Ten-player Brighton win at Sunderland to stay third — SkimNews
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- Brighton won 2-0 at Sunderland on Saturday to claim their third consecutive Premier League victory without conceding, remaining third in the table.
- Maxim De Cuyper opened the scoring in the 53rd minute after being teed up by captain Pascal Gross, with substitute Jaouen Hadjam sealing the win in stoppage time (90+3) by finishing a counter-attack from a tight angle.
- Pascal Struijk received a 57th-minute straight red card — upgraded via VAR review — for hauling down Wilson Isidor as the Sunderland striker broke clear on goal, leaving Brighton with 10 men for over 30 minutes.
- Pascal Gross, aged 35 years and 117 days, became the oldest player to provide an assist in three successive Premier League games since Ryan Giggs in February 2012.
- Former Premier League referee Mike Dean called the Struijk sending-off "very, very harsh" on Soccer Saturday, saying the on-field decision of no red was correct and the VAR should not have intervened.
- Sunderland lost back-to-back home league matches without scoring for the first time since April/May 2017, slipping to 16th, with boss Regis Le Bris starting three players aged 21 or younger after Brian Brobbey picked up a hamstring injury on Netherlands duty.
- Brighton backed up their dominant 3-0 home win over champions Arsenal before the international break with what the report called an equally impressive display on Wearside.
Why it matters: Brighton's ability to close out a win while down to 10 men for over half an hour reinforces their unexpected top-three credentials, while Sunderland's fall to 16th — without a goal in consecutive home matches for the first time since 2017 — exposes the acute cost of losing Brian Brobbey to a hamstring injury sustained on international duty with the Netherlands.
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