When Jaouen Hadjam lashed Brighton’s second goal low beyond Robin Roefs, it sparked a mass exodus. With a smattering of boos, the Stadium of Light emptied at a speed of knots and frown lines creased the forehead of Sunderland’s manager, Régis Le Bris.
Undaunted by Pascal Struijk’s second-half red card, Brighton had not merely cemented their hold on third place but boosted an already healthy points tally to 13.
This was not quite as fluent as Brighton’s 3-0 deconstruction of Arsenal before the international break, but no one can possibly underestimate their supreme defensive organisation now.
“It wasn’t easy but we always had this belief we could get something here,” said the Brighton manager, Fabian Hürzeler. “We keep clean sheets and we always have chances to score. We’ve always played good football, but I don’t want us just to be known as a nice team anymore.”
Sunderland are stuck on four points with a solitary Premier League victory to their name this season. They head to central Portugal for Thursday’s Europa League meeting with Torreense in introspective mode.
As a cagey first half unfolded, Kyril Louis-Dreyfus looked on anxiously from the directors’ box. Sunderland’s owner and chair has added the title chief executive to his club portfolio after Tom Burwell’s abrupt departure just five months into the role of interim CEO.
Among the 29-year-old’s more pressing tasks in this hands-on role is to secure a front-of-shirt sponsor after the collapse of a deal with Visit Ghana.
At the interval, Louis-Dreyfus was probably relieved the scoreboard read 0-0. Deep in stoppage time at the end of the first period, Struijk had headed against an upright with Roefs beaten.
It was the best chance of a half low on clearcut chances and only really enlivened by some beautiful calibrated deliveries from Enzo Le Fée. Sunderland’s attacking playmaker created decent early openings for Wilson Isidor – deputising for the hamstrung Brian Brobbey – and Thomas Meunier. Significantly, though, Le Fée faded badly in the second half.
In the 53rd minute, a home defence missing the hamstrung Dan Ballard paid the price for a failure to clear a long throw when Pascal Gross’ clever through ball cued up Maxim De Cuyper to slide the crispest of low first-time shots between Roefs and a post. It was the 35-year-old Gross’s seventh direct goal involvement in a Brighton goal in his last six Premier League appearances, but his team were soon reduced to 10 men.
When a poorly positioned Struijk felled Isidor as he accelerated towards the area the £20m summer signing from Leeds denied a clear goalcoring opportunity, but initially the referee, Tom Bramall, did not see it that way. The video assistant referee urged Bramall to visit the pitchside monitor, which prompted a change of heart and a red card for Struijk.
Despite their numerical disadvantage, Brighton continued to look comfortable. It did not help Sunderland’s cause that, unusually, Granit Xhaka proved untypically slapdash in possession. Perhaps the strain of admitting to obtaining a fake Covid vaccination certificate during the pandemic – the authorities in Lucerne issued Switzerland’s captain with a suspended £136,000 fine last week – took its toll.
Recent social media footage shows Xhaka demonstrating commendable restraint in the face of jibes from Newcastle fans while out shopping with his wife near their home in Gosforth, but he could have perhaps done with a little more trademark aggression here. In its absence, the visiting substitutes Georginio Rutter and Hadjam combined for the Algeria left-back to strip the shine expertly from Sunderland’s Portuguese trip.
“It was a tight, intense game,” said Le Bris. “But we weren’t at our best. It’s a question of composure. We have to change the momentum.”
