Mitoma, who claimed Brighton’s winner in Saturday’s 2-1 FA Cup triumph, produced a goal-of-the-season contender by sublimely plucking Bart Verbruggen’s searching pass out of the air with a deft first touch before beating Trevoh Chalobah and rifling into the bottom right corner from inside the D. Minteh doubled the Seagulls’ advantage shortly after Chelsea captain Enzo Fernandez had a header disallowed for a push on Joel Veltman and then sealed a resounding victory in the 63rd minute.
Travelling fans chanted “we want our Chelsea back” during a miserable evening compounded by a hamstring injury sustained by Noni Madueke, having sung “we’ve got our Chelsea back” just under two months ago.
Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca criticised the desire of his players as he reflected on the “worst performance” of his tenure following a thumping 3-0 Premier League defeat by Brighton.
Seagulls head coach Fabian Hurzeler savoured a moment of magic from Mitoma as he also played down talk of a feud with rival manager Maresca.
“The reaction is everywhere the same in terms of when you’re winning games the fans are happy and when you don’t win games the fans are upset,” said Maresca.
