Full-time: Wednesday 2-0 Brighton
No team has ever come back from two goals down in a Championship playoff so Wednesday will be feeling confident ahead of Monday’s second leg. Brighton will be feeling cursed, as they lost four players to injuries and had to play the last half an hour with only 10 players. Wednesday, who had been the better side even before that, took advantage through two well-taken goals. Brighton offered little by way of retort.
90+4 min: Rosenior stays alert at the back post to head away a dangerous cross by Forestieri. The first corner is cleared behind for another one. The second is met by Pudil, who fails to direct it on to the target from six yards.
90+2 min: Kayal booked for a smart foul on Joao - the Portuguese was racing down the line and looking likely to set up another goalscoring chance.
90+1 min: Matias booked for a dumb foul on Kayal.
90 min: The fourth official reveals there will be at least five more minutes.
89 min: There’s a likely to be a fair bit of stoppage time here, which means plenty of time for Brighton to get another goal to all but kill the tie. And don’t Brighton know it! They’re massed around their box, desperate to remain in the tie for Monday’s second leg.
86 min: With players expecting a cross into the box, Bannan takes a freekick shot to Pudil and then tries a shot from 25 yards. It flies into the stands.
85 min: Wednesday want more. Bruno has to hurl himself in front of a shot by Joao to stop their wish coming true.
84 min: Rosenior sends over a hopeful cross from the right. Baldock meets it with difficulty, and Westwood saves the header with ease. Just not happening for Brighton tonight.
Wednesday substitution: Joao on, Hooper off.
80 min: Bannan swings in a corner from the left. Stockdale punches clear. You get the impression the keeper is going to have plenty more action in the last 10 or so minutes, because Wednesday know that travelling with a three-goal lead would make them the best prepared visitors to Brighton since that stag party guy took took five spare sets of clothes.
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78 min: A random crossfield hit from midfield lands happily on the foot of Skalak on the right-hand side of the box, but his Skalak’s volley flies way off target.
75 min: There’s jubilant chanting and joyous dancing all around Hillsborough ... until the cheers turns to curses as Wednesday are denied a penalty after Matias goes down in the box following contact with Towell. But Matias initiated the contact so a spotkick would have been undeserved.
GOAL! Wednesday 2-0 Brighton (Lee 73)
Now that’s how to take advantage. There was an element of luck involved as Lee turned past Bruno at the edge of the area and the ball ran nicely into his path following ricochet off Forestieri’s pass, but he then slotted the ball smartly past Stockdale. Brighton are in all kinds of bother now.
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68 min: Here’s a chance out of nothing for Brighton! Loovens rolled a pass towards Pudil but it was far too short and Skalak darted in to take possession, lebing Pudil to scythe him down and receive a yellow card. Skalak gets up to take the freekick about 23 yards. He curls it over the wall ... and over the bar.
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Wednesday substitution: Matias on, Wallace off.
64 min: Brighton are sandbagged deep into their own half now, their attacking ambition having departed on a stretcher. Wednesday are dominating possession but finding it annoyingly difficult to infiltrate the visitors’ mass defence.
Wednesday substitution: Lopez off, Nuhiu on. That’s an attacking change by Carvalhal, who’s keen to kick Brighton while they’re players keep falling down.
61 min: Wednesday are trying to finish Brighton off here. But they’ll need to produce shots much better than the pea-roller that Forestieri has just sent in from 16 yards.
58 min: Another Brighton player is down injured! Knockaert appeared to twist his ankle as he chased a ball and is now in visible pain as medics attend to him. It looks like the visitors are going to be reduced to 10 men - and there’s still have an hour to go: how many more will they lose?
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56 min: There’s as real verve and enterprise to the way Wednesday play. The players and fans obviously enjoy it. Carvalhal, then, is not one of those self-regarding managers who needs to make football very complicated.
54 min: It’s starting to look like Brighton - having lost three players to injury on top of the two they are missing through suspension - will be satisfied with a narrow defeat here so that they can plot a comeback in the second leg. Wednesday sense the visitors vulnerability and are trying to ensure they head south with a bigger advantage...
52 min: Pudil curls a freekick towards the back post but no one manages to get on the end of it.
51 min: Bruno booked for clunking into Forestieri just outside the left-hand corner of the Brighton box.
49 min: An encouraging move by Brighton reaches a discouraging conclusion: after stringing together a host of passes that culminated in Wilson heading a shot over, Brighton turned around to see Sidwell sitting injured on the ground. It seems to be another muscle injury, meaning Hughton must make his third substitution of the match. What a time for Richie Towell to make his debut in English football! The 24-year-old was brilliant for Dundalk before joining the Seagulls in January.
47 min: Everyones got Wallace fever now! Pudil has a bang with the outside of his foot from at least 28 yards .... and it whizzes only a couple of yards wide.
46 min: Off we go again, with the same line-ups as finished the first half.
Half-time: Wednesday 1-0 Brighton
Brighton have a serious job on their hands here: they’ve lost two players to injury and are a goal down to a Wednesday team high on self-belief and a zeal to gain an insurmountable first-leg lead.
45+2 min: Skalak clips a freekick into the box. Wednesday try to scramble it away but Baldock sends the ball back into the danger zone. IT’s all very panicky as Wednesday battle to protect their lead before half-time. Wilson eventually wins a corner. Knockaert curls it in and Westwood makes a shoddy attempt to punch it away, merely adding to the chaos in the box. Eventually, and to the mighty relief of the crowd, Wednesday tidy up.
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GOAL! Wednesday 1-0 Brighton (Wallace 44)
Nothing wrong with that one at all! Wallace collected the ball wide on the left, shimmied in-field and then unleashed a sweet low left-footer from over 25 yards! Stockdale got very close to it and could perhaps have parried it but the sheer fizz seemed to catch the keeper out. Game on!
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41 min: Rosenior’s first involvement is to head away a cross by Lee at the back post, as little Barry Bannan tried to give the impression he was going to head it into the net.
Brighton substitutions: Hemed and Goldson off, Wilson and Rosenior on. Bruno will move into central defence as Rosenior slots in at right-back. This all amounts to a most unwelcome complication for Chris Hughton.
38 min: Now Goldson is reclining on the pitch and demanding attention. Wednesday fans react as if the visitors are taking the mick, but the fact is that Hemed is about to come off and Goldson could follow him, seemingly due to quad bother.
36 min: Brighton break down the left. Skalak lays the ball back for Bong to swing it into the box, which he fails to do, instead slicing it out of play on the other side.
34 min: Hemed is now off the pitch ... but seemingly preparing to come back on.
32 min: Gingerly. That’s how Hemed is walking at the moment and no other word is permitted. At least he was until he decided even that was too much strain so instead sat down on the pitch to await treatment. I don’t know how he became hurt but it looks like Brighton may have to make a substitution.
29 min: Knockaert sends the freekick arcing over to the far side of the box, as if he’s hit with a sand wedge. Sidwell is all alone and preparing to head the ball goalward ... until the keeper comes charging off his line to punch it away.
28 min: Wallace booked for ending a dinky run by Kayal with a crude chop. Freekick to Brighton about 30 yards out, a little to the right of goal.
25 min: With Wednesday enjoying a period of buoyancy, Brighton are trying to defuse things by stroking the ball around at the back. But it’s actually having the opposite effect, enraging home fans still further and making Wednesday harass them all the harder to get the ball back. If Wednesday can keep this up, you’d fancy them to score.
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23 min: With the home crowd still booing and Carvalhal still interrogating the fourth official, Wednesday’s players go about trying to get a valid goal. Hooper flicks on another long ball, this time to Lee, who lifts it over a defender before fluffing his shot from the edge of the area.
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Goal disallowed!
Delight erupted around Hillsborough after Forestieri appeared to fire the hosts in front ... but to widespread amazement and anger, the referee disallowed the goal following consultation with the linesman. Forestieri raced on to a long punt from the goalkeeper, took one touch with his chest and then lashed a low shot into the net from 18 yards. But as players and fans celebrated, Andre Marriner went for a natter with the linesman and the pair came to the conclusion that Forestieri was in an offside position when the keeper launched the ball forward. I’d like to see another replay but from what I’ve seen so far the decision seems correct.
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17 min: Goldson delivers a corner from right. Hemed wriggles free of his marker again and sends another header towards goal, but this time it takes a nick off a defender and goes just wide.
14 min: The game is not quite going through a lull, more a period of hectic scrappiness.
11 min: Amid pinball in the Brighton box, Forestieri goes down following contact with the forearm of Bong. The striker’s making out that he’s been properly clumped but the it looked more like an accidental and harmless collision. The ref was right not to give in to the penalty appeals.
10 min: Stockdale flings him to his left to tip away a 20-yard drive from Wallace following a pacey and tidy build-up by Wednesday. This match is coming to the boil nicely!
8 min: Brighton threaten for the first time. Knockaert swapped down the right before crossing for Baldock, whose shot is deflected behind for a corner. Skalak sends in a vicious curler. Hemed leaps high to glance a header onto the butt of the post!
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7 min: Hunt curls a cross in from the right. Four Wednesday players await it but Greer gets to the ball before them all and heads powerfully clear.
5 min: Wednesday have had most of the ball so far as Brighton sit deep and challenge them to pick a way through. Once the hosts make it to the centre of the pitch the tackles start flying in. It’s a highly-charged deadlocked so far.
2 min: Brighton hurtle down the right and play the ball into Hooper in the box. He pulls the ball back to Forestieri 14 yards from goal. But the striker takes a heavy first touch, allowing Knoackaert to welly the ball to safety.
1 min: Brighton kick off. Wednesday nick the ball off them within 10 seconds. The signs after 60 seconds are that this is going to be frantic, hurly-burly affair. But let’s not rush to judgement.
Here come the teams. Wednesday are in their traditional blue and white stripes, while Brighton are wearing the bright yellow made famous by stewards everywhere.
The managers pre-match blurbs:
Carvalhal: “Absolutely nothing what happened in the Champions has finished Now is another competition. Now it’s 50/50 for each team Both teams have quality and play good attacking organised football. In the semi-final there are no favourites. I don’t expect one team to score much more than the other.”
Hughton: As above, basically.
Preamble:
Hello and welcome to the first leg of this Championship playoff semi-final. One of these clubs will meet Hull City or Derby County in the final to fight for a long-awaited return to the top-flight. And the top-flight might just need Wednesday, in particular, at the moment – because someone has to stop those zesty upstarts from Leicester City.
Wednesday’s last Premier League match was a 4-0 spanking of none other than Leicester back in 2000, and if they had been around this season they might have soured Leicester’s party cake just as they did in 1929, when Wednesday were crowned champions of England after beating Leicester into second place, the Foxes’ highest finish until a couple of weeks ago. Pickings have been rather slimmer for Wednesday in recent years and they even flopped into the third tier before re-emerging in 2012. But optimism is flowing again since Milan Mandaric sold the club to a Thai owner (after all, anything Leicester can do, etc and so on) and they’ve defied gloomy expectations and played some slinky football this season under Carlos Carvalhal, though stuttering form at the end meant they just about finished sixth in the Championship.
But Brighton have been playing slinky stuff too and went agonisingly close to winning automatic promotion, missing out on goal difference despite being the joint top-scorers in the division, a fact that at least proved, for the benefit of Norwich fans, that Chris Hughton really can foster attacking football when he wants to. Both of the previous meetings between Brighton and Wednesday this season ended 0-0 but don’t let that put you off: these teams have goals in them and Wednesday, spearheaded by the sharp Fernando Forestieri and Gary Hooper, will be especially eager to capitalise on their home leg because they don’t often win on the road. But Brighton are excellent away so are as capable of winning at Hillsborough as they are at the Amex. In both legs they will be roared on by fans who, in some cases, were not even born when Brighton were last in the top division, which was in 1983 when they were relegated along with Manchester City and Swansea - and then lost in the FA Cup final just to deepen the pain. The club was in the Championship relegation zone when Hughton took charge a year and ago: now they are three games away from the Premier League. Big match mode: activated!
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Teams:
Wednesday: Westwood; Hunt, Lees, Loovens, Pudil; Wallace, Lee, Lopez, Bannan; Hooper, Forestieri.
Subs: Wildsmith, Hutchinson, Matias, Nuhiu, Helan, Joao, Sasso
Brighton: Stockdale; Bruno, Goldson, Greer, Bong; Knockaert, Sidwell, Kayal, Skalak; Baldock, Hemed.
Subs: Maenpaa, Calderon, Rosenior, Towell, LuaLua, Murphy, Wilson.
Independent adjudicator: A Marriner
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