Doing Everything Right.....Until We Didn’t

For 97 minutes, Brighton & Hove Albion looked like a team that had finally, finally solved the puzzle. This wasn’t the chaotic, thrilling, heart-in-mouth Brighton we sometimes are. This was structured. Patient. Mature. We controlled the game with a quiet authority that felt unfamiliar and wonderful. Everton were there, but only just. A periodic nuisance, not a threat.

The first half was all sensible possession. The second half had more edge. Pascal Groß and Jarrad Branthwaite into the book, the tension rising, but we managed it. The substitutions felt positive rather than fearful. Yankuba Minteh and Georginio Rutter, then Carlos Baleba and Danny Welbeck. We were pushing forward, not clinging on.

And we got our reward.

Seventy-three minutes in. as Pascal Groß delivers. The Amex erupts in that pure, uncomplicated joy that only comes when a plan actually works. One nil. Fully deserved.

Then came the gut punch.

Eighty-three minutes. Kaoru Mitoma puts the ball in the net. Limbs. Noise. Release. And then… nothing. That cold, flat silence as VAR does its grim, Offside. It wasn’t just a goal disallowed, it was a vacuum, all our momentum sucked straight into it.

From that moment, the clock stopped being neutral. It became an antagonist. Every second stretched, heavy with dread. Everton threw bodies forward in that desperate, panicked way they specialise in. We defended. We cleared. We almost saw it out.

The board went up. Added time. Of course it did.

Ninety-seventh minute. Beto. Final kick. Final insult. It wasn’t a collapse. It wasn’t tactical failure. It was football’s brutal, indifferent punchline.

We didn’t bottle this. We didn’t fold. We played well. We scored. We had another rightly chalked off. We managed the game. And we got punished anyway. Somehow that feels crueller. To do almost everything right and still have it taken from you at the very last second.

For a fleeting moment, as I witnessed Everton’s coach rolled out of South Lodge Spa earlier in the day, I did wonder whether a light pelting of eggs might have put them off their game.

In hindsight, I should probably have been brave enough!!