There could have very easily been a different outcome.<\/p>\n
This was an afternoon when Manchester City<\/a> accumulated an xG of 1.92, compared to 1.00 for Brighton<\/a>, so there was no shortage of chances for the hosts.<\/p>\n Home head coach Enzo Maresca will be all too aware that City will have to rediscover their finishing touch – and quickly – if they are to mark his debut campaign in charge with a first Premier League title since 2024.<\/p>\n Manchester City<\/a> had 21 shots on target without scoring, their highest number without doing so in the Premier League since November 2024, when they managed 24 in a game and drew a blank.<\/p>\n When Maresca sits down to pick apart his side’s shortcomings, he will look rueful at chances from Iliman Ndiaye, Abdukodir Khusanov and Nunes in particular.<\/p>\n But to say Brighton<\/a>‘s victory only came because of an off performance from City would be an extreme injustice to Hurzeler’s side, who are quickly becoming one of the most well-rounded in the Premier League.<\/p>\n In addition to being the division’s highest scorers – having found the back of the net 24 times in nine matches this season – Brighton<\/a> have also kept the most clean sheets (six).<\/p>\n Only Premier League champions Arsenal<\/a> – who have played one game less and travel to Anfield to face Liverpool<\/a> on Sunday – have conceded fewer goals than Brighton<\/a>‘s seven. Arsenal<\/a> have shipped five, going into the Liverpool<\/a> game.<\/p>\n One of the main reasons behind Brighton<\/a>‘s solid rearguard has been the signing of Luka Vuskovic from Tottenham Hotspur<\/a>.<\/p>\n The 19-year-old has been a transformative figure since arriving at Amex Stadium for a club record fee in July, starting all nine Premier League matches.<\/p>\n The Croatian has formed a rock-solid partnership with fellow centre-back Lewis Dunk and built an understanding with goalkeeper Verbruggen, all of whom played the full 90 minutes at the Etihad.<\/p>\n “It was a good game from all of us,” said Verbruggen. “I’m happy to help the team and make some important saves, but I wasn’t the only one.<\/p>\n “I think there were four or five shots blocked in an amazing way as well. It was a joint effort from everyone. We celebrate and go again.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There could have very easily been a different outcome. This was an afternoon when Manchester City accumulated an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":948126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,85],"class_list":["post-948125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=948125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/948126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=948125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=948125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=948125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}