Brighton’s poker-playing, big-betting, data-driven owner Tony Bloom tries his best to predict the future – be it the cards in your hand, which horse will win, which team will lose, whatever.
Yet not even Bloom could have foreseen this topsy-turvy, you score, we score, blink-and-you’ll-miss-something encounter at the Amex Stadium. Nor could Brentford's owner Matthew Benham, another discipline of analytics and possibilities and probabilities.
This battle between the Premier League’s ‘Moneyballers’ was enthralling to the very end, when Alexis Mac Allister’s 90th-minute VAR-awarded penalty ensured each team took a point.
Bloom and Benham will study what this means for their respective clubs’ chances of qualifying for Europe. Yet you don’t need to be a mathematician to work out that Brighton and Brentford remain very much in the mix, sitting sixth and seventh respectively, ahead of Liverpool and Chelsea.
The first half was a whirlwind. Brentford led. Brighton equalised. Then Brentford led again. Then Brighton equalised again. All within 28 minutes as all sense of defensive duty deserted the teams.
Brentford took the lead a third time in the second half, Ethan Pinnock scoring from a set-piece. Yet Brighton denied them the win, with a handball by Aaron Hickey proving costly as Mac Allister dispatched his penalty.
After all that chaos, it wasn’t only the players who needed a lie down. The supporters were likewise knackered, but they can still live in hope of an unexpected European adventure next season.
Brentford started with a back three, a set-up which Thomas Frank tends to save for the Premier League’s strongest sides. This season, they have traded their usual 4-3-3 for 3-5-2 against Arsenal and Manchester City, for example.
Brighton could take Brentford’s latest change of tack as a compliment and within four minutes, Kaoru Mitoma was denied a certain goal by a sliding block from Pinnock.
Brentford took the lead after 10 minutes and how simple it was. A cross from Matthias Jensen and a header from Pontus Jansson, who had dashed in front of Lewis Dunk for 1-0.
In the 12th minute, there was a a fascinating yet rare sight in football – an indirect free-kick for a back pass. Brighton’s Pervis Estupinan had tapped the ball to Jason Steele, who inexplicably picked it up.
Beside Roberto De Zerbi in the dugout was a small TV monitor. Watching the replays, he grabbed the device and knocked it to the ground. With Brighton bodies smothering the line, Ivan Toney passed to Jensen, who blasted the ball goalward from 12 yards. It bounced off Solly March, then Mitoma, before finally being cleared by Brighton.
Steele redeemed himself in the 21st minute, driving a long pass in behind Brentford’s defence for Mitoma. Hickey could not catch the Japanese sensation, who spied David Raya off his line and lobbed him for 1-1.
While the home supporters were still celebrating their equaliser, Brentford scored. From a Brighton throw-in, Jansson won the header, Bryan Mbeumo flicked the ball forward, and Toney controlled nicely before scoring beyond Steele for 2-1 after 22 minutes.
In the 28th minute, it was 2-2. Solly March, the man who many felt deserved an England call-up last month, crossed to the back post and Danny Welbeck’s downward header beat Raya.
This was an oh-so-sweet moment for Welbeck, as it interrupted the song being aimed at him from the Brentford end: ‘You’re just a s*** Ivan Toney.'
In the 49th minute, Brentford scored again. Bloom, as astute studier of statistics, will have known that Brentford are the best in the Premier League at scoring from set-pieces. He will have known, too, that Brighton aren’t so good at defending them.
How predictable this was, then, as Mbeumo stood over a wide free-kick. He crossed and Pinnock volleyed in from three yards for 3-2. ‘What is this defending?’ screamed one supporter near the press box.
In the 62nd minute, March was through on goal. He did all he could, aiming for the bottom-right corner on an angle, but Raya saved brilliantly.
In the 86th minute, Brighton screamed for a spot-kick. Deniz Undav’s attempt was destined for the net until it struck the outstretched arm of Hickey.
Nothing was given in real time by referee Michael Oliver. VAR Stuart Attwell sent his colleague to his monitor and there, he awarded the handball.
Mac Allister picked up the ball and stood over the penalty spot. We were now in the 90th minute. The pressure was on. But like the World Cup winner he is, Mac Allister coolly sent Raya the wrong way, finding the top-right corner.
Brighton wanted another spot-kick in the fifth minute of stoppage time, for another handball by Hickey. We’ve seen them given, in truth, but Oliver and Attwell weren’t feeling generous enough to award another penalty and it finished all square at the Amex.
Peterbreezy41
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Brighton is a very good team that plays beautiful football
Natanya
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Brighton has been doing pretty good