Brighton & Hove Albion produced a stunning start to their Premier League season with a 4-0 dismantling of Aston Villa.
Fabian Hurzeler's Brighton produced a scintillating opening-day statement at the Amex, putting ten-man Aston Villa to the sword with four unanswered goals in a devastating 31-minute first-half onslaught that sent the Seagulls soaring to the top of the Premier League table.
It was a tale of ruthless efficiency versus catastrophic naivety. Villa, threadbare and disjointed after a summer exodus that saw them lose key figures, actually started the brighter. With Ollie Watkins absent from the squad amid transfer speculation, makeshift false nine Emiliano Buendia squandered three clear-cut chances inside the opening seven minutes, twice being denied by Bart Verbruggen and once skewing wide.
They were made to pay dearly. In the 8th minute, Brighton broke through fortuitously when Maxim De Cuyper's fizzing low cross was diverted into his own net by Villa debutant Victor Lindelof under pressure from Georginio Rutter. Ten minutes later, Hurzeler's high press bore fruit as Diego Gomez robbed Boubacar Kamara in midfield, Rutter held the ball up superbly, and laid it off for De Cuyper to lash a clinical left-footed finish into the far corner for 2-0.
The game was then killed off in a sensational 83-second burst from academy graduate Jack Hinshelwood. On 30 minutes, the 21-year-old timed his run perfectly to thump a header home from Lewis Dunk's raking diagonal, and a minute later he pounced after Joao Gomes was dispossessed, swiveling to drill a low finish past Emi Martinez to make it 4-0.
Gomes' nightmare debut went from bad to worse five minutes before the break. The £34m arrival from Wolves, already at fault for the fourth goal, lost his composure completely and kicked Rutter in the stomach off the ball after being robbed again. Referee Peter Bankes showed a straight red card — the first first-half red on a Premier League debut for a club since 2012.
Brighton expertly managed the second half. Despite playing north of the Arctic Circle in Conference League qualifying on Thursday and missing Yankuba Minteh and Carlos Baleba amid Manchester United interest, Hurzeler's side kept the ball, introduced fresh legs in Ibrahim Osman, Malick Yalcouye and Charalampos Kostoulas, and never looked threatened. Villa introduced debutant Alejandro Garnacho and Tyrone Mings in a damage-limitation exercise, but the scoreline remained intact.
Villa supporters who wanted to remind everybody at kick-off time of how they had won the Europa League in May were left stunned by what followed. The four concessions before the interval and the knowledge that the damage could have been much worse. Their one piece of luck was that Brighton did not turn the screw in the second half. Hürzeler’s men had done enough.
It is a dream start for Brighton and a sobering, humiliating defeat for Unai Emery, whose side now sit rock-bottom after a collapse that will demand serious soul-searching before next week.
