Redemption for Gary O’Neil. His Wolves side have rarely been faulted for lack of effort but while their manager’s piercing gaze may regularly blaze with a sense of injustice at officialdom, individual mistakes, star players sold in the summer and lapses of concentration have piled up. They looked likely to be costly here, too, but at last, that hard work, the flashes of quality paid off. Wolves fought to the end when all seemed lost, mounting a thrilling two-goal comeback capped by Matheus Cunha’s last-gasp equaliser.
Danny Welbeck’s 45th-minute opener had undone Wolves’ solid first-half efforts. In the second half, the quality of the visitors’ finishing had let them down before Evan Ferguson’s first goal since November 2023 had put Brighton two up.
“Two costly giveaways,” O’Neil said. Could he survive until next Saturday’s meeting with fellow strugglers Crystal Palace? The odds were surely against that.
“We decided to do it the hard way,” said O’Neil, in perpetual motion on the sideline but afterwards looking relaxed for the first time in many months. His team had edged away from the bottom of the Premier League. “It went crazy in the end … at 2-0 down, I thought I had some tough questions coming.”
Fabian Hürzeler, Brighton’s wunderkind manager, is learning valuable lessons and will do so from a game that slipped from his grasp. Cunha’s goal immediately followed four Brighton attackers charging forward with abandon towards the Wolves goal. “We failed today in our development,” said Hürzeler. “We were not mature enough to win this game.”
At Brighton, Hürzeler will be given time to learn from mistakes. For O’Neil, whose team last won in the league against Luton in April, the time for experimentation has long expired, even if Tommy Doyle’s midfield passing range being employed from the start was a change of tack.
If O’Neil saw “fight, passion and effort” as key to his team’s revival, he admitted disappointment in himself for the negative team selection of five in defence.
It was Doyle who intercepted Mats Wieffer’s pass to set up Cunha’s equaliser, making up for blowing Wolves’ best first-half chance, laid on by Cunha. In Doyle, Rayan Aït-Nouri, scorer of their first goal, João Gomes and Cunha, Wolves do not lack for individual flair.
A lack of solidity and concentration continue to be their weaknesses. In a hard-fought, intriguing tactical battle of a first half, O’Neil, understandably given his employment prospects, was the antsier of the managers. Shaun Derry, the assistant assuming the role of the recently discarded set-piece coach, Jack Wilson, rousted defenders into position as the corners piled up for Brighton.
It seemed they might see out the first half, only for Georginio Rutter to lay up Welbeck for a simple finish, his sixth goal of the season; the evergreen Mancunian is in the form of his life.
Half-time brought changes, Pablo Sarabia and Carlos Forbs for Toti and Mario Lemina, attacking changes mirroring Brighton’s shape; O’Neil was going for broke.
Gradually, Wolves gained more territory though concurrently left space on the counter. Welbeck should have done better when Sarabia inadvertently played him through while Yasin Ayari, a buzzing presence in Brighton’s midfield, also shot wide.
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Then came Wolves’ best chance yet. Sarabia’s laser-guided pass finding Cunha, the finish rather less accurate. Hürzeler made his first changes, Welbeck withdrawn for Ferguson but the chances kept falling to Wolves before Wieffer’s extra height was then fatefully introduced by Hürzeler.
“Games like this, you don’t win in a beautiful way, you have to win in an ugly way,” said Hürzeler of the closing moments in which his team lost control despite the two-goal lead. “We got punished.”
Ferguson’s goal, assisted by the fellow substitute Tariq Lamptey, could have extinguished Wolves hopes and O’Neil’s chances of still being their manager only for Aït-Nouri to almost immediately scramble home and set up the madness that Brighton failed to cope with. “Too passive,” said Hürzeler.
Cunha set off on his solo run and his shot pinged off Jan Paul van Hecke’s ankle and into the net. O’Neil celebrated like anyone granted such salvation would. “They have given everything,” he said.
