This preview was written by Neel Shelat, who you can find on Bluesky here and Twitter here.

Neel’s work has been featured at The Blizzard, Analytics FC, and Forbes, among others. Neel currently appears regularly on The Transfer Flow Podcast, as well as the Get Football Tactics Podcast. Neel has written for The Transfer Flow several times, most recently on the Club World Cup.

After yet another busy summer of player trading, Brighton & Hove Albion are ready for another season of entertaining football at the Amex Stadium, which is sure to conclude with them earning 300% profits on a couple of sales to Chelsea. Having now firmly established themselves as Premier League regulars and received a fair bit of cash from their London-based benefactors, the Seagulls have started to ramp up their spending on individual player transfers. While they have not gone well into nine digits in aggregate transfer fees as they did last summer, they have made some big moves including one for their joint second-highest fee.

Brighton are always an exciting team to follow just to keep tabs on some of the most promising talents from various parts of the world if nothing else, and this season should be no exception.

Brighton were the best of the rest… of the rest. What I mean by that is that they finished behind the contenders for the Champions League spots, ending up eighth. That would still have been enough to earn them a ticket to the UEFA Conference League had Manchester City won the FA Cup final, but it was not to be.

In recent years, Brighton have generally been an exciting attacking team who also tend to be relatively open at the back. That would be a pretty accurate characterisation of their work last season, though they were slightly above the league average in both xG for and against.

Their trendline makes for interesting reading as they fluctuated quite a bit with some big peaks and troughs.

Indeed, Brighton’s results reflect this too as they put together some great winning streaks but also endured a couple of rough patches. Individual results are similarly inconsistent, ranging from wins over Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea and Newcastle United (and Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United, though that isn’t anything to shout about), to heavy losses to Brentford, Aston Villa and, most notably, a seven-goal thrashing at the hands of Nottingham Forest.

This can be attributed to various factors, including the adjustment period for a very young coach and squad, lessons learnt in certain games, as well as a fair few injuries and constant availability issues. On the whole, though, they finished about where they should’ve as per the underlying numbers.

After impressing in the 2. Bundesliga by leading St. Pauli to promotion, Fabian Hürzeler was picked to succeed Roberto De Zerbi at Brighton & Hove Albion. Then 31 years old, he became the youngest permanent head coach in the history of the English Premier League. So, for someone so young coaching in a top-flight league for the very first time, I think he did a great job.

Brighton certainly evolved over the course of the season in various respects. While they remained one of the most intense pressing teams in the league (ending up with the most pressed sequences), they definitely became more measured as the campaign wore on. They started off with a 4-4-2 press or a similar variant, often becoming quite player-oriented in midfield and certainly looking to maintain a high defensive line. However, they were often beaten fairly easily by balls in behind, and gradually had to develop a more solid mid-block.

They began to find a better balance as the season wore on, and while their press still looked exploitable at times (particularly when chasing a game while trailing in the second half), their final defensive numbers do not look bad at all. Besides xG/shot conceded (which can be largely attributed to the occasions when their defensive line was breached), they wound up with a healthy margin over the league average in all other shot/xG concession metrics.

In possession, the Seagulls started the season with a fairly simple 2-3-2-3 framework in which they looked to utilise transitions through their front three a fair bit. Over time and with a couple of injuries, they ended up mixing and matching various formulas over the second half of the season including situational back threes with a midfielder starting inverting from right back as well as a more gung-ho attempt at a front-seven against Nottingham Forest that backfired rather badly. In general, though, they became pretty good at progressing the ball through the thirds and middle of the pitch on the ground, although their sharpness in the attacking third occasionally left a bit to be desired.

While much was made of Hürzeler’s naivety after the big loss to Nottingham Forest in particular, I actually think he did a pretty good job of learning from his mistakes and adapting to different circumstances, both in his squad and with respect to the opposition. The fact that Brighton bounced back from that Forest defeat with a six-match winning streak is a testament to that fact, not least because it kicked off with consecutive wins over Chelsea in the cup and league. The young tactician made some match-specific tweaks for both of those games, asking his side to create back fives or even sixes off the ball to nullify the Blues’ threat before dealing serious damage in transition. I love a tactically flexible coach, so that gets a double thumbs-up from me.

Brighton have been busy as ever this summer with a lot of ins and outs. As of now, they’re in the green by about £35 million with six signings, as many sales and a couple of noteworthy loans.

Players out: FW João Pedro, LW Simon Adingra, ST Evan Ferguson, LB Pervis Estupiñán

João Pedro is Brighton’s most noteworthy departure of the window as they agreed a £60m deal with – you guessed it – Chelsea. He scored 10 goals to go with a good few assists in the Premier League last season, building on the back of a 20-goal campaign across all competitions in 2023/24. He’s evidently a good player, but the Seagulls can be satisfied with that fee as they have enough alternatives and depth to deal with his absence.

Indeed, ample squad depth is the dominant theme for the vast majority of Brighton’s transfers this summer. The sale of Simon Adingra to Sunderland for just over £20m very much falls under that category, as it represents another decent deal considering that he was mostly a rotation option with a year left on his contract.

The Seagulls also sent Evan Ferguson to Roma on loan with a £30m+ buy option, which would make for a great sale of a player that is currently very much surplus to requirements in their squad (though that is more down to injuries than his quality and potential). The only fee that I think is a bit low is the £15m or so they got for Pervis Estupiñán's move to Milan, though they did manage to get a younger and arguably better replacement for almost the same amount.

Players in: LB Maxim De Cuyper, FW Charalampos Kostoulas, LW Tom Watson, CB Diego Coppola, CB Olivier Boscagli

Maxim De Cuyper has the best chance of becoming a nailed-on starter among Brighton’s signings this summer, and even he might face good competition from Ferdi Kadioğlu. The Belgian international starred for Club Brugge last season and put up some incredible on-ball numbers in a versatile role. Obviously, he won’t look quite as good in the Premier League, but he clearly has the quality to do well enough at least.

Interestingly, the Seagulls spent a significantly higher fee on 18-year-old Greek forward Charalampos Kostoulas, who brought in about £30m for Olympiacos on his way out. Having impressed for their UEFA Youth League-winning team in 2023/24, he enjoyed a breakthrough into the senior team last term and netted seven league goals in over 13 90s’ worth of action. He surely is one for the future given his age, but as a tall forward who likes to get involved in a good deal of build-up play before crashing the box, he has shown a lot of promise.

The signing of Tom Watson from Sunderland in a deal that could touch eight digits should be seen in a similar light. His stoppage-time winner in the promotion play-off final is the clear highlight in what is otherwise a fledgling senior career comprising just over 10 starts and less than 1,000 minutes of action. I’ve barely watched any of him in all honesty, but Brighton’s track record is enough for me to trust their judgement.

21-year-old centre-back Diego Coppola is someone who might have a more immediate impact in the team, though his numbers from last season hardly scream Brighton.

This can be easily explained by the fact that he played for a relegation-battling Hellas Verona that had the lowest possession average in Serie A at well under 40%. As long as he can pass the football, his aerial dominance and defensive quality should make him a net positive influence on the team.

At the exact opposite end of the centre-back spectrum is Olivier Boscagli, who saw his side average a whopping 68% possession in the Eredivisie in the last season of his contract with PSV. He is obviously not going to look half as good in the Premier League, but even a 60% drop-off in some of those passing numbers would not be bad.

A quick summary:

Their incoming racked up minutes and stats in easier leagues, but this is a good illustration of what Brighton is buying. De Kuyper and Boscagli, in particular, had serious production last year.

Brighton are never short of eye-catching attackers, but if I have to pick one key player, I’m tempted to go for Carlos Baleba. Remember the thing I mentioned about how Brighton got quite good at progressing the ball through the middle over the course of the season? That was thanks in no small part to the Cameroonian midfielder. He does have a fun cast of midfielders around him including the likes of Yasin Ayari, Diego Gómez, Matthew O’Riley and checks notes James Milner to name a few, but he does some things that no one else can.

I could wax lyrical about his silky press-resistant carrying or incredible defensive ground-eating, but Mohamed Mohamed has already done that for the newsletter. While working on this piece, Kim and I were both quite surprised about the complete lack of attention Baleba has seemingly received this summer, but Brighton won’t mind that. He is sure to be one of the first names on the teamsheet whenever available, and could get better yet given Hürzeler’s promising-looking work on the player development front in his first season on the South Coast. A nine-digit bid could well head their way next summer if all goes to plan.

Oh, and he is really good at juggling the ball off his backside. Yaya Touré would be proud.

I think Brighton are going to be a fun team to follow this season because they have a lot of exciting players, an equally exciting coach and are pretty entertaining from a tactical perspective too, but unfortunately, I do not have any left-field shouts for them. I still have to fill up this section, though, so here’s the best I can come up with: Brighton will be the only team in the top half this season to not have any player with 10 or more league goals.

I should mention that another team by the name of Arsenal achieved that feat last term. The Seagulls themselves came quite close as joint top-scorers Danny Welbeck, João Pedro and Kaoru Mitoma scored 10 times each. Quite simply, I am counting on the same thing happening again as Hürzeler will likely utilise a good chunk of that aforementioned attacking depth.

The reason this is interesting is that most (especially mid-table) teams would not fancy their chances of finishing in the top half without a reliable goal-scorer who can get well into the double digits at least. However, Brighton’s attacking depth (and, of course, the quality of that depth) is such that they should consistently be able to get away with it. In fact, this quality is arguably quite important for a selling team like the Seagulls, as it makes it relatively easier for them to replace players’ contributions both in a like-for-like and aggregate sense.

Brighton currently have a 35-player squad to pick from, so they certainly won’t be short of options and competition in pretty much all positions. Their best XI is liable to change over time, then, but this is what I’ve got down for now:

Broadly speaking, I think they’ll at least start the season with a side that has a good deal of Premier League experience. The left back spot is an obvious opening which De Cuyper should fill, while Kadioğlu can also compete with Veltman on the opposite side. A few weeks or months down the line, Coppola may look to displace Lewis Dunk, while the left-footed Boscagli will offer a different option in that position.

Baleba should be a nailed-on starter in midfield, but Yasin Ayari might well have to fight for his spot alongside him again. Club-record signing Georginio Rutter should look to make the second striker position his own, with a well-set front three of Yankuba Minteh, Danny Welbeck and Kaoru Mitoma around him. Again, there is ample backup for all of them if needed.

In a way, all this squad depth seems a bit excessive for a side that does not have to contend with continental football. Brighton can rely on the quality of their first-choice XI and substitutes a good deal more than the teams above them, but will still find breaking into the direct European spots to be quite a challenge. However, my colleagues have voted Brighton even higher than I have, and see them pushing the rich clubs at the top of the table.

Prediction: 5th