Man City 0 Albion 1: Ayari's early goal wins it at the Etihad

Brighton & Hove Albion^1,2,3 beat Manchester City 1-0 at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday. Yasin Ayari scored after 11 minutes, and the club says it is Albion’s first win there. The result leaves Albion two points behind City, the Premier League leaders.

On Wednesday City had knocked Albion out of the Carabao Cup on penalties at the same ground. This time 3,044 Albion fans made the trip north again.

The goal started with Lewis Dunk. His long diagonal pass found Diego Gomez in space on the right, and Gomez played the ball across goal to Maxim De Cuyper at the far post. De Cuyper set up Ayari to score from six yards. It was the Sweden midfielder’s third goal of the season.

City pushed for the rest of the afternoon. Iliman Ndiaye headed a free chance wide after 21 minutes and side-footed another over near the end. Dunk twice blocked shots from Erling Haaland, and Bart Verbruggen made two good saves in the second half, from Ndiaye and Matheus Nunes.

Albion had chances too. Three minutes into the second half De Cuyper was unmarked on the far side but shot over first time. With two minutes left, Jack Hinshelwood lifted the ball over Gianluigi Donnarumma and into the side netting.

“It means a lot for the team and for the club,” head coach Fabian Hurzeler said. “I’m really happy and I’m really proud of the players.”

He said the fans had made a second long trip to Manchester in four days. “We couldn’t give them the win then and they were definitely disappointed, but today they are happy.”

Albion play Getafe away in the Conference League on Thursday, kick-off 8pm. The next home game is Brentford at the Amex on Sunday 8 November at 2pm.