Brighton's Aaron Connolly makes honest admission after Burnley winner

Aaron Connolly scored for the first time since October and took his tally to three for the season

Bissouma's fine curling effort after 20 minutes ended Nick Pope's hopes of a 16th clean sheet of the season, allowing Manchester City's Ederson to claim the Golden Glove as Pep Guardiola's side finished with a 5-0 win over Norwich.

Chris Wood drew Burnley level just before half-time, but Connolly's goal five minutes into the second half left the Clarets level with the 54 points they collected in 2017/18 as they lost at home in the league for the first time since New Year's Day.

It was Connolly's first goal since his two-goal blast in the 3-0 win at Tottenham way back in October.

“I don’t know how long it’s been so it’s great to be back on the scoresheet and to get three points makes it even better,” said Connolly.

“Personally, it will help me a lot going into the new season. It would have been tough not to have scored since the Tottenham game so I’m delighted.

“We thought we’d done enough to go in at half-time ahead so to get the goal so soon in the second half lifted us,” he added.

“Since the lockdown we have approached each game the same and I thought we showed the right attitude again here.

“We have put in some good performances in recent weeks and it's a good way to finish the season.

"But we’re all looking forward to a break now to recharge our batteries. The new season isn’t far away now.”

Brighton, who moved up to 15th with the win, will go into the shortened off-season taking encouragement from a positive display as they posed a regular threat on the counter-attack and looked capable of scoring more.

Victory in Lancashire also gave Brighton a club-record Premier League points tally of 41, surpassing the 40 they managed under Chris Hughton two seasons ago.

The game was slow to get going. Jay Rodriguez appeared to be bundled over by Dale Stephens 14 minutes in, but Jon Moss saw nothing in it and VAR eventually agreed after a lengthy check.

Burnley were still shaking their heads at that decision when Bissouma struck six minutes later.

The Clarets could only half clear a corner and the ball came out to the Mali international, who took time to pick his spot before curling an effort into the top left-hand corner for his first ever Premier League goal.

Brighton tails were up, and they almost doubled the lead moments later when Neal Maupay headed Tariq Lamptey's cross on to the crossbar.

Burnley were struggling to deal with Lamptey's pace, and the right-back next set up Alexis Mac Allister, who should have done better than shoot straight at Pope from a central position.

But they would let Burnley back into it before the break, with Wood getting free of Lewis Dunk to control a long ball forward from Erik Pieters before tucking the ball inside the far post.

Brighton, however, needed only five minutes of the second half to get back in front. Maupay kept the ball in play - just - to poke a pass down the line for Connolly, who beat Kevin Long for pace as he cut inside from the left and fired inside the far post.

Burnley thought they were level before the hour when Rodriguez got a glancing header on Ashley Westwood's corner, but VAR ruled it out for an offside.

The Clarets kept pushing. James Tarkowski headed a long ball into the path of Long but his shot was kept out by a superb block from Dunk, before Stephens somehow kept out a Rodriguez header from point-blank range.

Albion boss Potter added: “It was a really satisfying performance and result and an important three points for us to finish the season.

“I said to Yves in the dressing room ‘it’s a miracle we have witnessed!’ He’s got quality and we are so pleased with him. He has been working hard and has got the ability to score from there.

“We wanted to end it strongly and three points here have come against a team that aren’t easy to take points off."

Brighton: Ryan, Lamptey, Dunk, Webster, Burn, Stephens, Bissouma (Propper 73), March (Bernardo 73), Mac Allister (Mooy 73), Maupay (Jahanbakhsh 90+2), Connolly (Murray 89).

Subs not used: Button, Trossard, Gross, Montoya.

Referee: J. Moss