'Trossard spearheading Albion's best Premier League attack'

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Albion Analytics takes a closer look at the underlying numbers from our fantastic victory against Chelsea.

Liam Tharme

Albion Analytics

2022-10-31T13:00:00Z

Leandro Trossard now has seven goals in 12 Premier League appearances.

Brighton picked up their fifth win of the season against Chelsea but this victory was a particularly historic one.

Never before in the Premier League has their fifth win of the season come so early, with their first-half demolition of Chelsea ending a ten game unbeaten run under new head coach Graham Potter - the four goals Brighton scored were double what Chelsea conceded in their first five games under Potter (2).

But more notably this was Brighton’s first Premier League win against Chelsea after ten previous unsuccessful attempts (D4, L6), outscored 19-5.

In fact, Chelsea were the final team that Brighton have played in every single season since their Premier League debut campaign (2017/18) without beating. Though, having lost their first six Premier League games against Chelsea, Albion are now unbeaten in the last four meetings, winning once and drawing three, never conceding more than one.

It was the first time that Albion had scored multiple goals in one Premier League game against the Blues, and they have made goalscoring more of a habit this year. Saturday was the 11th time this calendar year (2022) that Brighton have scored multiple times in a game.

Across the full 90 minutes, Brighton had one of their top three displays of the season in terms of shots (19), shots on target (7), non-penalty xG (1.9) but also clearances (24) and fouls (16). This evidences their electric attacking start to the game, particularly against such a staunch defence, but also showing a different side in the second-half to defend a lead and be disruptive when needed.

Robert Sanchez was one of many standouts and Sofascore’s algorithm rated him as the best player on the day. His seven saves and four crosses stopped were both individual season's bests and he only managed more saves once last season (8 vs Manchester City).

Leandro Trossard opened the scoring, which meant he had scored each of Brighton’s first five goals in the De Zerbi era - the first player in Opta records to achieve this feat.

It was his seventh goal this season, just one away from his tally last campaign (eight) which is his most ever for Albion. Notably five of his strikes this season have come with his non-dominant left foot, underlining his finishing versatility.

Only four players have scored more than the Belgian this season, who also ranks inside the Premier League’s top ten for shots (34), shots on target (14), touches in opposition box (71), progressive passes received (68), and is third for xG overperformance (+3.2), which may indicate a level of unsustainability to his current scoring rate across; a full 38 game season his current form would return almost 24 goals.

No Brighton player was involved in more shot-ending sequences against Chelsea than Trossard (seven - tied with Estupinan and Moises Caicedo).

Trossard is spearheading the best Brighton attack that the Premier League has seen. This season the Seagulls have scored 19 goals from 18.6xG. Per game that averages to 1.58 goals and 1.56xG, better than the previous club-records of 1.11 goals and 1.39 xG from last season (2021/22).