Pre-season round-up: Chelsea edge Brighton in Summer Series thriller

Danny Ryan

LiveScore

Nicolas Jackson was Chelsea's star man in their win over Brighton

Chelsea and Brighton played out a pre-season classic in the first fixture of the 2023 Premier League Summer Series.

Mauricio Pochettino's Blues followed up their 5-0 win against Wrexham on Thursday with an action-packed 4-3 victory over the Seagulls at Lincoln Financial Field.

Chelsea's summer signing Nicolas Jackson was the star of the show, with the Senegal international bagging his first goal for the club and registering two assists.

Fellow new arrival Christopher Nkunku netted for the second pre-season match in a row, with Mykhailo Mudryk and Conor Gallagher the other names on the scoresheet for the West Londoners.

Danny Welbeck, Deniz Undav and Joao Pedro grabbed the goals for Brighton but it was a game to forget for the Seagulls' Dutch defender Jan Paul van Hecke, as he was shown a red card on the hour mark.

Up next for the South Coast club in the Summer Series is a meeting with Brentford on Wednesday, while Chelsea lock horns with Newcastle on the same day.

Robot's return

Manchester City got their pre-season campaign off to the perfect start

Erling Haaland continued where he left off last season by bagging a second half brace in Manchester City's dramatic 5-3 win over Yokohama F Marinos.

Pep Guardiola's side, which included debutant Mateo Kovacic, fell 2-0 behind in the first half but managed to go in at the break level at 2-2 thanks to strikes from John Stones and Julian Alvarez.

Haaland then entered the fray after the half-time interval and took just seven minutes to score his first goal of pre-season.

Rodri made it 4-2 with a curling effort from the edge of the box, before Yokohama pulled one back late on through Shion Inoue.

But Haaland made sure City won by a two-goal margin by converting Joao Cancelo's cross at the back post deep into stoppage time.

Hammers held

Maxwel Corent was on target for West Ham against Dagenham & Redbridge

West Ham could not build on their impressive wins over Tottenham and Perth Glory when they travelled to Dagenham & Redbridge on Saturday.

David Moyes' side were held to a 2-2 draw by the National League outfit at the Chigwell Construction Stadium.

Maxwel Cornet and Divin Mubama each gave the Europa Conference League winners the lead but the team were pegged back by a first-half strike from Inih Effiong and Sydney Ibie's late penalty.