Season Preview: Can the Seagulls turn promise into points?

Achieving a fifth consecutive season of top flight football is not a feat worth searching for open top buses over, or one that leaves you deciding if you want your firework display to be blue and white or white and blue.

But the fact that Brighton & Hove Albion head into the 2021/22 campaign as an established Premier League club should not be overlooked.

Of the 73 other sides promoted between 1992 and Brighton reaching the Premier League in 2017, only 25 of them have lasted until the five season mark, and by ensuring survival in the final weeks of 2020/21 this current iteration of the Seagulls will now outlast the club’s previous stay in the First Division in the early eighties.

It would be perfectly normal to expect that consistency and stability have been underlying themes of this success, yet midway through their Premier League adventure Brighton owner Tony Bloom made a drastic decision. Despite Chris Hughton avoiding relegation in consecutive seasons, professional gambler Bloom could see the odds of surviving a third season were not favourable.

A run of just three wins after Christmas in the 2018/19 season began to make Hughton’s defence-first approach look outdated, leading the club to make the difficult decision to move on a manager that had achieved so much in four and a half years at the Amex Stadium. In came Graham Potter with the promise of an attractive, possession-based playing style but with just one season as a head coach in British football under his belt.

Despite regular comparisons with his predecessor’s team at every turn, and the impact of the outbreak of Covid-19 in Europe in his first season, Brighton’s Premier League status was retained, and in agreeing a contract extension until 2025 after just 13 games in charge it was clear that both Potter and the club were laying foundations for a future together.

Plenty of potential in terms of making that future a bright one was on show last season. Brighton went unbeaten against Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds United, Champions League-chasing West Ham United and league title-holders Liverpool, as well as defeating champions-elect Manchester City in the final home fixture of the campaign.

They received plenty of plaudits in both victory and defeat, with a 1-0 win over Tottenham in January a serious contender for the most one-sided single-goal win in Premier League history.

And there-in lies part of the problem. In defeating Jose Mourinho’s side, Brighton missed several chances to extend their lead and record a more comfortable margin of victory, and whilst this is of course less of an issue in games that you win, the Seagulls propensity to squander goal-scoring opportunities cost them far too many points over the course of the season.

According to Infogol, Brighton recorded a higher expected goals total than their opponent on 21 occasions in the Premier League last season. They won just 9 games.

Although the level of the performances served up by Potter’s side in the last two seasons have merited more, the Seagulls have struggled to progress beyond just about avoiding relegation scraps thanks largely to the fact they’ve scored only 79 times in 76 league games across the two campaigns.

The team remained defensively sound under the former Ostersund boss despite being asked to play further up the pitch and to become accustomed to playing out from the back, but he is yet to solve their issues in attack. Not only were Neal Maupay and Aaron Connolly guilty of missing their fair share of presentable chances but in the latter stages of the season many of the attacking players in the side appeared entirely devoid of confidence.

Quite how to translate impressive performances into a worthy points total does not appear to be straightforward, but with one of the most innovative and adaptable young head coaches in world football at the helm, now feels like the time for Brighton to start believing they are capable of more.

Manager

Graham Potter is heading into his third season in charge at the Amex and it would be fair to say that despite the on-field revolution, he has changed very little since arriving from Swansea City. A freshly-grown beard aside, the 46-year-old has remained committed to his principles by encouraging the Seagulls to play out from the back, remain patient in possession, adaptable in attack and, ultimately, slightly hopeless in front of goal.

Whilst his initial appointment was met with a degree of scepticism, it cannot be denied that Brighton have become easier on the eye during Potter’s tenure. Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola even went as far as describing Potter as ‘the best English manager right now‘ after being impressed with his opposite number’s approach during a tightly-fought encounter in January.

Tentative links with the summer managerial vacancies at both Everton and Tottenham are an indication that admiring glances are being flashed in the direction of the former England under-21 international, even if the stylistic transformation he has overseen is yet to be deservedly reflected in terms of Premier League points on the board.

His long-term contract suggests Bloom and co. will be willing to stick by him should results not dramatically improve at the beginning of the new campaign, as was the case during difficult spells in the last two seasons, but even though Potter rarely comes across as a coach concerned with personal glory, he will want to ensure the praise he has received is backed up by improving on league finishes of 15th and 16th.

This season seems neatly set up for Brighton and their highly-thought-of head coach to stage an assault on the top half of the league table, or at least remain in the European places of the expected goals table.

Transfers

Once it became clear that some of the Premier League’s wealthiest sides were interested in signing brilliant young defender Ben White, it was not hard to imagine a transfer saga developing around the man voted the Seagulls’ Player of the Year last season.

However, whilst White’s England team-mates Jack Grealish and Harry Kane have seen their prospective transfers rumble on, Brighton received a reported £50million from Arsenal for the 23-year-old just one game into their pre-season schedule, leaving them ample time to figure out how to best replace him.

Potter has indicated that White’s replacement may come from within the current squad, and after two years of having to make do and mend with players signed under his predecessor, several departures mean he now has a far more streamlined group to work with.

Mat Ryan (11 league starts last season before being dropped and then loaned to Arsenal), Alireza Jahanbakhsh (six starts last season), Davy Propper (two starts last season), and Bernardo (two starts last season) have all either been let go on free transfers or for minimal fees, a further representation of the change that has taken place since Hughton departed.

In terms of incomings, Enock Mwepu is the most interesting signing as of yet. The Zambian midfielder arrives highly-rated from RB Salzburg, and although he was expected to be a replacement for Yves Bissouma, Potter finding a way to incorporate both of them into his team could create one of the most effective partnerships in the Premier League.

Young Dutch goalkeeper Kjell Scherpen has also been brought in to provide competition for established number one Robert Sanchez following Ryan’s departure, and although there has been concern among supporters about the club’s striking options following a 2-0 defeat to Getafe in the final game of pre-season, Brighton have rarely been a club that panics late in the window.

Key Player

Given the departure of White, it would be easy to call on the always-impressive Lewis Dunk or fellow centre-back Adam Webster, fresh from signing a new five-year deal, to step up in his absence, but both have performed well over the past two seasons and look well set to adjust to the departure even if no direct replacement is sourced.

It was of course at the other end of the pitch that Brighton struggled. An expected goals total of 56.7 for the season shows that chances were created, but in finding the back of the net only 40 times they were the sixth lowest-scorers in the top flight.

There appears to be no simple solution to rectifying this astounding level of attacking underperformance. Neal Maupay top scored with eight goals and Danny Welbeck was both lively and effective when not hampered by injury, but a feeling pervades that they could do with greater support.

There have been calls to sign a ’15 to 20 goal a season striker’, however, only Patrick Bamford, Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Jamie Vardy scored 15 goals or more for Premier League clubs outside of the ‘top six’ last season, and none of them are realistic transfer targets for the Seagulls.

Brighton need goals to start coming from other sources.

Sixth-place finishers West Ham had a top-scorer in Michail Antonio who found the back of the net 10 times, as much of their success came through not relying on a single individual to score their goals. Tomas Soucek also ended the season on 10 goals, whilst Jesse Lingard and Jarod Bowen finished with nine and eight strikes respectively. Between the four of them they scored only three fewer goals than Brighton managed as a team.

Brighton’s next highest scorer after Maupay was Welbeck with six, and no other member of the squad managed more than five.

Leandro Trossard’s five goals and five assists earned him a place in Belgium’s squad for Euro 2020, but if he can produce more performances like his influential display in the 3-0 victory over Newcastle United in March, and add consistency to his undeniable quality, it could go some way to easing his side’s issues in front of goal.

He has the ability to create and score goal,s so if the Amex crowd are to witness more than just 22 goals from the Seagulls on their own patch this season, Trossard needs to start chipping in with greater regularity.

Youth Prospect

Having one of the most impressive academy set-ups in England has begun to bare fruit for Brighton in recent seasons.

Steven Alzate, Aaron Connolly, and of course Ben White have all made smooth transitions into the world of top flight football following either regular playing time for the under-23’s in the Premier League 2 or well-planned loan moves in the EFL, and it would therefore be no real surprise to see another talented youngster become an important part of the first team picture this season.

20-year-old midfielder Taylor Richards arrived at the Amex in the same summer as Graham Potter in 2019, costing the best part of a million pounds from Manchester City. Following a season in the under-23 set-up, Richards illuminated League One with Doncaster Rovers in 2020/21, ending the campaign with 10 goals and five assists as well as being heralded as one of the division’s finest players by opposition players and managers.

Quite whether Potter will deem him ready to make the step up remains to be seen, and Richards is trying to earn playing time in a position in Brighton’s team that is stacked full of talent and options, but given he is working under a head coach that is prepared to give youth a chance and demands his midfielders are comfortable in possession, there are few more appropriate Premier league environments for him to develop in.

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