Brighton Fan View: Staying up deserves another seafront parade

A year ago Brighton players paraded along the seafront in front of thousands of people after winning promotion to the Premier League. But this season’s achievement is even greater.

Do not underestimate what Chris Hughton and his players have done this year, because staying up was the sole aim and we have done that with a bit to spare.

It is easy to talk about money in the richest league in the world but with Brighton’s comparative resources we should have gone straight back down to the Championship.

To be honest, that is how it looked after three games when we had failed to score a goal and the only point came against a Watford side that played with ten men for an hour. We were all still on a crest of a wave at that stage but even the feelgood factor was starting to take a bash.

There have been other times in the season when the prospects have looked grim but each time Brighton have dug deep and produced a result which has surprised everything. The win against Arsenal in March was one such example as it came at a time when the goals had dried up and confidence seemed to be waning.

Then last Friday the victory over Manchester United was an evening which will stay long in the memory of everyone connected with the club. In all honesty, I did not see it coming but it was thoroughly deserved. In the aftermath of the game, there was a lot of criticism of how Manchester United had played and probably not enough credit for what Brighton did on the evening.

The performance was not all that surprising, because Brighton have played like that a lot at the Amex this season but previously have not always been rewarded. Our football warranted what we got but the clinching factor was that Brighton’s players looked like they wanted it more than Jose Mourinho’s men.

Anthony Knockeart was rightly voted man-of-the-match but Glenn Murray was outstanding with the way he worked, chasing the ball, holding it up and giving both Chris Smalling and Marcos Rojo a very uncomfortable evening. Murray, in football lingo, may be in the twilight of his career but I hope he carries on for as long as he can because this has been one of the finest seasons in the career of the 34-year-old.

Pep Guardiola will probably be named manager of the year, but that would be completely wrong. While he should take credit for a record-breaking season for the champions, it is an awful lot easier when you are given the sort of money he has had to spend. In my opinion Sean Dyche should be manager of the season with both Chris Hughton and David Wagner not far behind.

Ask most people and they would have had Brighton and Huddersfield to be relegated this season. Admittedly, I would have been among them. But those two managers have performed minor miracles to keep their sides in the Premier League. There will be no seafront parade this year for the Seagulls, but arguably there should be.