Brighton chairman Tony Bloom felt Sunday’s FA Cup quarter-final penalty shootout victory over Millwall was miraculous.
It seemed as though the Seagulls would be exiting the competition at the last-eight stage as they trailed 2-1 to the Lions with two minutes to go.
However, Jurgen Locadia pulled a goal back right at the death before Solly March’s speculative free-kick was fumbled into his own net by Millwall goalkeeper David Martin deep into stoppage time.
That led to penalties, with the south-coast outfit prevailing 5-4 to set up a semi-final clash with Manchester City on April 6 at the Etihad Stadium.
And Bloom, who admits he loves the romance of cup football, believes the turnaround was nothing short of a phenomenon. “It’s fantastic.
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On 88 minutes we never thought we were going anywhere and then miracles do happen,” he told BBC Sussex. “Man City, here we come. “I love the FA Cup and I remember like it was not so long ago that we played Sheffield Wednesday and Manchester United in 1983.
They’re memories and it’s been a long time and we cannot wait.” Brighton sit 15th in the table, five points from safety, and Bloom is backing Chris Hughton and his players to put further daylight between themselves and the bottom three before going up against the Premier League high-flyers. “We’ve got a big game coming up against Southampton and it would be great to win that as it would probably put the Premier League to bed,” he added. “It would be nice to win that before the Man City game.”
