Brighton vs Wolves: Have we just seen a Premier League first amid blistering Albion start?
Jack Hinshelwood scored Brighton’s quickest ever Premier League goal, as the European hopefuls stunned Wolves with a blistering start at the Amex Stadium.
The 21-year-old found the net after just 37 seconds – with a superb header – instantly putting Fabian Hurzeler’s Champions League chasing side ahead. The stats experts at Opta have confirmed that it was the fastest ever scored by an Albion player in the top flight.
This season, only Mateus Fernandes’ 29-second strike for West Ham against Aston Villa, on December 14, has come quicker.
The man who scored the quickest goal in a Premier League match, to date, is Shane Long. The former striker from the Republic of Ireland scored after 7.69 seconds on April 23, 2019, for Southampton at Watford.
Fast-forward to the present day, Albion doubled their advantage barely four minutes later, when captain Lewis Dunk converted his first goal of the season with a close range header, from a corner.
Making his first start since February, Belgian full-back Maxim De Cuyper provided both assists in a remarkable opening spell – that may have entered the Premier League record books. While official records for the fastest brace of assists are not commonly tracked, few players can have created two goals so quickly from kick-off in the competition’s history.
Here’s what ChatGBT – an artificial intelligence chatbot – had to say…
"It certainly sounds like it could be, but I can’t verify it as a Premier League record from the data currently available.
“What is documented is: Scott McTominay scored twice for Manchester United by the 170th second against Leeds in 2020, which was then the quickest a team had reached 2-0 from kick-off since Arsenal did it by the 164th second in 2011.
“There are records for fastest hat-tricks of assists (Lukas Podolski in four minutes), but not an officially tracked stat for ‘fastest brace of assists by one player’.”
The opening goal arrived during Brighton’s first attack. After good work by Kaoru Mitoma, De Cuyper surged down the left flank and delivered a dangerous ball into the area, where Hinshelwood was too sharp for the half-asleep Wolves defence.
The already-relegated visitors were still regrouping when Brighton struck again. An incisive corner kick from De Cuyper caused panic in the visitors’ defence, before the veteran defender Dunk – starting a game for the first time since March 21 – applied the finishing touch at the back-post.
The 34-year-old has become the 19th different scorer for Albion in the Premier League this season. Arsenal are the second best in that department, with a total of 18.
De Cuyper nearly had a hat-trick of assists before the 15th minute mark but, after teeing up Mitoma, the Japanese international fired just wide of the post.
Asked pre-match about De Cuyper and Yasin Ayari – whose minutes have been limited in recent weeks – Fabian Hurzeler said: “They show great reactions.
"They are frustrated but they do what they can and train hard. To be successful you put your ego to one side and get behind the team. Individuals never win anything. It's always the team."