After 45 minutes of play on Sunday, with the score at 0-2, few people would have bet on Brighton beating Tottenham. But the Seagulls launched a furious comeback and turned the game around in the space of 21 minutes. Fabian Hürzeler revealed how his team did it after the game.
It had only taken 20 seconds late Sunday afternoon for Fabian Hürzeler and his players to have to tremble for the first time. If Timo Werner had played the decisive pass a little more accurately, the Spurs would have taken the lead in the first minute. This scene was the starting point for a desolate first half for the Seagulls, who ended up trailing 0-2 – but Tottenham could have scored more.
After the break, the home side, for whom Pascal Groß was officially bid farewell before the game, then managed the sensational comeback and Danny Welbeck headed the 3-2 winner in the 66th minute. Within 21 minutes, Brighton had turned the game around. After the win, Hürzeler explained to Sky what he told his players at half-time.
Hürzeler: “We brought energy back into the stadium”
“We said: Make sure you win your personal duels. Because that’s how you get back into the game. That’s how you regain confidence.” His team lacked intensity in the first half when defending, and “didn’t make the last step”. However, the play with the ball was not bad, so the coach was confident that the game was not yet over: “When in possession of the ball, the team is so good that they can always score goals.”
However, such a comeback not only requires a special performance on the pitch, but also the support of the crowd. But after the weak performance, that support was no longer really there: “It’s understandable that the spectators were no longer fully positive about our team,” said Hürzeler: “It was then important for us to win them back on the pitch. We managed to do that with our performance. We brought energy back into the stadium.”
Yankuba Minteh scored the 1-2 goal in the 48th minute. After that, the momentum was on the side of the Seagulls: ”There are moments when it’s about winning the momentum. And when you have the momentum, it’s about keeping it and using it.” In recent weeks, the team had not always been able to do that. Against Ipswich and Nottingham, for example, the Seagulls only managed one draw each.
Ex-Mainzer Gruda celebrates his debut
But the German coach is not surprised by such disappointing results: “The Premier League is just extremely intense. It’s a cliché, but anyone can beat anyone because there’s always an individual quality in the opposition that you have to try to contain.” Shortly before the end of the game, Hürzeler provided some welcome news from a German perspective: he brought on former Mainz player Brajan Gruda, who had missed the start of the season due to injury and made his Premier League debut.
Brighton are in sixth place in the Premier League after their win against Tottenham and are only two points behind the Champions League places. Hürzeler’s team will be back in action on October 19 (4 p.m.) in Newcastle after the international break.
