Billy Gilmour’s red has split Brighton and Hove Albion opinion – but it’s a shame for Amadou Onana the BAFTAs have gone

Sean Dyche and his anti-football rocked up at the Amex on Saturday, with a clear game plan, and despite over 20 scoring opportunities for the Albion and 63% possession, there was a fortunate opener by the visitors, thankfully pegged back by a late equaliser by skipper Lewis Dunk.

But the Toffees disappeared back home with a somewhat fortunate and arguably underserved point.

Noel Gallagher told us “don’t look back in anger” but that’s home draws against Fulham, Sheffield United, Burnley and Everton. At least two of those probably won’t be in the EPL next season, and where would these eight dropped home points now have us in the EPL shake-up? Level with Spurs.

Saturday’s frustration was compounded when in the 81st minute the Albion’s Scottish midfielder, Billy Gilmour, was sent off for the first time his career with a straight red for his foul on Everton’s Amadou Onana.

Being at the game I watched it in real time, and my first thought was ‘Where did Gilmour hide his gun?”, as Onana went down like he’d been shot. It’s a shame for Everton’s African born Belgian international that the BAFTAs aren’t next week as he could have been in late contention for a gong.

Despite initial thoughts by many, including Gilmour’s senior Albion colleagues on the pitch, VAR made no attempt to downgrade the straight red to a yellow.

With what appears sometimes to be 101 cameras trained on every EPL game, the fans were quickly provided with slow motion footage of the incident virtually straight after the final whistle. And this is where it truly turns out to be a game of opinions.

With the obligatory online debate in full flow by Sunday morning, Gilmour’s ‘red’ appeared to effectively spilt the Albion faithful.

In real time, whilst I would concede it was a foul, I was surprised to see the red card; watching it in slow motion shortly after 5pm on Saturday, I really thought the aforementioned and much maligned VAR would have jumped in,and kept the young Scot on the pitch but with a yellow.

But it appears I’m in the minority – a North Stand Chat poll of fans saw 62.5% say the ref got it right, with the other 37.5% agreeing with me (which is still quite a healthy minority).

But it what it is, Gilmour will learn from this and continue to develop into the quality player we all know he is.