Brighton and Hove Albion 1 Bologna 0
The Seagulls can fly to Norway for their Europa Conference League play-off against Tromso on the back of two wins out of two in friendlies against serious Italian opposition.
The only goal of the game this afternoon (Saturday 15 August) came from Jack Hinshelwood who brought even more sunshine to the Amex on another scorcher of a day.
Brighton and Hove Albion head coach Fabian Hürzeler made only one change to the side that started the 3-0 win over AS Roma last Saturday, with Maxim De Cuyper replacing the injured Yankuba Minteh.
The scoreline could easily have been repeated, with the better chances coming in a fairly low-key first half – but plenty of press after the break.
Early on, Georginio Rutter stung Lukasz Skorupski’s palms and the Roma keeper cleared with his fists when Mats Wieffer met De Cuyper’s corner with an unmarked header at the far post.
The best chance before the break came when Olivier Boscagli chipped a lovely pass to Hinshelwood who should have scored but his volley was parried away by Skorupski.
Bart Verbruggen made his only save of note early in the second half from Nicolo Cambiaghi’s volley before Albion broke the deadlock in the 58th minute.
Rutter deserves praise for a barnstorming run to the line. Bologna cleared his ball across the face of goal to Wieffer on the edge of the box and his goalbound shot was flicked home by Hinshelwood.
The midfielder could have grabbed a second but blazed over and by then Hürzeler had rung the changes.
One of the substitutes, Babis Kostoulas, forced a good save from Skorupski in the closing stages as Albion finished their pre-season fixtures with a 100 per cent record.
Hürzeler praised Hinshelwood, saying: “Overall, I’ve been impressed with Jack since the second part of last season.
“He’s developing as a player but also as a personality. He’s growing into a leadership role and stepping up, even though he’s quite young. That’s exactly what we need right now.
“On the pitch, he always creates danger because he’s so active. He follows the game. He’s very present in the opponents’ box. He defends well and he has a great work rate.
“That’s why, both on and off the pitch, I’m really happy with him.”
The head coach added: “Today we played a good game. We controlled the game. We could have scored more goals and we kept a clean sheet.
“The boys, especially in the first half, felt a little bit tired. I think they felt the long pre-season and the tough week we had.
“But, overall, it was a good pre-season and a good end of the pre-season today. And, now the real season starts, and it’s up to us to show what we did in pre-season in the serious games.”
And that starts with the trip to Tromso, in the Arctic Circle, on Thursday (20 August) after the Norwegians beat Romanian side CFR Cluj 2-1 two days ago to win 7-1 on aggregate.
The winner of the two-leg tie will go through to the group stage of the competition.
Albion: Verbruggen, Wieffer (Costinha 77), Boscagli (Dunk 65), Vuskovic (Svoboda 65), Kadioglu (Igor 77), Ayari, Gross, De Cuyper (Osman 65), Gomez (Yohanna 65), Hinshelwood (Yalcouye 65), Georginio (Kostoulas 73).
Unused subs: Cashin, Cozier-Duberry, Steele, O’Mahony, Tasker
