Three times the referee Craig Pawson awarded penalties to Newcastle in the second half. Twice they were overturned by VAR but the third one stood, and Alexander Isak converted to earn Newcastle a vital point in the race for Champions League football. They had not played well, but they never do against Brighton, and in that context a draw earned with an 89th-minute equaliser was extremely welcome.
Arsenal’s defeat to Bournemouth on Saturdayhad opened up another possibility; if Newcastle won their final four games of the season, including the meeting with Arsenal at the Emirates on two weeks, they would finish second for the first time since 1996-97. Perhaps that added a layer of pressure: for a long time this didn’t look like a side that had won seven of its previous eight games in all competitions, never mind the second-best side in the country. But then that’s very much the nature of the Premier League this season: Brighton didn’t look much like a side that had only won one of their previous seven. The truth is that there really isn’t a huge amount separating the teams from second down to mid-table, meaning small fluctuations of form can have a profound impact, positive or negative, on results.
Newcastle have beaten Brighton only twice in 18 games, and they have never won in thePremier Leagueat the Amex. But they remain in the Champions League places and with others in the race also stop-starting as they approach the finish line. Brighton have their own European aspirations. They lie 10th but just a point off the eighth place that, if Manchester City beat Crystal Palace in the FA Cup final, will probably bring Conference League qualification.
It was a bright day on the south coast but a bracing one, a brisk northerly breeze adding a distinct chill. The football, similarly, was a little less pleasant, a little brusque than may have been expected. There was lots early on for fans of solid structures and closing down, and precious little for those who prefer invention and imagination. As frustration set in, both sides were guilty of overambitious passes that squandered possession, and of increasingly irritable grappling. The only chance of the opening quarter of the game fell the way of Harvey Barnes, but even that was the result of a mix-up between Mats Wieffer and Jan Paul van Hecke rather than anything constructed.
With Tino Livramento regularly pushing forward, the battle on the Brighton right frequently became one between Dan Burn and Yankuba Minteh, who left Newcastle last summer. Burn had the better of their first two match-ups, but then, after the Gambian had skipped by him on the touchline, went bafflingly unpunished for a crude hack on him that curtailed a potentially dangerous counter. Perhaps that fired something in Minteh.
When he gathered a loose ball on the right edge of the box after 28 minutes, he skipped by Livramento, feigned to shoot and, as Tonali turned his back – he had cost Newcastle a goal on this ground with similar timidity last season – went by him as well before finding the far corner with a shot that glanced off Burn’s head.
When Minteh put Brighton ahead in the fifth round of the FA Cup at St James’ in March, he had ostentatiously refused to celebrate, even though he had never actually played a game for them. Something, evidently, has changed his mind: here he ran to the Newcastle fans, pointing at them and aggressively kissing his badge, eventually having to be led away by his teammates.
Newcastle’s forward line had struggled to impose itself, so it was no great surprise when Jacob Murphy was withdrawn for Anthony Gordon 11 minutes into the second half. Newcastle improved immediately. Within two minutes he had drawn a foul from Tariq Lamptey, who had himself only just replaced Wieffer, seemingly for fears the full-back was in danger of a second yellow card.
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The referee Craig Pawson gave a penalty, but a VAR check showed the foul had happened just outside the box. Another penalty, awarded after Joe Willock had dived over a challenge from Van Hecke, was also overturned.
A third penalty, awarded for a handball by Yasin Ayari as Fabian Schär’s free-kicked arced past him at the end of the wall was upheld. Isak converted, and when Diego Gomez put a free header wide from six yards in injury-time, Newcastle had their draw.