In Yankuba Minteh, Brighton possess yet another star in the making. The sharp piece of business Brighton did in the summer of 2024 took time to come to the boil but is now cooking. Leeds located no answer to his thrust.
Some errant finishing denied the Gambian a goal, leaving old reliable Danny Welbeck and two from Diego Gómez to bury Leeds. The Paraguayan, yet another find for Brighton’s best-in-class scouting team, most definitely has a scoring touch.
Harsh lessons for Leeds. Brighton fans do not appreciate the cliche of the well-run club. Expectation has climbed far higher than mere subsistence, but they offer the paradigm of how to grow and prosper. Likewise a one-city club, with a large catchment area, Leeds also have legacy on offer. The sepia of the 1970s is yet to fade, even at a club previously chewed up by the Premier League vortex. Fans and media pack travel in large numbers, metrics for Leeds-related content remain large, but the first point in any revival is survival.
Leeds were full of effort, but bereft of the class Brighton have collected from across the globe. Daniel Farke’s initial plan was unsophisticated, sitting back in numbers, Dominic Calvert-Lewin as lone target man, the speed of Noah Okafor in support. It proved unworkable. The pair rarely linked up.
