Tweet this: Bamba sings the chirpiest birdsong as late Bluebirds goal downs Seagulls

Cardiff City 2 : 1 Brighton and Hove Albion

This match will be remembered for quite some time in South Wales, especially if Cardiff escape the drop. In Saturday’s early Premier League game, they gained the win that helps them leave the bottom three courtesy of a 90th minute Sol Bamba winner. Yet for most of he game, it looked like being the repeat of something they would like to forget.

Cardiff had already so nearly failed to beat ten men for a second time. This time they had 55 minutes of struggle, once Dale Stephens has been dismissed for a sliding lunge on Greg Cunningham in the 34th minute.

Previously, they had missed out on three points with a shorter 24 minute one-man advantage at home to Newcastle when Isaac Hayden was sent off. Neil Etheridge even had to save a late penalty that day to save the single point.

Today looked to be heading the same way until the late drama.

Cardiff’s salvation came from an unfamiliar source in injury-time. Bamba hit the post with a beautiful overhead bicycle kick after some aerial ping-pong in the Brighton box. That ping-pong became a sing-song when rather than admire his handy work, Bamba rose from his feet to hammer in a rebound from a Callum Paterson effort to give Cardiff all three points; a win which will be remembered in South Wales for a long time to come.

Brighton manager Chris Hughton saw it another way:

“I don’t think Sol Bamba looked offside, he was offside!” said Hughton. “I understand the sending off, some would give it, some wouldn’t, but on the winning goal he is offside and for me that is not a difficult decision to make.

“We have a linesman in a very good position when the ball comes back in, so for me, I am more angry with the second decision than the first one.”

Earlier, Solly March had set up a Lewis Dunk header from the right side of the six yard box to give Brighton the lead before Paterson equalised on just before the half hour mark having headed in an unfortunate deflection.

Then came the incident that changed the game. Cunningham was the recipient of a terrible tackle by Stephens for which the Brighton player was correctly dismissed from the field, leaving Chris Hughton’s team a man short for the remaining 56 minutes plus change.

Cardiff huffed and puffed. Just before the hour, Kadeem Harris hit the Seagulls’ bar with a left footed shot from outside the box having been set up by Iceland’s Aron Gunnarsson.

Goalkeeper Etheridge saved Cardiff from an ever worse fate, just as he had against Newcastle, when he saved a José Izquierdo effort from outside the box. Victor Camarasa tested Brighton keeper Matt Ryan from distance again but the day and the song belongs to Bamba, who may well have changed not just the tenor, but the entire tune of Cardiff’s season.

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