Champions League Race Heats Up As Manchester City and Brighton Draw

A four-goal thriller between Manchester City and Brighton as the race to secure Champions League football next season tightens up. The game ended in a 2-2 draw, with both teams having to walk away disappointed as a point was shared between them.

The opening 10 minutes of the game saw VAR rule out a Mitoma goal as he collided with Ortega, and Haaland converted from the penalty spot after Marmoush drew a penalty against Webster.

Brighton then leveled the match 10 minutes later after a beautifully taken free kick from Estupiñán. As the Ecuadorian struck the ball, Ortega gambled that the shot would go over the wall and decided to take a step to his left. This ultimately proved costly, as the ball went over the wall to his right and was helped in by the post.

Throughout the match, City’s press against Brighton was outstanding. Brighton is a team that enjoys building out from the back, but City denied the passing lanes and space for the Brighton players on the ball, especially in the wider areas. Their press created turnovers and won the ball high up the field, resulting in City’s second goal, the only goal from open play.

Brighton’s Georginio Rutter turned into City’s press, where Nico Gonzalez poked the ball away to Gundogan, who found Marmoush rifled a shot from outside the box into the bottom left corner.

Brighton equalized from a corner in the early minutes of the second half. Webster lined up in and around the back post area, pulled himself away from the pack, and put his header back in the crowd. The ball found Hinshelwood, whose shot went into the path of Khusanov and hit off his leg into the goal.

Brighton was the more dominant and energetic team in the first 10 minutes of the second half. Brighton created a strong quality chance for themselves, which found Diego Gomez out wide on the left, who played a well-hit low cross into the six-yard box, begging to be put in that ended up going between Minteh’s leg.

City started to look to Marmoush and Doku more frequently as they were likely to create something. City began putting sustained pressure on Brighton, pinning them back in their own box. City started to move the ball quicker and won the first and second balls high up in Brighton’s half. The pressure earned City a corner, and off the corner, Nico Gonzalez’s header struck the post.

Brighton created another chance through Hinshelwood as his attempt to go near post hit the outside netting instead of choosing to square it where he had players to choose from. Arguably, the best chance for Brighton to win all three points was a missed chance from Carlos Baleba, who found himself with time and space on the backend of a Minteh cross that was teed up for him just inside the 18 to slot it home and his shot went over the bar.

This was a missed opportunity for City to start creating some distance from the teams below them. As for Brighton, they would have wanted all three points, but a point still keeps them in the thick of things. City sits in fifth place with 48 points, and Brighton is in seventh place with 47 points, respectively—currently, only seven points separate fourth place from tenth place in the Premier League table.