By Tim Hodges from the Amex
Brighton & Hove Albion 4 Huddersfield Town 1
The Albion kept up their play-off charge with an emphatic win today (Saturday 2 March) with January signing Leo Ulloa becoming the first Seagulls player to notch up a hat-trick at the Amex.
Bruno Saltor captained Albion in the absence of both Gordon Greer and Liam Bridcutt, though Inigo Calderon led the Seagulls on to the pitch.
The action took a while to get going with both teams looking a little cautious, Albion perhaps adapting to a few changes in personnel in recent weeks, with both Wayne Bridge and Vicente Rodriguez missing through injury and illness.
Gary Dicker and Will Buckley were both handed starts and it was Buckley who had Albion’s first shot on target but it was a tame effort that didn’t trouble Alex Smithies in the Huddersfield Town goal.
The match was fairly even until Albion won their first corner after some 15 minutes of play. David Lopez floated the ball to Buckley on the edge of the area but the midfielder’s volley was charged down, although it looked like Neil Danns may have used an arm.
Albion won another corner a few minutes later. Again the ball was floated to Buckley in almost the same position. Again the shot was charged down.
But this time it fell to Dean Hammond. He quickly sent it into the path of Andrea Orlandi who fired in a pinpoint cross which was headed home, almost bullet like, by Ulloa to put the Albion in front.
Just three minutes later a well-worked and quick free kick sent Orlandi clear and with just Smithies to beat the Italian-born midfielder looked to have had too much time to think about his shot. In all credit to him Smithies made a great save.
Albion began to look in charge but Town had other ideas. Danns was lucky to escape with just a yellow card after a thigh high full-studded tackle on Hammond. Then he and Sean Scannell combined in a Huddersfield attack. The ball dropped for James Vaughan who scored with an acrobatic overhead kick to send the teams in level at half time.
Ashley Barnes replaced Dicker shortly after the break and had a good chance with a free header soon after coming on. He was then involved as David had a shot cleared off the line by Peter Clarke.
Huddersfield replaced scorer Vaughan with Lee Novak. Although under increasing pressure from Albion, it appeared that Mark Robins felt his team could still win the match.
Albion responded by replacing the tired-looking Buckley with Craig Mackail-Smith although some thought that CMS would be a straight swap for Ulloa.
Mackail-Smith’s industry helped the Seagulls win a corner. This time David floated the ball into the middle of the area and Ulloa timed his run perfectly to guide a superb header past Smithies and put Albion back in front.
Before many fans had finished celebrating, the Argentine showed he’s not all about headed chances by seizing on a mistake between Jack Hunt and Smithies. Ulloa dribbled round the Town keeper and slotted the ball home for his hat-trick, putting Albion 3-1 in front.
Huddersfield looked shell-shocked. Albion fans were ecstatic. The introduction of the Brighton-born former Albion defender Joel Lynch for Huddersfield went almost unnoticed.
How Lynch must have wished he could be part of this Albion revolution.
Three minutes after Lynch’s introduction Mackail-Smith scampered away and was hauled down by the unfortunate Hunt. From the resulting penalty David sent Smithies the wrong way to complete an Albion rout and in some way extinguish the memory of that 7-1 mauling Huddersfield gave the Albion back in League 1 in what now seems a footballing lifetime ago in August 2009.
Four years on, a very much changed Brighton and Hove Albion could be marching towards the Premier League.
Albion: Kuszczak; Bruno, El-Abd, Upson, Calderon; David, Hammond, Dicker; Buckley, Orlandi, Ulloa. Subs: Ankergren, Greer, Dunk, Forster-Caskey, LuaLua, Barnes, Mackail-Smith.
Huddersfield: Smithies; Hunt, Clarke, Gerrard, Dixon; Gobern, Danns; Robinson, Clayton, Scannell; Vaughan. Subs: Bennett, Lynch, Norwood, Wallace, Arfield, Lee, Novak.
Referee: Gavin Ward (Surrey).
