Late penalty earns Brighton point in thrilling 3-3 draw with Brentford

BRIGHTON, England, April 1 (Reuters) – Brighton & Hove Albion midfielder Alexis MacAllister fired home a 90th-minute penalty to snatch a 3-3 draw for his side against Brentford in a thrilling climax to their Premier League clash on Saturday.

The home side racked up 33 efforts on goal and dominated possession, but it took a late strike from the spot from the Argentinian World Cup winner to secure a point as Brentford made the most of their chances.

Brighton rose to sixth in the table on 43 points, ahead of Brentford on goal difference and one point ahead of Liverpool, who lost 4-1 to Manchester City in the early kickoff.

Brighton’s afternoon got off to a poor start when Pontus Jansson gave the visitors the lead in the 10th minute, meeting a brilliant inswinging cross form Mikkel Damsgaard with a powerful header that flew past Jason Steele.

Kaoru Mitoma levelled 11 minutes later, latching on to a long ball from Steele and deftly lobbing it over David Raya for his seventh goal in his last 13 games, but their joy was short-lived as Ivan Toney put The Bees back in front a minute later.

Again, the home side struck back quickly as Danny Welbeck headed home a Solly March cross at the back post to make it 2-2 in the 28th minute, but they were behind again four minutes into the second half as Ethan Pinnock volleyed home Bryan Mbeumo’s free kick.

Brentford barely made it out of their own half after that as Brighton created and then wasted chance after chance, and The Seagulls looked to be heading for defeat until a late handball by Aaron Hickey.

A lengthy VAR review led to the home side being awarded a penalty, and MacAllister smashed the spot kick into the net, much to the relief of the home fans.

“For the neutrals maybe it’s good, for us it’s not — we are not happy with the point. We wanted to win and I think we did everything to win, but this is football,” MacAllister said in a TV interview.

“I’m always nervous when I’m going to take a penalty, but at the same time I was confident, I knew I was going to score. It’s nice to score and to draw, but at the same time we wanted more,” he added.

Reporting by Philip O’Connor Editing by Toby Davis

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