Chelsea 3-2 Brighton: Enzo Fernandez's brace helps Mauricio Pochettino's 10 men seal vital win after Conor Gallagher's first-half red card

Another smack in the face for Mauricio Pochettino’s Chelsea but this time with a better outcome.

When referee Craig Pawson awarded a penalty for handball against Levi Colwill in the 100th minute of another hectic afternoon at Stamford Bridge, the latest difficult day in Pochettino’s return to London appeared complete. Chelsea had led 2-0 after 20 minutes and 3-1 as we entered added time. So a draw would have been a disappointment to say the least.

But as freezing rain swept across the field and Brighton’s supporters prepared to welcome a recovery that had not appeared likely, Pawson was invited to view the pitch side monitor where it was revealed the ball had not struck Colwill’s raised arm from Simon Adingra’s cross at all. It had actually caught the England defender full in the face.

So a disaster in the making became simply another moment of high drama on what transpired to be a compelling afternoon. After the full-time whistle, there was some more action. Both sets of players, substitutes and coaching staffs appeared keen to get hold of each other in and around the centre circle. Somewhere in the middle of it all was referee Pawson.

There didn’t seem a great point to any of it, nor indeed an obvious cause. Simply put, it was merely a result of the tension and jeopardy that cloaked this game towards the end. For large parts of it, such a denouement didn’t seem likely.

Chelsea just about deserved to win but made things hard for themselves once again. Two goals up early through Enzo Fernandez and Colwill, they were dominant until the Argentine Facundo Buonanotte pulled one back out of nothing just before half-time. And then, a minute later, Chelsea captain Conor Gallagher was sent off for a second yellow card.

Chelsea’s captain had been sent off for two yellows in the thrashing at Newcastle last weekend, too. That one was Reece James. When will Pochettino’s players learn? Not yet, clearly.

That proved to be the moment that turned the way this game went. Chelsea led 3-1 after VAR officials spotted James Milner’s pull on Mykhailo Mudryk around the hour mark. Fernandez scored the penalty and Chelsea had breathing space again.

Ultimately, though, Roberto de Zerbi’s Brighton almost made their numerical advantage pay. A 91st header from substitute Joao Pedro breathed life in to the energy of their late push and they almost thought they had parity in their hands nine minutes later when Adingra’s cross rebounded from Colwill. Pawson gave his initial decision without hesitation but the replay was clear. Colwill did have his arm up but the ball bypassed it en route to bouncing off his jaw.

Chelsea had started the day looking to move on from the vague chaos of recent matches. A 4-4 home draw with Manchester City had been followed by that 4-1 defeat at Newcastle. For the majority of the first half this game looked and felt very different for them. Two goals ahead with a minute left of the opening period, this has been comfortable and straight forward for Pochettino’s team.

But a Brighton goal was followed by the sending off of Gallagher and suddenly, once again, Chelsea were involved in the kind of contest that threatened to swing this way and that and then get away from them.

Earlier, it had been simple. Chelsea were strong and organised and efficient. They scored two pretty rudimentary goals against a Brighton team missing players and, it must be said, a foothold in the game.

Hopes that centre forward Christopher Nkunku may be fit enough to feature for the first team transpired to be unfounded. But for much of the opening half, Chelsea functioned perfectly well regardless and were in front in the 17th minute. A corner from the right was delivered to the far post and when Benoit Badiashile was afforded too much time to hook it back across goal, Fernandez was able to head the ball in.

It was a really poor defensive goal to concede for Brighton but the lessons went unheeded. Almost immediately Nicolas Jackson robbed Jan Paul van Hecke and dashed down the left, crossing low for Fernandez to almost scored again at the near post.

Raheem Sterling, back on the right in Cole Palmer’s absence, then crossed low to bring a clearance from Igor Julio in front of his own goalkeeper.

Brighton desperately needed to find some space in which to build but the pace of the game was too much for them at times. Billy Gilmour could not find a foothold while further forward Adam Lallana was unable to find any space in which to dictate his team’s attempts to play forward.

And then things got worse. Another Chelsea corner was delivered from the same side to exactly the same place and this time it was Jackon who rose to head the ball back. Any number of players in blue could have applied the next touch but it was Colwill who did so, his first Chelsea goal adjudged to have crossed the line by the one piece of football technology we can rely on.

Midway through the first half and Chelsea were coasting. Brighton’s former goalkeeper Robert Sanchez – jeered throughout by his old supporters – injected a little interest in to things by miscontrolling the ball almost on his own goal line in the 27th minute before Chelsea’s Mykhailo Mudryk turned Joel Veltman beautifully 40 yards from goal to find space and shoot low and narrowly wide from distance.

Brighton could not really have complained had the gap on the scoreboard widened at this point but they are not a team to lie down and the game started to turn in the 44th minute when the visitors moved the ball left to right across the field in to the path of Buonanotte. The South American was faced up by Colwill who seemed to happy to show him inside from where he delivered a lovely shot with his left instep that found the far corner.

Hope, then, for Brighton and soon there was more. Gallagher had already been booked for a foul early in the game and when he felled Gilmour while trying to retrieve the ball on the halfway line, he was given a second.

Maybe it was a little soft. There was no malice in the challenge. The intention seemed to be to get the ball. Equally for the second weekend running a Chelsea captain had failed to appreciate how best to behave whilst on a yellow card and paid a heavy price.

Understandably, this altered the flow and direction of the game, at least for a while. De Zerbi’s team were on top for the first ten minutes or so of the second half with Lallana coming close with a trick and a volley close to the goal.

For Brighton substitutions in the 57th minute had an impact, though, and not in the way their manager would have wished or anticipated, One of them, 37-year-old James Milner, may not even have touched the ball before being drawn in to a foot race through the middle with Mudryk. Referee Craig Pawson didn’t see anything wrong with Milner’s challenge as both men crashed to ground but a VAR replay clearly showed the older man leaning in to his opponent and bringing him down. Milner was probably lucky to receive a yellow card and not a red before Fernandes drove the resulting penalty down the middle.

That pretty much seemed to draw the sting from Brighton who didn’t have an awful lot to give for periods thereafter. Their numerical advantage still stood but Chelsea’s organisation and endeavour threatened to be enough to hold them at bay.

Another Chelsea substitute Pascal Gross brought two saves from Sanchez from distance – one was a free-kick – while the Chelsea goalkeeper clutched a straight forward header from beneath the cross bar. Kaoru Mitoma also appealed in vain for a penalty.

Indeed it was not until the first minute of ten added minutes that Brighton hauled themselves within touching distance once again. Once more, it was a rather basic goal as a corner was delivered to the near post and Pedro rose between three Chelsea players to flick the ball across goal and in.

With the rain now sheeting down in west London, chaos bubbled to the surface once again. Brighton pushed but pushed in vain. Evan Ferguson – quiet on the whole – applied a back flick to a low cross that Sanchez held and then, in the 99th minute, Pedro found space to shoot low from 18 yards but again there was no way through. The penalty that never was arrived in the 100th minute. Eventually we played 105.