may have electrified the whole of the south coast. The Amex, which was half-asleep five minutes ago, is rocking.ShareGOAL! Brighton 1-1 Man City (Milner 67)Milner plants it in the corner, of course he does, after sending Trafford the wrong way. What chance did a man of 22 have against a guy of 39?ShareIt’s going to be James Milner. He last scored a PL pen in 2019!ShareThe VAR is Paul Tierney … and he’s not going to overturn it.SharePenalty! To BrightonFor handball, by Matheus Nunes, whose arm was up. “A much more obvious one,” Alan Smith reckons, than the contentious ones we’ve been seeing.The ball from Brighton and Hove Albion’s Lewis Dunk (centre) hits the arm of Manchester City’s Matheus Nunes. Photograph: Adam Davy/PAShareUpdated at 15.39 BST61 min Those subs in full: Milner for Baleba, Ayari for Hinshelwood, Rutter for Welbeck, Gruda for Gomez. So, of the front six, only the two flying wingers are still there – Minteh and Mitoma.Share61 min Chance! The subs do the trick and Minteh, who looked lost in the first half, draws a fine save from Trafford.Share61 min SUBS! Four of them, all for Brighton. It may take me the rest of the game to type them out, but among them is James Milner, ten years after he left City.Share60 min As the hour glass flips over, City nearly get a goal that doesn’t involve Haaland! Marmoush, on the left, plays a lovely early cross with the outside of his right boot. Bobb, sliding in, is a second too late to get his shot on target.Share56 min Bobb pops up in the box and goes on a giddy slalom, twisting between two players without getting a shot away. Off the ball, Haaland gives his marker a shove in the head.“Watching the City game,” says Steve, “and they deserve the lead. But the fact they can fall over as a tactical choice, nowhere near the ball when Brighton are in possession so the ref stops the game, then City get the drop ball that they use to attack not just once but twice makes me hate football a bit. The ruthlessness of champions I suppose but feels wrong.” Or ex-champions.Share55 min Even better from Brighton as Welbeck sends a fine through ball down the middle for Gomez. But again they spoil it as Gomez, losing a foot race with Khusanov, brings him down.Share52 min Better from Brighton as Mitoma bursts into the box and back-heels to De Cuyper, who is fouled by Bernardo Silva. But Brighton can’t turn a free kick into a chance.“Brighton regressing,” said William Morgan, before that. “They seem to be getting worse under FH. A world away from the football under RDZ. They look slow, uninspired and sloppy. One goal in 2.5 games and that a penalty.” Sounds as if you don’t think the League Cup counts.Share50 min Brighton are still being untidy in a way that’s not like them. Hinshelwood plays a pass straight out of play.Share48 min Half-chance! Marmoush, slipped through by Bobb, can’t quite deliver from a narrow angle.Share47 min The five most accurate passers in the first half were all wearing black. You may already have guessed who was top of that table: Rodri, with 89 per cent (57 passes completed out of 64).Share46 min Brighton kick off and do something they didn’t often do in the first half: they string ten passes together.ShareMore from Eric Peterson. “The chatter around James Trafford moving ahead of Ederson in the Man City pecking order,” he argues, “calls to mind David Raya’s introduction to Arsenal as Aaron Ramsdale’s successor two years ago. Controversial at the time, premature in the eyes of many, and some growing pains to be sure, but it was always intended to be the long-range choice and it proved to be the right move. When it comes to the long term, better to make that kind of move a year too soon than a year too late.”Interesting view! To my untrained eye, there’s one big difference. Raya was already a better keeper than Ramsdale then, whereas Trafford still has some way to go to catch up with Ederson. Opposing strikers would not be disappointed to see Trafford’s name on the team sheet.ShareErling Haaland has played one pass, taken five shots, and scored one goal.ShareBrighton had only one shot in that half, the strike by Mitoma that brought a fine save from Trafford. That, according to Sky, is the fewest shots Brighton have had in a first half at home for ten years.ShareHALF-TIME! Brighton 0-1 Man CitySo City hold onto their lead, and they deserve it. Since Haaland clicked into gear, after about 25 minutes, they have been much the better team. Brighton have found a few openings, but they will need to be far more precise in the final third.Share45+3 min Brighton could be level! Minteh races away down the right, skips past Ait-Nouri’s high boot and gets his cross in, but it’s behind the onrushing Welbeck. Minteh then goes down with a head injury, which happily seems to be nothing serious.ShareNews from elsewhere: VAR change at AnfieldA story from my colleague Andy Martin …“Michael Salisbury has been stood down as VAR official for today’s Premier League clash between Liverpool and Arsenal.“John Brooks will instead be in charge at Stockley Park after Salisbury’s controversial involvement in an incident during Saturday’s game between Chelsea and Fulham at Stamford Bridge.“He intervened to ask match referee Rob Jones to go to the pitchside monitor after Fulham midfielder Josh King had scored 21 minutes into the game, and ultimately the goal was chalked off when team-mate Rodrigo Muniz was adjudged to have stepped on Trevoh Chalobah during the build-up despite minimal contact.“It is understood the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) has acknowledged that the decision was an error and the incident did not meet the high bar for intervention as a clear and obvious error, and that referees’ boss Howard Webb has been in touch with Fulham.”Share45 min There will be three more minutes. The delay early on, for Gomez’s injury, was about that long.Share43 min Near-calamity! Verbruggen, receiving a poor back pass, is inches away from being hunted down by Haaland. He just gets the ball away in time, but only to another black shirt. Ait-Nouri ends up on the byline, whipping in a fine low cross that doesn’t quite find a team-mate.Share40 min As things stand, City are fifth, level with Liverpool on points (six) and goal difference (+3), but behind them on goals scored (five against seven). And poor old Brighton are still 18th.Share38 min City threaten again as Minteh loses the ball in their half. Marmoush almost gets away but he stays in the middle, where Brighton have about five players, when the ball surely needed to go wide.Share
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