Matt O'Riley secures Brighton hero status on injury return as ex-Celtic star downs Manchester City

The £26million summer signing from Celtic endured a nightmare start to his Brighton career when he was seriously injured within less than 10 minutes of his debut in August. The midfielder suffered ankle ligament damage after being on the end of a poor challenge from Crawley Town captain Jay Williams in a Carabao Cup clash to leave him requiring surgery. The Denmark international has spent the past 10 weeks on the sidelines but made his return to the Brighton bench on Saturday evening for the match against Pep Guardiola's defending champions.

O'Riley was brought on in the 57th minute for his Premier League debut in what proved a decisive switch by head coach Fabian Hurzeler as the substitute appeared in the area in the 83rd minute to tuck away Joao Pedro’s pass for his first Brighton goal just minutes after Pedro had himself equalised following a penalty box scramble.

Speaking on Sky Sports afterwards, a delighted O'Riley said: "Strange I guess in some ways but it’s really nice to just be back playing football. It obviously wasn’t the start I could have hoped for but I tried to stay positive through my rehab, focus on the things I could control, and here I am today.

“[The manager] just told me to go and play in that right pocket. In the first-half we played with a double six, and one 10 kind of in a box, whereas second half we played with two eights dropping out to the spaces on the side and I think that just gave us a little bit more joy. I was just popping up in a few areas there and I think we got quite a bit of success from it.”

On his goal he added: “I just tried to make the run in the little half space. The manager kept talking about the eights making those runs and hitting the diagonals out to the wide man. I think sometimes if you do that enough you end up getting on the end of it yourself. I was just lucky to be there to be honest.”

Erling Haaland’s goal after 23 minutes had looked like being City’s winner for much of the game, the Norway striker finishing off following a sublimely calibrated pass from Mateo Kovacic. Yet this was a display of supreme courage the home side with Hurzeler’s players refusing to let go lightly of a chance to leap into the top four. They deservedly levelled when half the City team descended on Danny Welbeck as he received the ball in the box and in the panic no one spotted Pedro who leapt onto the scene to finish.

And it fell to Pedro to provide the ball for O’Riley, making only his second appearance, who capped a famous night on the south coast with the coolest finish amid scintillating drama.