João Pedro and Ferguson ease Brighton to opening win over promoted Luton

Whatever happens, it is going to be a season to savour for Luton supporters. A decade on from watching their side kick off their fourth season in a row in the depths of the National League, only a late Brighton onslaught after João Pedro’s contentious penalty broke the resolve of the Premier League new boys.

With Alexis Mac Allister departed and Caicedo expected to follow him, De Zerbi turned to the Germany international Mahmoud Dahoud to fill the void and deployed Milner at right-back.

They and João Pedro, the £30m club record signing from Watford, made a strong impression on their debuts but the Brighton manager was particularly delighted with the Ivory Coast forward Adingra – who spent last season on loan at Union SG, Brighton’s sister club in Belgium – after the 21-year-old’s decisive goal seven minutes after coming off the bench with Ferguson.

“He can play with the same quality on the left or the right,” said De Zerbi. “But we have a lot of attacking options this season.”

Much to the delight of the away supporters behind the goal who barracked him all afternoon, João Pedro wasted a golden opportunity to give Brighton the lead inside five minutes when his shot somehow skewed off target. Despite dominating possession, they had to wait until 10 minutes before half-time for the breakthrough and it came from a familiar source as Solly March nodded home Kaoru Mitoma’s perfect cross to the back post.

Brighton were relieved to scramble the ball away following a corner after Jason Steele had saved from Morris. Danny Welbeck then stuck a post as the half ended in frenetic fashion, with a yellow card shown to Mitoma for kicking the ball away.

Brighton came within inches of stretching their lead straight after the restart when Thomas Kaminski pushed Milner’s close-range shot on to the post. It took another strong save to deny March his second after a flowing move and he was unlucky not to save João Pedro’s penalty after the Brazilian went down very easily under a challenge from Tom Lockyer that was surprisingly not overturned by VAR.

David Coote opted to award a penalty at the other end with 10 minutes to play, this time for a handball against Lewis Dunk when it seemed to have struck his trailing arm. Morris stroked home from the spot before Adingra pounced on Mpanzu’s error inside his own penalty area and Ferguson tapped home Pervis Estupiñán’s cross to seal the points for Brighton.