Chelsea & Hove Albion 1-3 Brighton & Hove Albion
Chelsea & Hove Albion 1-3 Brighton & Hove Albion
Oh dear Chelsea, Oh dear Todd Boehly. The Blues have spent more than a quarter of a billion pounds because Boehly is obsessed with becoming the Albion. Full time score at Stamford Bridge? Chelsea & Hove Albion 1-3 Brighton & Hove Albion.
Not even one of the most biased refereeing performances you will ever see from Simon Hooper could help the hosts to three points.
In one incredible moment which summed up the ineptitude of the official, Mr Hooper decided no foul had been committed in an incident serious enough for VAR to recommend a red card for Trevor Chalobah.
It is quite extraordinary that a decision made by a referee can be so wrong that it is reverted from no punishment to the most serious punishment possible.
The good news for Fabian Hurzeler and the Albion is that Mr Hooper took a lot of heat off what had been another disappointing first half performance.
So disappointing in fact that the word relegation was being banded around in more than one WhatsApp group your correspondent is in with fellow Seagulls supporters. There were also calls for Hurzeler to be sacked on social media.
The problem with talking in such terms after 45 minutes of football is that there is another 45 minutes still to play. Lord knows WAB has done it enough times over the past 16 years, much to the delight of many followers who enjoy pointing out how stupid the Twitter account is.
And it becomes a particularly big risk talking about a team with a split personality like this current Albion side. They can go from absolutely woeful to the best team in the world quicker than it takes Boehly to type Which Brighton player should I bid £100 million for next? into ChatGPT. As we saw in Chelsea 1-3 Brighton.
The Blues led at half time thanks to Enzo Fernandez heading home a Reece James cross. Brighton could have no complaints and on another day, might have been even further behind.
Bart Verbruggen made good saves from Fernandez and James free kicks before that duo combined to put Chelsea ahead. Joel Veltman also made an excellent block from Pedro Neto having picked up an early yellow for a tackle on the same player. Another poor decision from Mr Hooper.
When he was not flashing unwarranted cards to Albion players, Mr Hooper did a good job defending for Chelsea. In one instance, he actually blocked a Yasin Ayari shot. At which point it felt like it might be one of those days.
But then came the red card. Fresh from his four-goal haul on Tuesday night in the 6-0 win over Barnsley, Diego Gomez went galloping clear of the Blues defence.
Chalobah brought Gomez down on the edge of the box via a messy tackle as the last man. Mr Hooper somehow concluded Chalobah had done nothing wrong and waved play on, only to be corrected by Darren England on VAR. Chelsea subsequently went down to 10 men and the Albion had a big opportunity to get back into the game.
It was one they took thanks to some excellent substitutions from Hurzeler. In stark contrast to the bizarre changes he made when Brighton squandered a 2-0 lead to draw 2-2 at home to Spurs seven days earlier.
Veltman was correctly hauled on 55 to prevent him picking up a second yellow. Neto was giving the suave and sophisticated Dutchman a testing afternoon and Mr Hooper would clearly be looking for any opportunity to even things up and make it 10 against 10.
Hurzeler sensibly decided to remove the easiest option for doing so by taking off Veltman before he was booked again.
Brajan Gruda and Danny Welbeck then entered the fray for Carlos Baleba and Kaoru Mitoma. Welbeck would go onto net twice in his 25 minutes on the pitch.
His first goal came on 77. Yankubu Minteh was outstanding once again with his cross headed past Robert Sanchez from close range by Dat Guy. The fact Welbeck should have been marked by Marc Cucurella made it even more enjoyable.
The Albion were now playing at full throttle whilst Chelsea desperately tried to hang on. Enzo Maresca made four defensive substitutions. How cute to see the ‘World Champions’ sticking every player behind the ball against little old Brighton.
Mr Hooper caused further bemusement when deciding that Minteh getting kicked in the head by Malo Gusto was not worthy of a penalty. There was no attempt to even hide the bias at this point.
