Brighton and Hove Albion rallied from a goal down to pile more misery on Chelsea by beating the Blues 2-1 in a Premier League game played on Saturday at Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea took the lead through Conor Gallagher, but Brighton fought back to deservedly claim a first win at the Bridge courtesy of Danny Welbeck and Julio Enciso goals.
Brighton dominated the game from the start as they created chance after chance, but were only denied by Chelsea custodian Kepa Arrizabalaga
Evan Ferguson had the Seagulls’ first attempt towards the Chelsea goal when he found the side net after Kaoru Mitoma’s low cross.
Few moments later, Mitoma created another chance for Brighton when he went past two defenders and found Alexis Mac Allister in space but the Argentinian put his effort wide of the far post. Ferguson got another chance; his shot beat Arrizabalaga but agonizingly came back off the bar.
Despite having a far from convincing start to the game, Chelsea opened the scoring in the 14th minute through Gallagher’s deflected shot off Lewis Duck which took it away from Robert Sanchez and into the back of the net.
Having gone down, Brighton responded positively and continued creating goal scoring chances. Solly March had his right-footed effort over the bar while few minutes later, Arrizabalaga made a brilliant save to deny Mitoma
The Chelsea goalie then made a full stretch save to tip away Ferguson’s header after a nice ball by Enciso.
Ferguson then got subbed off with an injury for Welbeck and it never took the forward many minutes to make an impact. The former Manchester United and Arsenal striker got on the end of Pascal Gross teased cross to head into the back of net ahead of two Chelsea defenders.
The game went into the break on level terms, but just as the opening half, Brighton started off the closing half brightly with Enciso and Welbeck having attempts towards Chelsea’s goal which got saved by the goalkeeper.
With need to adjust on their overall performance, Chelsea’s interim manager Frank Lampard made a quadruple substitution as he introduced on Recce James, Hakim Ziyech, Matteo Kovacic and Joao Felix for Enzo Fernandez, Wesley Fofana, Christian Pulisic and Raheem Sterling.
But it remained one-way traffic for Brighton as they continued creating their chances in search for a winner.
Enciso beat off James and Chalobah to send his shot against the near post. His shot rebounded off the post to fall to Welbeck, but the forward failed to adjust his body position and sent his effort wide.
Chelsea on the other end had two chances to go ahead, but Sanchez made a double save to deny James and Mudryk.
With less than 20 minutes left on the clock, Brighton finally got the winner from Enciso’s ferocious strike from nearly 30 yards out, giving Arrizabalaga no chance.
Chelsea had a couple of chances late on in the game to level matters but Gallagher and Mudryk failed to find the target.
Lampard has now lost all his three games since he was appointed as interim manager at the start of April.
For Brighton, they continue their European Football push as they now sit fifth on the log with 49 points from 29 games.
