Brighton’s resist Nottingham Forest’s fightback after Lewis Dunk’s red card

Apart from goals, no-one knows what to expect when Brighton & Hove Albion play. With three more players dropping down injured as they went behind to Anthony Elanga’s early goal, few would have anticipated what followed, as João Pedro’s brace enabled them to survive Lewis Dunk’s red card to win for the first time in seven Premier League matches and so end Nottingham Forest’s long unbeaten home run.

In a frenzied final half hour – including 10 added minutes – Forest pulled a goal back through Morgan Gibbs-White’s penalty, survived a potential red-card offence for Murillo but saw Ryan Yates’s late point-blank header brilliantly saved by Bart Verbruggen.

With so many players injured and a crucial Europa League tie away to Athens on Thursday, Brighton, who equalised through Evan Ferguson, could have folded here if it were not for their togetherness and a bloody-mindedness to match their fluent football. This was more a day for fighting in the metaphorical trenches, as Forest, with only one win in nine league games now, threw everything at them before going down to their first home defeat in the Premier League since April.

Brighton have now both scored and conceded in a record 17 straight Premier League matches. But few have been as dramatic as this.

Brighton’s inability to keep a clean sheet was extended inside three minutes. Although they had already made another five changes, including recalling Dunk, Ferguson and Tariq Lamptey after injury, this did not mean their defences were necessarily stronger.

Indeed, with Lamptey playing high and wide on the left, Gibbs-White could scarcely believe how much space he was granted going down the right wing the other way. He kept checking to see whether Pascal Gross would come out to him, as Ansu Fati clearly wasn’t planning on tracking back. Gibbs-White kept progressing, biding his time before delivering the perfect centre over Chris Wood and two defenders for the unmarked Anthony Elanga to head in at the far post.

Brighton have made 53 changes to their starting Premier League XI, a divisional-high, but they were forced them into three more switches before the second second half. Fati went down feeling his calf as he was replaced by Pedro, and Lamptey had to be replaced by Jack Hinshelwood.

Pedro’s arrival improved Brighton and they equalised within five minutes of his introduction. Billy Gilmour invited Gross to drive on in midfield from where he found the feet of Ferguson who, dropping off Moussa Niakhaté, set himself with a neat first touch before swerving the ball low into the bottom corner with his second.

In the fourth minute of added time, Pedro headed Brighton into the lead, gaining momentum with his run to beat Ola Aina to power home Gross’s cross.

With Adam Lallana also being withdrawn at half-time, Brighton could have been forgiven for feeling sorry for themselves. Instead they went further ahead before the hour mark. Again Pedro was central: firstly he was pulled down by Wood; then he calmly converted the ensuing penalty, his ninth goal of the season in all competitions.

How much the Europa League is affecting Brighton’s league form is a moot point. But while it is difficult to predict which way their games will go, no-one can question the entertainment in them.

The last 20 plus minutes of this match was chaos. Play went on for about three minutes before Anthony Taylor was called pitchside to agree that Hinshelwood had fouled Callum Hudson-Odoi. The debate that followed was so prolonged, there was time for Dunk to be booked then sent off for separate moments of dissent. Gibbs-White kept his cool to convert the penalty for his first goal of the season.

Ahead of 10 minutes of added time, Gibbs-White missed a free header before Yates’s effort was also repelled. The manner in which the Brighton players and bench ran to their fans on the final whistle showed what this meant to them.