Brighton exacts revenge with key victory at City
Brighton and Hove Albion avenged its midweek Carabao Cup fourth-round loss to Manchester City, with Yasin Ayari's early goal securing a 1-0 win over the Premier League leader at Etihad Stadium.
Ayari found the back of the net with Brighton's first meaningful attack of the game, beating Gianluigi Donnarumma from close range to take advantage of Matheus Nunes's error.
City, which has now lost back-to-back league games, pushed for an equaliser, with Iliman Ndiaye passing up several chances and Jeremy Doku seeing a last-gasp strike smothered by Bart Verbruggen as Brighton held on for the win.
Brighton's goal came from a quick Lewis Dunk free-kick 11 minutes in. Nunes missed his chance to clear Diego Gomez's squared cross, and Maxim De Cuyper was hovering behind to lay it off to Ayari, who swept into the bottom-right corner for his third league goal this term.
Ndiaye glanced a header wide of the far post and had City's only shot on target of the first half when he fired straight at Verbruggen.
Gomez forced a smart stop out of Donnarumma from a tight angle, while Dunk was on hand at the other end to block Erling Haaland's clearest opening before the break.
Brighton had a golden chance to double its lead just three minutes after the break when Ayari picked out an unmarked De Cuyper, but the Belgian met the bobbling cross first time and fired over the crossbar.
Ndiaye then had an arrowed shot tipped onto the woodwork by Verbruggen and Nunes almost made amends for his earlier mistake when he latched onto Rayan Cherki's throughball, but the Brighton goalkeeper got a strong hand to his curler.
Ndiaye again fired wide from a tight angle before Jack Hinshelwood dinked Brighton's chance to seal the victory into the side netting after being threaded through by Georginio Rutter.
Doku had the chance to snatch a point at the death, only for Verbruggen to stand tall and keep out the close-range poke and preserve his clean sheet.
City boss Enzo Maresca was left perplexed after watching his side lose.
"A bit strange. The same feeling as after Aston Villa away," he said.
"We did enough to deserve something more, but we have to move on and try to win games.
"We created a good volume of offensive action. Sometimes you have to be more clinical and score, but it's important that we create.
"We did everything to be honest. Sometimes you struggle to score and the important thing is we created the chances.
"The attitude was good, I have nothing to say about that or the performance. The players fought until the end and, hopefully, next time, we are luckier."
For Brighton, its impressive 2026-2027 Premier League campaign continues.
The Seagulls, who are now two points off the top of the league, made history by beating City away from home in any competition for the first time at the 18th attempt.
Fabian Hurzeler's side has now won five of its past six Premier League matches, keeping a clean sheet in all five victories, and lead the 2026-2027 clean sheet charts with six.
"Really happy for everyone involved. A long journey, everyone contributed to the win," the Brighton boss said.
"Really happy as we did the work in the shadows, and we showed another good performance on the pitch.
"Togetherness gives us the rewards. On Wednesday we missed luck. Today we had a bit of luck, but you have to deserve the luck and everyone worked hard."
Brighton, which has been scintillating in attack this season, only registered seven shots in this game, its lowest total in a single match in the Premier League this season. However, for Hurzeler, it was all about his side's defensive solidity.
"It was a completely defensive performance where everyone had the mindset 'I need to defend'," he added.
"We would have preferred to have more of the ball but in certain moments, you know when you come here you need to suffer and defend well in the box.
"We can talk about individual players, but in the end, everyone had a defensive mindset and stuck together."
