A well-timed Solly Mars goal boosted Brighton’s bid for Europe as they sank derby rivals Crystal Palace 1-0 in the Premier League.
Month of March scored the winner in the 15th minute – on March 15 – to move the Seagulls level on points with sixth-placed Liverpool with a game in hand.
She also provided a double celebration for Brighton boss Tony Bloom after his horse Energumene won the Championship Chase at Cheltenham.
Problems are mounting with Palace, after their winless campaign stretched to 11 matches.
They were forced to give teenage goalkeeper Joe Whitworth a professional start with No. 1 player Vicente Guaita and deputy Sam Johnston injured.
At 19 years and 15 days old, Whitworth was the youngest goalkeeper to appear in a Premier League match since Ben Alnwick played for Sunderland in December 2005.
The former Palace ball boy got off to a nervous start with an unconvincing header just outside the area, but Brighton couldn’t punish him.
However, it was Jason Still who was the busier goalkeeper in the early stages despite Palace not having a shot on goal in their last three matches.
Wilfried Zaha at least corrected that mistake early on when he tested Steele with an angled drive.
Steele made a save with a knee after Joachim Andersen slotted a through ball into the Brighton defense and sent Michael Ulis into the goal, before Edson Edwards was saved.
Whitworth got his first decent touch of the ball when he caught a long-range shot from Kaoru Mituma.
But he was beaten moments later when Mituma sent a clean run to score with a neat finish.
Sully March put the game to sleep
(PA wire)
Palace could have equalized before half-time but Andersen’s free-kick was kicked in by Ulissi at the goal and the ball returned.
They would also have gone down to 10 men after Cheick Doucoure, who had come back from the hold and was already booked, made an attempt to break Moises Caicedo as he was about to go off but somehow escaped the yellow.
Understandably, the Palace midfielder did not come off in the second half as Patrick Vieira sent Ibreche Eze in his place.
The second half was delayed after a floodlight failure plunged the pitch into darkness, and referee Peter Banks stopped the match, apparently because his headset was no longer working.
Once play resumed, Whitworth highlighted his potential with a stunning reaction except to deflect Alexis McAllister’s header into the corner.
McAllister almost added a second with a chipped shot and a shot went wide, but in the end Brighton had to hold on to March’s goal for nine minutes of stoppage time.
Seagulls boss Roberto De Zerbi believes the in-form winger deserves an England call-up, so the seventh goal in March was a salutary reminder for Gareth Southgate, who announced his latest squad on Thursday.
The 28-year-old also scored in last week’s draw at Leeds, and if he gets the nod from Southgate it will truly be March.
DISCLAIMER:- Denial of responsibility! olorinews.com is an automatic aggregator around the global media. All the content are available free on Internet. We have just arranged it in one platform for educational purpose only. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials on our website, please contact us by email at loginhelponline@gmail.com The content will be deleted within 24 hours.