Crystal Palace 0 Brighton and Hove Albion 0
Brighton and Hove Albion played out a forgettable goalless draw with Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park to stay a point apart in mid-table in the Premier League.
There was little to separate the teams in terms of performance, with the Albion shading the possession statistics while Palace had more shots but fewer on target.
This was, in truth, the extent of the difference between them, with neither side deserving more than what they left with.
If anyone deserved more it was the supporters, home and away, who maintained a ferocious atmosphere throughout in south London despite a paucity of anything happening on the pitch to justify it.
Home fans in particular drew enormous glee from a yellow card shown to Brighton’s Georginio Rutter for diving inside the box in the second half after VAR overturned an initial penalty decision.
Palace were without defender Marc Guehi, as Oliver Glasner confirmed before kick-off that he had bruised a bone in his foot towards the end of the Europa Conference League win on Thursday and would miss England’s next matches.
For Fabian Hürzeler, it was a rare case of an unchanged line-up, the first time this season that the Brighton boss had fielded the same starting line up.
Virtually all of the first-half action came in the opening 10 minutes. Maxence Lacroix almost turned Mats Wieffer’s cross into his own net with a wild swing at a clearance, then Brighton’s Diego Gomez brought a good stop out of Dean Henderson.
The Palace goalkeeper’s heroics were bettered moments later when his opposite number Bart Verbruggen flew across goal to deny Ismaila Sarr with a fine one-handed save.
That was it until the final minute of the half when Brighton should have gone ahead after Adam Wharton dawdled on the ball in midfield and was dispossessed by Gomez.
The Paraguay international charged upfield and slipped in Yankuba Minteh to his right but, despite options in the box, Minteh went for glory and found nothing of the sort, skewing an awful shot wide.
Palace messed up a chance of their own early in the second half, Sarr dancing around three defenders when there looked to have been room for a shot.
Instead, he picked out Daichi Kamada who spun on the ball and somehow missed the target from 10 yards.
Brighton were awarded a penalty when Rutter went over in the box before the decision was overturned following a pitchside check with the video assistant referee.
As a result of the VAR review, Rutter was booked for diving, having been deemed to have deliberately initiated the contact with Jaydee Canvot.
Kamada found space in the box to thump the ball into the side-netting as a tense derby entered its final quarter with only the merest sense that a goal might be coming.
It never did. Yeremy Pino came off the bench and went as close as anybody had managed in the final minute of stoppage time. But Verbruggen got down low at his near post to turn away a fierce drive.
