Hurzeler thrilled by Brighton’s response to Struijk red card

Syndicated reporting provided by Stats Perform and reviewed by the SoccerNews editorial team.

Fabian Hurzeler was full of praise for his Brighton team after they overcame Pascal Struijk’s second-half sending off to beat Sunderland 2-0 at the Stadium of Light.

Having brushed aside Arsenal before the international break, Brighton took the lead in the 53rd minute when Maxim De Cuyper was on hand to finish past Robin Roefs.

But just four minutes after going in front, the Seagulls were reduced to 10 men when Struijk was penalised for a last-man foul on Wilson Isidor, following a VAR review.

With over half-an-hour to play with a player down, Brighton showed a steely determination to shut out Sunderland before substitute Jaouen Hadjam scored in the third minute of second-half stoppage time to seal all three points.

Brighton have now won their last three games in the Premier League, while also keeping a clean sheet in four of their six games.

Hurzeler’s side remain third in the league table, two points behind leaders Manchester City, who play on Sunday.

On his team’s performance, Hurzeler said, “It was a different performance [to the win over Arsenal] because we had difficult circumstances and faced different adversities.

“It was key for us today to have a really good defensive mindset. I feel it was a deserved win and I have to praise my players.

“They really stuck together, faced adversity no matter how hard it was. They did the basics really well and that is so crucial in a game like this, especially when you are one man down.”

Another successful Albion away day! https://t.co/xVAJtqAMpu

— Brighton & Hove Albion (@BHAFC) October 10, 2026

For Sunderland, they have now suffered their fourth defeat of the league campaign.

In this fixture, the Black Cats mustered an expected goals (xG) of 0.64 from 12 attempts, and will surely feel they should have done better after Brighton were reduced to 10 men.

The result means Sunderland have now lost back-to-back Premier League home games without scoring for the first time since April/May 2017, with this the first time they have lost two of their opening three home matches of a league season since 2017-18 (also L2).

On his side’s defeat, Regis Le Bris said, “It was a disappointing result, to be fair. Think we had several chances in the game. The first half was balanced. It was intense, really tight. We created a few chances, but we lacked quality in the final third.”

“We missed composure. Our ideas were good. Our energy, we tried until the end. But we lacked composure at the end.”

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