Manchester City returned to the top of the Premier League table, restoring the single point lead over Liverpool and, better still for Pep Guardiola’s side, they might have successfully navigated one of their more difficult remaining assignments. Brighton and Hove Albion arrived with a formidable away record, both according to form and across the season as a whole, and held out for the best part of an hour before the bounces went the champions’ way.
Until Riyad Mahrez’s second-half opener, it had threatened to be a nervous night at the Etihad. They all are to an extent at this stage of the season but rarely have the defending champions lacked fluency in the manner they did during the first half. A point – or even a third successive away victory – did not look impossible for Graham Potter’s side at that stage City, though, were always the protagonists and, though they perhaps got a little lucky, they made that luck.
