Manchester City travel to the south coast looking for a final win of another highly impressive season, that will guarantee the Premier League title for the second successive season. But to be crowned champions, they will have to navigate a tricky final match at Brighton, who secured their Premier League status for another season last weekend.
The blues are hot favourites to win the match and claim their fourth Premier League title, but are the stats in City’s favour, or do they indicate that the blues are in for a tough ride?
Sunday will be City’s twelve visit to Brighton in all competitions, but have won four and lost five of those previous eleven matches, which includes a League Cup penalty shoot-out defeat in 2008 following a 2-2 draw after extra time. The blues last league defeat at Brighton came during City’s promotion season in 1989, when City lost 2-1 at the Goldstone Ground.
The two teams first met in an FA Cup tie in 1924,which ended in a comfortable 5-1 victory for the bleus, and no doubt City fans would be happy with a repeat of that scoreline on Sunday. That remains as City’s biggest win at Brighton, while the heaviest defeat is 4-0 in January 1983.
The blues started last season with a low key 2-0 win at the newly promoted side, which was the first win of the incredible winning run, which saw City unbeaten and only dropping four points before the end of the year.
City have scored 16 goals in their eleven visits, but have only kept three clean sheets on their trips to the south coast. By comparison, Brighton have scored 19 goals at home to the blues, but have only kept two clean sheets, and have conceded two goals to the blues in each of the last two fixtures.
These two teams have met just once on the south coast in the month of May, which came in 1983 and ended with the blues recording a 1-0 away victory. As much as we’d like a win on Sunday to be comfortable, I’m sure the majority of blues would be happy with a repeat scoreline!
Who will come out on top on Sunday? Will the blues claim the three points that will secure the league title, or will the Seagulls ruin the party?