Brentford recorded their first home Premier League win since December with a 4-2 win over Brighton, who had Joao Pedro sent off and also had Jan Paul van Hecke stretchered off with a head injury.
Bryan Mbeumo was the man at the heart of the victory for the Bees, scoring two and setting up Yoane Wissa for another.
It was a sparkling performance from the winger, who now has 18 Premier League goals this season.
Danny Welbeck headed Brighton level at the end of the first half but Brentford looked to be cruising to victory at 3-1 up when Joao Pedro was shown a straight red card for violent conduct after an altercation with Nathan Collins.
As the ball hung in the air from Bart Verbruggen’s punt, Pedro tussled with Collins and, in a fit of petulance, flung an arm into the face of the Brentford defender. VAR judged violent conduct on the part of Pedro, who was dismissed to leave Brighton to endure half an hour a player short.
But Brighton made it a tricky final quarter when Kaoru Mitoma got the game back to 3-2.
However, the home side wrapped up the points in stoppage time when Christian Norgaard found the net.
The game ended on a sour note when Brighton defender Van Hecke had to receive eight minutes of medical treatment and was stretchered off requiring oxygen after a clash of heads. Brighton boss Fabian Hurzeler was unable to provide an update on the player in his post-match press conference.
Brighton are now five without a win in the Premier League. During the second half the away fans chanted ‘you don’t know what you’re doing’ towards Hurzeler following a substitution to bring off Danny Welbeck while down to 10.
When asked what he thought about the chants, Hurzeler replied: “That’s fine. They have their opinion. The team played well after that.”
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