Chelsea repelled a late fight-back by Brighton to win a pulsating 4-3 Premier League encounter on Xabi Alonso’s home debut as manager.
Chelsea started very quickly at Stamford Bridge, taking the lead in four minutes when Romo Lavia latched onto loose ball with the Seagulls defence in a muddle between Mats Wieffer and Bart Verbruggen.
And Pedro Neto doubled the advantage 10 minutes later, converting cut-back from Morgan Rogers, who had burst into the Brighton area.
Chelsea continued to press and on 32 minutes, Lavia advanced and slipped through Pedro, who fired into his second goal of the season.
But Brighton came into the game once more before the interval, with Malick Yalcouy smashing the ball into post of Chelsea’s goal from outside of the penalty area.
The Seagulls continued to press for a further goal after the interval and they deservedly drew the second back when, from a Brighton corner, Pedro converted an own goal from Pascal Gro.
But with triple sub from Chelsea’s Alonso, Cole Palmer restores the Chelsea two-goal lead by scoring coolly from five yards with the Seagulls defence caught out of position.
A dramatic two minutes after normal time had expired with Gro scoring again for Brighton, but Chelsea hang on for the crucial three points.
It gives the win to Alonso’s first league win at home for Chelsea and maintained the opening two victories out of two for the Blues having score seven in those first two matches.
For Brighton they suffered first defeat in four top flight matches after a strong opening day victory.
