(Football news) Over the weekend, the Seagulls were held to a 1-1 draw with Newcastle United, while Chelsea triumphed 3-2 over Nottingham Forest in a wild match.
Brighton was briefly in the lead at St. James’ Park on Saturday, where Joel Veltman bundled in the opening goal before hobbling off with an injury. Brighton is continuing their worrying trend of failing to score more than once in a game, a sequence that now stands at a staggering 14 matches in all competitions.
Funnily enough, Newcastle’s leveller on the stroke of half time came via an attack down Brighton’s right flank after the Dutchman was withdrawn for Tariq Lamptey, as Elliot Anderson’s cutback was perfectly placed for Sean Longstaff to tap in the match’s second and final goal.
Neither side had anything to write home about in a second half bereft of star quality in the final third, and while Roberto De Zerbi’s side managed to put a dent in Newcastle’s European aspirations in the North East, the 10th-placed Seagulls now have nothing significant left to play for.
Lying smack-bang in mid-table mediocrity, Brighton can only finish as high as eighth – and even that hinges on them taking maximum points off of Manchester United on the final day – but it has now been almost three months since the hosts notched multiple goals in a single 90-minute affair.
Whether De Zerbi will still be on the South Coast in 2024-25 is another question entirely – Bayern Munich are supposedly still pushing to bring him to Germany – but his immediate task at hand for Brighton’s penultimate game of the season is achieving back-to-back home wins in the league for the first time since September.
Coincidentally, Chelsea make the trip to the Amex Stadium seeking successive Premier League victories on the road for the first time in 2024, having cruelly denied Nottingham Forest the chance to rubber-stamp their top-flight status at the City Ground on Saturday evening.
Callum Hudson-Odoi would seemingly have the last laugh against his former club after earlier efforts from Mykhaylo Mudryk and Willy Boly, but a fine Raheem Sterling finish and 14th Premier League goal of the season for Nicolas Jackson completed a striking late turnaround for the Blues.
The Senegalese striker made an immediate beeline for the elated travelling crowd before Mauricio Pochettino’s rejuvenated crop saw out their third straight Premier League success, one that puts them firmly in control of the race for seventh and has them trailing Newcastle only on goal difference.
Of course, should the rankings stay as they are, eighth-placed Manchester United can scupper Chelsea’s European dreams by winning the FA Cup, but optimism is growing for the 2024-25 term under Pochettino, as talk of the sack has quietened significantly in recent weeks.
A 15-game run without a clean sheet in Premier League away games remains an unwelcome blot on the Pochettino notebook, though, and they were given a rude awakening in a 4-1 trouncing in this fixture last season, but December’s Stamford Bridge showdown ended in a 3-2 triumph for the West London giants.
Also read: Manchester United will play Newcastle United in Premier League
