Kaoru Mitoma was electric at Wolves but 'red card waving' is not acceptable at Brighton

The win a timely reminder to the very small but occasionally vociferous group of Adam Lallana detractors, his performance at Molineux reiterating what he does on the pitch and his interview on Match of the Day highlighting what he brings to the club off the field, specifically on the training ground and in the dressing room.

Another positive from the ‘Black Country’ at the weekend was the performance of World Cup bound Japanese forward Kaoru Mitoma, with one notable exception.

His tussle with Wanderers Portuguese defender Nelson Semedo just before half time resulted in him being wrestled to the floor, clearly a foul but what happened next left a bad taste in the mouths of many Albion fans, myself included.

Referee Graham Scott had already blown for the foul, but was greeted at the ‘scene of the crime’ with Mitoma still on the deck waving an imaginary red card.

Blatant gamesmanship, this kind of behaviour has no place in the modern game, right up there with ‘diving’ or feigning injury, and not far off that heinous offence of spitting.

I’ve no doubt Scott would have dismissed Semedo, regardless of Mitoma’s theatrics, but like many other things this incident has polarised opinion within the Albion core support, with some even seeing nothing wrong with it.

What happens if the next time he does it it’s playing for Japan against England and he gets one of our players sent off?

For what it’s worth, I don’t think that will happen, he’s a young man in a new country and he clearly hasn’t quite worked out all the boundaries.

Doing it once can be put down to youth or inexperience, if he were to do it again then he might find himself with an unwanted reputation amongst the wider EPL fan base, the last we want is our very own Wilfred Zaha, he seems to go down more times than Rocky Balboa.

I’m confident someone at the club be it senior player or member of the management team will put an arm round him, it may have already happened, and say “We don’t do that at the Albion”.

Back to the football, a real ‘will he or won’t he’ conundrum in the League Cup against Arsenal at the Emirates on Wednesday, does Roberto De Zerbi go strong or rest players in preparation for Sunday’s visit of Aston Villa?

I appreciate some senior players could do with a rest, but it’s also all about momentum, I’d like to see a strong side run out in North London, hopefully resulting in advancing to the next round, before going into the World Cup hiatus on the back of a 2-0 Amex win against the Villa.