The biggest compliment you can pay to Brighton is that results like Saturday's historic win over Manchester City are no longer a surprise.

Yes, it was their first victory at Etihad Stadium but this was no huge shock, no smash and grab, no big upset.

Before the game it didn't take a lot of imagination to see this coming; the Premier League's top scorers against a City side struggling to keep clean sheets.

You knew Brighton were going to find the back of the net, it was just whether they had enough resilience and solidity to keep things tight at the other end. After all, they were facing opponents who had scored in each of their last 24 Premier League games.

The answer was a resounding yes. Of course there were nervy moments in a second half dominated by the home team, and keeper Bart Verbruggen made a world-class save to push an Iliman Ndiaye shot on to the woodwork but Brighton worked tirelessly for their clean sheet and deserved the three points.

So it's no surprise that they're beating the likes of City and Arsenal, which means it surely wouldn't be a big shock if they managed to stay in a title race long term?

Maybe their congested schedule is the one thing that could hold them back? Indeed, Verbruggen mentioned that post-match, saying: "We'll see what happens because we have loads of games."

But when you look at their bench on Saturday, with the quality of Georginio Rutter, Malick Yalcouye, Jack Hinshelwood and Yankuba Minteh, you can see the strength of the squad and their ability to rotate in the Thursday European games.

Title race or not though, this Brighton now have the belief they can go anywhere, against any team, at any time and come away with victories.

With their biggest points tally after nine games of a top-flight campaign, this is already a season to remember.