This has been a very, very long time coming for Crystal Palace supporters. The last time they were able to celebrate doing the double over Brighton in the 1932-3 season in the old Division Three South, the two clubs weren’t even rivals and it would be another 14 years before Roy Hodgson was born.
But with an FA Cup semi-final against Aston Villa to come later this month, Daniel Muñoz’s winner at the start of the second half made it another memorable afternoon for Oliver Glasner’s side after Danny Welbeck had cancelled out Jean-Philippe Mateta’s 13th Premier League goal of the season. Not even late red cards for Eddie Nketiah and captain Marc Guéhi could dampen the celebrations in south London as Palace moved to within four points of Fabian Hürzeler’s side with a game in hand.
Brighton, who have now lost three times in the space of seven days and also had Jan Paul van Hecke sent off in a bad-tempered finish to the game as Yasin Ayari was denied a late equaliser by the outstanding Dean Henderson, can see their opportunity of qualifying for Europe again slipping away.
Related: Aston Villa v Nottingham Forest: Premier League – live
There was a carnival atmosphere before kick-off in the sunshine in south London for Palace’s first game since sealing a place in the last four of the FA Cup. Barely 10 seconds had passed when the home fans reminded their arch-rivals that they are the ones heading to Wembley later this month and not Brighton.
Hürzeler had attempted to fire up his players beforehand by acknowledging that they “didn’t give the fans what they deserve” in the 3-1 home defeat by Palace back in December. But he looked on in disbelief as they made an awful start that immediately handed the initiative to their opponents. The captain, Lewis Dunk, was guilty of playing a sloppy back pass to Bart Verbruggen that he had no option but to kick out of play, with Mateta firing just wide from the resulting throw-in.
Less than a minute later, the hosts were ahead as the Frenchman received the ball from Eberechi Eze on the edge of the area after a strong run from Guéhi before leaving Verbruggen with no chance with a left-footed shot that took a slight deflection on its way in. Goalkeeper Dean Henderson has been one of Palace’s standout performers this season and, with Thomas Tuchel in watching from the stands, showed why he must be breathing down Jordan Pickford’s neck in the England pecking order with contributions at both ends. First it was his long pass that was controlled effortlessly by Eze before forcing Verbruggen to tip his shot around the post. Then the former Manchester United keeper produced a stunning double save to keep out efforts from Carlos Baleba and Welbeck on the follow up.
It was a warning that Palace did not heed. Brighton had slowly been gaining a foothold in midfield and when Matt O’Riley pinched the ball off Eze, it was worked wide to Yankuba Minteh and Welbeck – who is now Brighton’s highest scorer in the Premier League with 31 - found space at the back post to tap home his superb cross.
The last five of these fixtures at Selhurst Park had ended 1-1 and another would have set a new record for the longest sequence of the same result in Premier League history. So it was something of a surprise when Palace went back in front 10 minutes after half-time when a driving run from Eze played in Muñoz. His shot took the slightest of deflections off Pervis Estupiñán’s backside and flew into the net.
A crunching tackle from Guéhi on Van Hecke that earned the Palace captain his first booking received almost as big a cheer as the goal. Nketiah should have had a penalty when he burst into the box less than 60 seconds after coming off the bench for Mateta and seemed to be caught by Estupiñán’s trailing leg but the referee, Anthony Taylor, instead showed him a yellow card for diving instead. Things went from bad to worse for Nketiah when he was shown a second yellow 10 minutes later that perhaps could have been worthy of a straight red after catching Van Hecke with a high boot.
Guéhi was also shown a second yellow after he badly mistimed a tackle on Brajan Gruda but Van Hecke’s dismissal in 12 minutes of added time only made things easier for Palace to wrap up their deserved victory.
-
Download the Guardian app from the iOS App Store on iPhone or the Google Play store on Android by searching for 'The Guardian'.
-
If you already have the Guardian app, make sure you’re on the most recent version.
-
In the Guardian app, tap the Menu button at the bottom right, then go to Settings (the gear icon), then Notifications.
-
Turn on sport notifications.
