Brighton boss Fabian Hurzeler said his only disappointment was not winning by more after seeing his side thump Southampton 4-0 at St Mary’s to climb to eighth in the Premier League.
The Seagulls ripped Southampton apart throughout with goals from Joao Pedro, Georginio Rutter, Kaoru Mitoma and Jack Hinshelwood taking them to within three points of the top six.
But for some wasteful finishing and a brilliant performance from Saints goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale, the scoreline might have been even more impressive for Hurzeler’s Europe-chasing side.
He said: “Overall we are very happy with the performance. The only thing that we can really regret today is that we didn’t score more goals. Ramsdale had an outstanding performance today, he made several really, really good saves.”
The Seagulls have now won three games in a row but Hurzeler was quick to dampen talk of Europe with high-flying Bournemouth next up at the Amex on Tuesday.
“For us it’s very important to stay grounded and to understand why we have this momentum. It only comes from hard work every day on the training ground. We must take it game by game.”
Joao Pedro opened the scoring when he coolly scooped the ball over the advancing Ramsdale to give Hurzeler’s side a deserved lead after 23 minutes.
After Cameron Archer had an equaliser chalked off for offside for Southampton, Brighton upped the intensity to take the game away from them.
Joe Aribo was adamant that he had been fouled by Rutter in the build-up but referee Darren Bond waved away the protests and Yankuba Minteh was left with the simple task of rolling the ball across the six-yard box for Rutter to prod home his fifth league goal of the season.
Another brilliant touch from Joao Pedro sent Mitoma clear and the Japanese forward coolly dinked the ball over Ramsdale to score Brighton’s third goal of the match and his fifth in seven games and cue a mass exodus in the home stands.
Those who had remained saw Brighton add a simple fourth as Brajan Gruda’s corner fell to the unmarked Hinshelwood at the far post from where the 19-year-old scored his second goal of the season.
Ivan Juric has now seen his Southampton side concede 25 goals in nine games and was at a loss to explain why his players are so far short of being competitive in the Premier League.
Asked what went wrong, the Croatian simply said, “everything”. He added: “It was just a huge difference between the two teams, in intensity, in quality, in everything. It was something good in my life as a coach, not conceding goals.
“If you see the numbers I have in the past, it is not the same situation. Last year I had 19 clean sheets – we are not good enough to defend in this way. I had a sensation that there was a huge difference between these two teams. I never had that feeling before.”
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