Brighton & Hove Albion travel to the Cardiff City Stadium this weekend, with the chance to extend their 5-game unbeaten streak in the league and also disappoint their Welsh opponents for the eighth meeting in succession.
With the exception of Cardiff City’s single season of Premier League football, Albion have met Russell Slade’s side in each of their Championship campaigns since starting life at the Amex Stadium in 2011. Five draws and two wins, both in the Welsh capital, make up Albion’s unbeaten record and on Saturday lunchtime, Chris Hughton’s men will aim to lay another brick on the sturdy wall built around Cardiff’s frustration.
In this season’s reverse fixture, a 1-1 draw ended Albion’s perfect home run, with Dale Stephens cancelling out Joe Mason’s fifth minute effort. The home side dominated proceedings but failed to produce concrete rewards on top of their first half equaliser, seeing out a frustrating game that extended their unbeaten run to ten games.
Albion have fond memories of their previous trips to the Cardiff City Stadium, winning 3-1 and more impressively, 2-0 in Cardiff’s promotion winning season. Andrea Orlandi and Leonardo Ulloa got the goals in a vital win that went towards Albion’s sixth place finish, before Derby ended their play-off dreams emphatically.
An uninspiring 0-0 draw was played out last season, with two poor sides failing to make the difference, but just over a year on, improvement has been seen on both sides of the border. Albion have jumped up 18 league places since their last visit to Wales, with Cardiff climbing seven places into 9th position.
A win for Brighton will lift them into second spot ahead of the 3pm fixtures, another huge step forward in their challenge for promotion. Only Bruno and Inigo Calderon remain from the squad that won in the Welsh Capital last time out but Hughton’s men are arguably better equipped to take all three points this time around, as they aim to make it eight games without defeat against the Bluebirds.
Kieran Cleeves
