Gull-Mouth Action special _ Stalemate at Selhurst Park - recap and analysis.mp4
Ian Hart’s take on Brighton’s 0-0 draw against Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park
Derby Day…A point gained or two dropped? Not the best I’ve ever watched but by no means the worst.
I think the real acid test is to, having been there live at Selhurst Park, was seeing what the MOTD editorial team made of it all?
So Monday arrived and I did just that, and I have to say I’m firmly still in the two points dropped camp.
Palace looked decidedly leggy after their midweek European adventure coupled with the best defender at the club, Marc Guehi, sat in the stands.
All credit to both keepers, who - whilst clear cut scoring chances were scarce - they both pulled off saves which effectively saved their respective teams from defeat.
But perhaps the outcome rested on when Bognor based official EPL official Tim Robinson, who gave a good account of himself overall, and got almost every call right, including correcting himself via VAR when he wrongly gave the Albion a second half penalty.
And I doubt I’m not the only Albion fan who’s almost a tad embarrassed but Rutter’s reaction after getting ‘fouled’ by the invisible man. He went down like Greg Louganis (Tom Daley for younger readers) and was, after the VAR process, quite rightly yellow carded for his simulation.
At 23, you could argue he is still a little raw and a tad naïve/inexperienced playing in the best league on the planet, so perhaps after the dust has settled, it’s all chalked up to his career development?
Hopefully with the ongoing fallout from this, he will come out a better player from the whole experience.
But is it a quandary. As Albion fans would we actually have been ‘happy’ to win an A23 derby in this manner?
Anthony Knockaert escaped with only a yellow
Back in 2019, a memorable 2-1 Albion win in South London was a hotly disputed by our hosts when Albion midfielder Anthony Knockaert was lucky to escape with only a yellow in the first minute after an X-certificate challenge in the first minute of the game.
But he stayed on the pitch and eventually scored the winner in a memorable victory. But is a foul different to a blatant dive?
Back in 2019, I revelled in Albion’s victory. On Sunday, without VAR, the Albion convert the spot kick and win but subsequent proof by TV pictures that it wasn’t a penalty on Sunday would I have felt the same way?
Yet overall from a Brighton perspective, I still came away from Selhurst Park on Sunday, reiterated the following day when watching it back on TV, knowing rather than just thinking that Palace were there for the taking.
But of course I’m always going to say that, however I did get a neutral viewpoint, and quite a significant one as we were joined on Sunday at Selhurst Park by Talk Sport’s Jim White.
From the outset, Jim was intrigued by the whole premise of the ‘Derby’, 45 miles separated the Goldstone Ground and Selhurst Park, but he quickly witnessed the whole intensity of the occasion.
As Jim told us, at the end for the neutral, despite the lack of goals, it was still both a high octane and entertaining classic domestic football encounter, but a draw was probably a fair result.
Yet again a tale of me and my blue and white tinted spectacles!
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