Brighton strikes twice in ten minutes to beat ten-man... wait, beat Sunderland 2-0 despite playing a man down

Sunderland controlled the ball for much of the afternoon at the Stadium of Light, but it was Brighton and Hove Albion that walked away with all three points thanks to a 2-0 win built in just ten minutes of the second half. Maxim De Cuyper opened the scoring in the 52nd minute and Jaouen Hadjam sealed it deep into stoppage time, in the 92nd minute, on an afternoon that also featured a red card overturned by VAR.

The first half had been even and goalless. Sunderland had the ball (they would go on to dominate possession for the whole match) and created some danger through Wilson Isidor and Thomas Meunier, while Brighton answered with Diego Gomez and Charalampos Kostoulas testing the keeper from outside the box. The most eye-catching moment came right before the break: in the 47th minute, Pascal Struijk met a cross from Olivier Boscagli off a free kick with a header that crashed off the left post. The teams went into the locker room level at 0-0.

The stretch that decided the match

The second half flipped the script quickly. In the 52nd minute, Maxim De Cuyper finished with his left foot from the center of the box, low and inside the post, after an assist from Pascal Gross, to make it 1-0 for the visitors. Three minutes later came a bizarre twist: Pascal Struijk was shown a red card that was overturned by VAR in the 55th minute, only for Struijk himself to be sent off anyway a minute later. Brighton had to see out the rest of the match with ten men.

With the extra man, Sunderland pushed for an equalizer: Granit Xhaka tried his luck a couple of times from outside the box and Malick Fofana tested the visiting goalkeeper, but nothing found the net. Brighton sat back and waited for its chance, finding it in stoppage time: in the 92nd minute, on a counterattack, Jaouen Hadjam, who had just come on, finished with his left foot from inside the box to make it 2-0, assisted by Georginio Rutter, another substitute who had just entered the match.

What the numbers say

Sunderland had more of the ball, but Brighton was sharper where it counts most: in the clear-cut chances.

The big chances number (one for Sunderland against four for Brighton) goes a long way toward explaining why the home side had more of the ball but less real bite. Our in-match expected goals estimate tells a similar story, putting the figure at 0.99 for Sunderland and 1.8 for Brighton: a visiting edge that, while not huge, lines up with the final result.

Our pre-match preview gave Brighton a 53% chance of winning, with 19% for Sunderland and 28% for a draw, projecting expected goals of 0.88 for the home side and 1.61 for the visitors. The final score ended up matching that read: the favorite got the job done, even if it had to wait until the second half, and go down to ten men, to make it count.

What the result means

Brighton stays in the upper reaches of the Premier League table, sitting third with 13 points from six matches, nine points clear of Sunderland. Sunderland, for its part, remains in 16th place with 4 points after six games, a record that makes clear the team needs to start converting its ball control into goals if it wants to pull away from the bottom of the table.