Man City 0-1 Brighton Stats: Early Ayari Goal Deals Premier League Leaders Second Straight Loss Analyst

Manchester City were beaten by Brighton at the Etihad Stadium for the first time ever. Re-live thisPremier Leaguegame with our Man City vs Brighton stats page.

Brighton & Hove Albion avenged their midweek EFL Cup fourth-round loss to Manchester City, with Yasin Ayari 's early goal securing a 1-0 win over the Premier League leaders at the Etihad Stadium. Ayari found the back of the net with Brighton's first meaningful attack, beating Gianluigi Donnarumma from close range to take advantage of Matheus Nunes ' error.

City, who have now lost back-to-back league games, pushed for an equaliser, with Iliman Ndiaye passing up several chances and Jérémy Doku seeing a last-gasp strike smothered by Bart Verbruggen as Brighton held on for the win. The visitors' goal came from a quick Lewis Dunk free-kick 11 minutes in.

Nunes missed his chance to clear Diego Gómez 's squared cross, and Maxim De Cuyper was hovering behind to lay it off to Ayari, who swept into the bottom-right corner for his third league goal this term. Ndiaye glanced a header wide of the far post and had City's only shot on target of the first half when he fired straight at Verbruggen.

Gomez forced a smart stop out of Donnarumma from a tight angle, while Dunk was on hand at the other end to block Erling Haaland 's clearest opening before the break. Brighton had a golden chance to double their lead just three minutes into the second half when Ayari picked out an unmarked De Cuyper, but the Belgian met the bobbling cross first time and fired over the crossbar.

Ndiaye then had an arrowed shot tipped onto the woodwork by Verbruggen, and Nunes almost made amends for his earlier mistake when he latched onto Rayan Cherki 's through ball, but the Brighton goalkeeper got a strong hand to his curler. Ndiaye again fired wide from a tight angle before Jack Hinshelwood dinked a chance to seal the victory into the side netting after being threaded through by Georginio Rutter.

Doku had the chance to snatch a point at the death, only for Verbruggen to stand tall and keep out the close-range poke and hold onto his clean sheet. Brighton's Stubborn Defence Frustrates Maresca's Men Fabian Hürzeler spoke about Brighton's need for "revenge" after their penalty-shootout defeat in the EFL Cup on Wednesday, with the sides fighting it out in a 2-2 draw.

Just like in that match, Brighton took the lead, but this was only the second time they had ever opened the scoring in a Premier League game against City, after May 2019 (a 4-1 loss). It was also the first time since February last year that City have conceded first in consecutive top-flight matches, following their 2-1 loss to Aston Villa last weekend.

Brighton are the top scorers in the Premier League this term and were not going to be kept quiet for long; Ayari has now scored two goals in his last three league games, more than in his previous 14 combined (one). And De Cuyper - who will have been disappointed not to be on the scoresheet himself - already has as many Premier League goal involvements this season (five) as in 2025-26 (five in 30 games).