Sheer luck is an underestimated commodity in football. On a day when Brighton enjoyed loads of the stuff and Newcastle almost none, a PhD student could have used these 102 minutes on Tyneside as the basis for a thesis on the vagaries of the game’s fluctuating fortunes.
Yet if favourable tailwinds played a significant part in propelling Fabian Hürzeler’s side into fifth place, it would be wrong not to emphasise the influential roles of the outstanding Danny Welbeck and Brighton’s excellent goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen, and the resilience and poise of their teammates.
