Brighton 1 Aston Villa 1
Brighton were not exactly outclassed by the resurgent Villa side unbeaten since the appointment of Steve Bruce but we were grateful to come away with a point. From the start Villa harried and pressed the Seagulls. Villa took the lead from a glancing header from Nathan Baker which David Stockdale might have saved as he went down too slowly. Glenn Murray equalised just before half-time with a fine low shot outside the box which fizzed into the corner. In the latter stages of the second half Villa laid siege to the Albion box and Stockdale redeemed his earlier error with 2 excellent saves.
Such is the slowness of leaving the car park in the stadium reserved for 1901 members with 2 tickets – we were still there at 11.00 pm – we in the car had plenty of opportunity to analyse the performance. The collective view was that it was one point won not two lost. One of us thought that Brighton needed to finish up in the second position (with automatic promotion) we now occupy as Villa will make the play-offs and if so will beat the Seagulls if we play them. Conversation then turned as to whether Brighton could possibly survive in the Premier. I took the contrarian view that we might well survive as recently Watford, Bournemouth and Burnley are faring better than anticipated. After all there is a shed-load of money to build a stronger wide. It’s problem we would like to have.
The game attracted the biggest crowd of the season, over 30,000. Considering this was a televised game on a wet night this was impressive. 3,200 Villa fans made the journey and both sets of fans were in full voice making for a great atmosphere. Our next two home matches are against Fulham next Saturday and Leeds so testing times lie ahead to maintain our 11 game unbeaten record. Our defence is still strong and mean but young Anthony Knockaert, our matchwinner, clearly is still suffering over the death of his father as he was wandering ineffectively around the pitch. It was again impressive that 11 of his teammates accompanied him to the funeral in France. The recent coverage of England players on the lash did little for the image of the game so it’s heartening to hear of and report such camaraderie in a time of deep sadness for a team mate.
