Long-time analytics community darlings Brighton & Hove Albion are almost always hyped up coming into a new season, with one and all among us being impressed by their ever-excellent transfer business. However, they haven’t quite managed to fully meet expectations lately, failing to better their club-record sixth-placed finish of 2022/23. In the meantime, sides like Nottingham Forest, Bournemouth and even newly-promoted Sunderland have claimed European spots above them.

We at The Transfer Flow had Brighton in a potential Champions League spot in our aggregate 2025/26 pre-season predictions, but they could only manage 8th place. We dropped them a notch to sixth this time around, but it now seems we would have been better off keeping the faith.

Brighton are deservedly the third-best team in the Premier League right now by various assessments, including xG difference, Futi’s team rating model, Opta Analyst’s season predictions and the actual standings. They have scored the most goals, averaging over three per game after this weekend’s 5-0 thumping of Crystal Palace, and have conceded the joint-fewest alongside defending champions Arsenal.

Combined with the struggles (at varying degrees) of Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United, early indications are clearly suggesting that Brighton could claim a top four spot this term. That would be an overperformance relative to pre-season expectations, underscoring continued improvement under young Fabian Hürzeler.

Brighton did not enter the season in the best shape despite making some great sales (again) and a few moderately exciting signings in addition to bringing in a lot of relatively unknown quantities. Attacking injuries were to blame for that, as their two standout wingers in Kaoru Mitoma and Yankuba Minteh have yet to step on the pitch this term. Strikers Stafnos Tzimas and Evan Ferguson have also been out for a long time.

On top of all that, the Seagulls had to start their campaign in earnest before all other Premier League rivals with a trip to the Arctic Circle for a Conference League qualifier. Even though the first leg of their tie against Tromsø was a bit of a slog, it still proved valuable as a testing ground for Hürzeler in his attempts to devise a setup without his two most important attacking contributors.

The German tactician would surely have envisioned a different structure for his side had the two wingers been available, but in the absence of plug-and-play replacements, he had to come up with something new. Diego Gómez started that game in the right winger position, as he has continued to do in all league matches so far. Similarly, Luka Vušković and Olivier Boscagli have fully kept hold of their spots in the back line. In midfield, Pascal Groß offered a glimpse of his creative abilities from the right half-space, while Yasin Ayari did a good job in the connecting midfield role that he has since reprised in all but one league game.

Brighton might have failed to score from 25 shots and 50 penalty box touches in the world’s northernmost city, but they crucially laid the foundations for a setup that would not encounter any such issues at reasonable latitudes; the Seagulls have not been blanked in any subsequent match, averaging 3.4 goals per game across all competitions.

The key to the best attack in England so far this season has been Brighton’s approach of maximising each player’s strengths and abilities rather than trying to pigeonhole them into an overarching structure. While they line up in a 4-2-3-1 on paper, one can hardly see that shape when they are on the ball.

The asymmetries in their structure are evident right from the back line. Olivier Boscagli operates in a hybrid left-back role that sees him stay wider, neither really dropping in to form a back three nor pushing forward to join the front line. Instead, he looks for different angles to progress the ball, often finding open lanes infield. Per Futi, he is second among Premier League defenders in terms of progressive passes at the moment, trailing Bournemouth’s António Silva.

Boscagli has always stood out on the ball, but the big question after his move to England was how he would hold up defensively. Brighton have done well to give him more protection in this unique role that crucially also manages to extract the maximum out of his passing abilities. They look to send the ball out to the left more often from the back with him in the side, as he can also link up with the reliable Lewis Dunk.

On the opposite flank, Brighton’s first-choice right-back so far has been Ferdi Kadıoğlu. The Turkish international’s versatility proves very handy for the dynamic role he is asked to play, in which he may need to push up wide or inside depending on the right winger’s position. In any case, his job is to be more of a facilitator who opens up space for the creators. Gómez has chipped in with a couple of assists from the right wing spot, but the real danger man is Pascal Groß. Pushing up in the right half-space, the German midfielder is the joint assists-leader in the league with four to his name. He also led the chances created charts until fellow countryman Florian Wirtz stat-padded against a numerically inferior Brentford.

Up front, Charalampos Kostoulas is doing a decent job as a central striker who can link up with his back to goal besides pushing forward to get on the end of some deliveries in the box. Maxim De Cuyper has also done well in a traditional winger role on the left, popping up with a couple of handy strikes.

But the goals – as they always do for Brighton – have come from all over. No individual has more than three in the league, but six have multiple. Danny Welbeck last season was the first player to cross 10 Premier League goals in a season for them since the days of Glenn Murray, and such is their depth that they may not even need the feat to be repeated in order to qualify for the Champions League.

What makes Brighton’s attack all the more exciting is the fact that they should soon be able to add two star contributors to it. Mitoma and certainly Minteh should be back in action within the next month, surely taking up spots on either wing when they are fully fit. They can be plugged straight into the lineup without any changes around them, but such is the Seagulls’ squad depth that Hürzeler will be spoilt for choice should he look to make any tweaks.

The key, however, might be avoiding the temptation to tinker too much. The ex-St. Pauli coach was perhaps guilty of chopping and changing too much during Brighton’s lean patches last season, though he seems to have struck a fine balance in the early stages of the new campaign even as he has an additional competition to manage.

Either way, the two wingers will definitely add a new dimension to Brighton’s attack. The Seagulls currently rely heavily on passing and combination play to make things happen at the sharp end, sitting in the bottom half in various take-on and dribbling metrics. That could well change with the return of Mitoma and especially Minteh. Scout Lab had both in the Premier League’s top 10 progressive carriers per 90, while the Gambian international also came close to 2.5 successful take-ons.

Additionally, Brighton have a thick squad with quality depth in most key positions. The midfield looks particularly stacked as Chema Andrés and Malick Yalcouyé have slotted in quite nicely, while Jack Hinshelwood is well on course for his most productive season. Former club record signing Georginio Rutter has only started one league game thus far, but looks set to dominate in the Conference League at least. Mats Wieffer can also do a job in various roles when he recovers from his knee injury, so Hürzeler should never find himself short of players in any position.

Brighton have shown ample attacking quality to suggest that they can continue creating and scoring like a top-four team, but the same cannot be said of their defence. At present, they are around mid-table in terms of xG conceded.

The numbers paint a picture of a very high pressing team. Brighton have the lowest PPDA in the league and the highest defensive distance to go with the most pressed sequences per Opta Analyst. The concern, it would appear, is that this is leading to high-quality chances conceded based on the high npxG/shot faced figure, but a closer look reveals a different issue.

Set-pieces have been the Seagulls’ weak spot, accounting for close to half the xG they have faced and all but one of the goals they have conceded. Unsurprisingly, the xG tally they have given up from such situations is the highest in the league. The only outlier among the goals that have gone in against them was from a counter-attack, so they have not yet been made to pay for having their press picked apart.

Indeed, Brighton have shown good flexibility in their pressing approaches so far. They can jump to a fully player-oriented setup against weaker opposition, or adopt a more hybrid approach focused on cutting down passing lanes against stronger sides like Arsenal. While he may be classified as a high pressing coach, Hürzeler has been willing to change his team’s structures and ask them to drop into a block when necessary in the past. The wide players he has at his disposal are naturally able to form a back five when necessary, having successfully done so against the likes of Manchester City and Chelsea last season.

The Seagulls currently lead the Premier League in terms of high turnovers, but they also have the tools to change their defensive approach if required. We are likely to get a much clearer idea of how they plan to go about things over the next few weeks, as they have consecutive league matches against Liverpool, Manchester City and Brentford.

If Brighton are to hold firm against those sides, they will need to show the best of their ability to seamlessly switch between out-of-possession approaches, and most importantly, tighten up against set pieces. Should they pull it off, the Seagulls have to be very confident of soaring all the way to Europe’s biggest stage.

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