Roberto De Zerbi admitted Brighton reacted “like we had won the Champions League” as his players and staff ran across the pitch to celebrate with away supporters after a first win in seven Premier League matches despite Lewis Dunk’s red card.
With two more players dropping down injured after Brighton went behind to Anthony Elanga’s early opener, few would have anticipated what followed. Evan Ferguson’s equaliser and João Pedro’s double enabled them to survive half an hour with 10 men to end Nottingham Forest’s long unbeaten home run.
In a frenzied final half-hour – including the 10 added minutes – Forest pulled a goal back through Morgan Gibbs-White’s penalty, survived a potential red card for Murillo themselves but had Ryan Yates’s late point-blank header brilliantly saved by Bart Verbruggen.
With 10 players injured and a crucial Europa League tie at AEK Athens on Thursday, Brighton could have folded here if it were not for “the character, the attitude, the spirit, the soul” to match their fluent football. Forest, now with one win in nine league games, threw everything at them before going down to their first home defeat in the Premier League since April.
Brighton have scored and conceded in a record 17 straight Premier League matches. But few have been as dramatic as this.
De Zerbi forgot to shake Steve Cooper’s hand as the emotion of the comeback understandably took over. “I want to explain my celebration,” the Brighton manager said. “It wasn’t disrespectful for the opponent. We are suffering a lot, losing 10 players to injury; we lost two [more] players in the first half; we lost two substitutions in the first half; we suffered a red card; we lost two points in the last game with Sheffield United, we lost two points against Fulham.
“The last win in the Premier League for us was at the end of September. We are suffering a lot. It is one of the toughest moments, not just in the Premier League, but in my career and for me it was a big, big celebration.
And for it we celebrate like final in Champions League or winning the Premier League.”
Brighton’s inability to keep a clean sheet was extended inside three minutes. With the briefly returning Tariq Lamptey playing high and wide on the left, Gibbs-White could scarcely believe how much space he was granted going down the right wing before he delivered the perfect centre over Chris Wood and two defenders for the unmarked Elanga to head in at the far post.
Brighton have made 53 changes to their starting Premier League XI, a division high, but they were forced into three more switches before the second half. Ansu Fati went down feeling his calf and he was replaced by Pedro while Lamptey had to be replaced by Jack Hinshelwood.
Pedro’s arrival improved Brighton and they equalised within five minutes of his introduction. Pascal Gross passed into the feet of Ferguson who, dropping off Moussa Niakhaté, swerved the ball low into the bottom-right corner with his second.
In the fourth minute of first-half added time, Pedro headed Brighton into the lead, gaining momentum with his run to beat Ola Aina to power home Gross’s cross.
With Adam Lallana also withdrawn at half-time, Brighton could have been forgiven for feeling sorry for themselves. Instead, they went further ahead before the hour mark. Again Pedro was central: firstly he was pulled down by Wood; then he calmly converted the ensuing penalty, his ninth goal of the season in all competitions.
How much the Europa League is affecting Brighton’s league form is a moot point. But while it is difficult to predict which way their games will go, no one can question the entertainment in them.
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The last 20-plus minutes of this match were chaos. Play went on for seven minutes before Anthony Taylor was called pitchside to agree that Hinshelwood had fouled Callum Hudson-Odoi. The debate that followed was so prolonged, there was time for Dunk to be booked then sent off for separate moments of dissent. Gibbs-White kept his cool to convert the penalty for his first goal of the season.
In added time, Gibbs-White missed a free header before Yates’s effort was also repelled. But Cooper said he did not wish to hide behind the fact his team did not play well enough in the first half, even if he believed the penalty decisions “caused the animosity in the stadium”.
