Carlos Baleba finished his first Premier League start in tatters. The 19-year-old had given everything to Brighton’s cause, and in the final minutes he could be seen bent double, gasping for breath, telling his goalkeeper to keep hold of the ball for a few seconds longer, like a man begging for mercy.
By this point he looked a little disheveled, with his socks fallen down and shorts rolled up. His final act was to chop down Liverpool’s galloping Ryan Gravenberch, for which he was rightly booked. And when the whistle blew on this wild 2-2 draw, he dropped to the grass in relief and stretched out the cramp in his legs.
