Crystal Palace secured a dramatic 2-1 Premier League victory over Brighton & Hove Albion at Selhurst Park on Saturday, April 5th, holding on despite finishing the match with nine players after a chaotic ending that also saw a Brighton player dismissed. Daniel Muñoz scored the decisive goal for the hosts.
Palace started brightly, with Jean-Philippe Mateta opening the scoring just over two minutes into the match, finishing clinically after being played through by Eberechi Eze. Brighton, however, responded well and equalized in the 31st minute through Danny Welbeck’s close-range effort.
Colombian winger Muñoz restored Palace’s lead 10 minutes into the second half, crowning a superb counter-attack initiated by Eze with a deflected shot that found the net.
The game descended into chaos in the final stages with three red cards. Palace substitute Eddie Nketiah, who had only replaced Mateta minutes earlier and was booked for diving almost immediately, received a second yellow card for a recklessly high challenge on Jan Paul van Hecke.
Palace were reduced to nine men when captain Marc Guéhi received his second yellow card for a studs-up challenge. However, Brighton’s numerical advantage was short-lived, as van Hecke himself was dismissed for a second bookable offense after fouling Daichi Kamada deep into the 12 minutes of stoppage time added, partially due to an earlier injury concern.
Despite the late turmoil, Brighton failed to capitalize. Yasin Ayari had a late chance to salvage a point, but his shot was brilliantly saved by Palace goalkeeper Dean Henderson.
“It was phenomenal, the lads were in the trenches at the end – going down to nine men, you have to dig deep… no one knew what positions they were playing but they were throwing bodies in the way of shots. I’m speechless. It’s fantastic,” Henderson said.
Brighton manager Fabian Hürzeler lamented his side’s inability to control the frantic ending. “It was very wild, we couldn’t control it… We weren’t able to find the right solution. The hunger was bigger from Palace – we made again a silly mistake and got the red card, we did too many easy mistakes,” the German coach stated.
The victory moves Crystal Palace up to 11th place in the Premier League standings with 43 points, while Brighton remain eighth on 47 points.
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