‘That’s why’ – Ex-Celtic star Matt O’Riley gets honest feedback from Brighton boss after rare start at Crystal Palace

Brighton boss Fabian Hurzeler said Matt O’Riley deserved his rare start during the painful 2-1 loss at Crystal Palace.

O’Riley has struggled to make an impact at the Seagulls this term following his £25m summer move from Celtic.

It was just a sixth Premier League start of the season for the Denmark international who showed glimpses of quality during the first half at Selhurst Park before he was replaced by Joao Pedro on the hour.

O’Riley has been on the fringes of the Albion first team this term but an ankle to £40m record signing Georginio Rutter has created an opening for the ex-Celtic playmaker.

“Yeah, he deserved to play,” said Hurzeler after the defeat. “And that’s why he started.

“He made a good game, and now it’s about continuing to improve, getting his physical shape back and then we help him.”

Daniel Munoz’s deflected strike 10 minutes into the second half ultimately made the difference at Selhurst Park, but the Eagles needed everything in the tank to survive 12 minutes of added time following the dismissals of Eddie Nketiah and captain Marc Guehi.

Danny Welbeck had cancelled out Jean-Philippe Mateta’s third-minute opener just after the half hour, and it briefly became nine versus 10 when Jan Paul van Hecke was also sent off with a second booking in the sixth minute of second-half added time.

Hurzeler was forced to reflect on another frustrating result, one week after they were knocked out of their own FA Cup last-eight encounter by Nottingham Forest in a penalty shootout, then were beaten 3-0 by Aston Villa.

Hurzeler agreed his youthful squad needed to be in better control of their emotions, saying: “It was important for the players to keep calm and find the right solutions. We have to analyse why that was, be honest with each other and then make it better.

“They went down to nine men and then we made a silly mistake to concede a red card ourselves. It’s difficult to win Premier League games when you’re not on the highest level, we had the same situation against Aston Villa on Wednesday.

“We have had too many individual mistakes this week, and if you do that you can’t win many Premier League games. We have a lot of young players and in some moments we perhaps weren’t mature enough. But we will analyse it and I’m sure we will show a good reaction.”