Manchester City 0-1 Brighton: Yasin Ayari's 11th-minute strike is enough to end City's unbeaten home run

Manchester City had the ball, the territory and eight corners to Brighton's two, and none of it mattered. Yasin Ayari scored in the 11th minute, finishing off a Maxim De Cuyper pass, and Brighton spent the remaining 79 minutes making sure it stayed that way.

Pep Guardiola's side dominated the numbers that are supposed to decide these games — 62.4% possession, 503 of 597 passes completed — and still went the whole match without scoring. Erling Haaland started up front and could not find the breakthrough that has carried City through so many afternoons like this one.

Brighton did exactly what they came to do

Three Brighton players were booked — Chema Andrés, De Cuyper himself and Pascal Groß — the kind of accumulation that usually comes with a side defending a lead by any means available. It worked. City's possession translated into pressure but not into clear chances, and Fabian Hürzeler's substitutions in the second half, five of them in total, were about seeing the game out rather than chasing a second goal.

Guardiola turned to his bench too — Rayan Cherki and Phil Foden both came on, along with Allan Elias and Nico O'Reilly — looking for something City's front three had not produced in the first hour. None of it broke Brighton down.

Match facts

• 11' — Yasin Ayari (Brighton & Hove Albion), assisted by Maxim De Cuyper

Line-ups

• Manchester City (4-3-3): Donnarumma; Dias, Khusanov, Gvardiol; Nunes, Anderson, Fernández, Bouaddi; Haaland, Doku, Ndiaye
• Brighton & Hove Albion (4-2-3-1): Verbruggen; Dunk, Vuskovic, Boscagli, Costinha; Ayari, Andrés; Groß, Kostoulas, De Cuyper; Gómez

The Etihad's unbeaten run ends

Every one of City's home Premier League fixtures so far this season — against AFC Bournemouth, Coventry City, Sunderland and Ipswich Town — had ended in a win. Brighton are the side that broke that run, and they did it with a single goal and six fewer corners than their hosts, which says plenty about how City's dominance of the ball translated into almost nothing once it reached the final third.

City's wobble is becoming a pattern

This is now two defeats in City's last five across all competitions — a 2-1 loss at Aston Villa in the league and a 2-4 collapse at home to Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League sandwiched between four wins, including a 5-1 rout of AEK Athens. There is no crisis in those numbers, but there is a pattern: City's two defeats have both come against sides prepared to sit in and break quickly, exactly what Brighton did on Saturday.

Brighton's form is the story of their season

For Brighton, this is the continuation of one of the division's best runs. They had won four of their previous five league games before this one, including a 5-0 demolition of Crystal Palace, before a defeat at Liverpool briefly interrupted it. Beating the champions away from home puts that stretch back on track in the most emphatic way possible.

What's next

City went into the weekend top of the table on 21 points but with a goal difference of plus 11, already behind Brighton's plus 16 despite the gap in points — a reminder of how comfortably the Seagulls have been winning when they do win. Brighton themselves sat 3rd on 16 points, and this result is exactly the kind of away performance that keeps a European-chasing season on course.