How Brighton outsmarted Man City to teach the Premier League a valuable lesson

As Enzo Maresca began with his £326m midfield trio for the first time, the winner came from a midfielder. But not Enzo Fernandez, Elliot Anderson or Ayyoub Bouaddi, perhaps the mostexpensive triumvirate ever assembled in their position.

Yasin Ayari cost Brighton and Hove Albion a mere £3.5m. As part of a £25m midfield trio, their combined price about one-fifth of Fernandez's record-equalling fee, he flourished.

City's second consecutive league defeat was Brighton's second win in Manchester already this season, but the first at the Etihad Stadium in their history. Maybe underspending is the new overspending.

Brighton's funding is scarcely disguised: some of it comes from selling to other Premier League clubs, often Chelsea. They banked £70m from Manchester United for Carlos Baleba this summer, kept Ayari and have gone from strength to strength.

Brighton can be poster boys for parsimony,proof clubs can be transformed by smart trading. Theirs is a charge towards the Champions League places on the cheap; relatively speaking, anyway.

This would only be an asterisked achievement if they owed a top-four or top-five finish to City being deducted points. Yet the way Fabian Hurzeler 's side are going, they may not even need that.

They are only two points behind City now, arguably in the title race. This was a triumph of the small spenders; the small names, too.

Albion's annual sales can give them a relative anonymity but they are turning into the unexpected, underestimated challengers. While City's starting 11 cost about £750m, Brighton's arrived for nearer to £160m.

The cheapest man on the pitch was the homegrown Lewis Dunk. Three weeks from his 35th birthday, three days after missing the decisive penalty here in the Carabao Cup shootout between these teams, the captain was outstanding.