Albion Analytics: Five things to look forward to

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Can Albion improve on last season's brilliant campaign? Albion Analytics seem to think so.

Liam Tharme

Albion Analytics

2022-08-01T05:00:00Z

New arrivals such as Kaoru Mitoma join having had brilliant seasons last year.

In part one of the season preview, we assessed how Brighton fared against Premier League trends from the previous season.

Albion go into a club-record sixth campaign joint-39th (with Sheffield United) out of 50 in the all-time Premier League table, and are just 16 points away from rising to 38th spot.

There are records for Brighton to break again this season: points (51), wins (12), fewest defeats (11), finish position (9th), most goals scored (42), fewest goals conceded (44) and clean sheets (12) are all club records that have been set in the past two seasons, and bettering these would indicate continued evolution.

And in Graham Potter’s pursuit to continuously set personal bests, there are five key things to watch out for this season.

Familiar faces and a new opponent

Fulham (Champions), Bournemouth (runners-up) and Nottingham Forest (play-off winners) will all be Premier League opponents for Brighton in 2022/23, and they face the Whites on matchday 5 – their first game against any of the promoted trio.

Combining them as a three, in the Amex era Brighton have won 12, drawn 10 and lost 12 games against the promoted sides. This average of 1.35 points per game is exactly what they managed last campaign, and is relatively balanced, though they have performed significantly better against Nottingham Forest (42% win rate) and Fulham (50% win rate) than against Bournemouth (16.6% win rate).

Last season, Brighton took 11 points from their six fixtures against the relegated sides (1.83ppg), only boasting a better points return in the 2019/20 season (13 points).

(Kind of) new signings

Loan trio Kaoru Mitoma (winger), Deniz Undav (striker) and Kacper Kowlowski (central midfielder) all look set to be part of Graham Potter’s plans, having spent last season at high-flying Union Saint-Gilloise.

The Japanese winger, who is predominantly right-footed but operates off the left, was directly involved in 10 goals (7G, 3A) in marginally over 18 full matches worth of minutes – he averaged a direct goal involvement once every 163 minutes. For Union last season, Mitoma ranked second for attempted (88) and successful (37) dribbles.

Deniz Undav set the Belgian top tier alight last season, and across both league and Championship rounds was directly involved in 38 goals (26G, 12A), the most in the league by ten – Undav scored or assisted over 40% of Union’s goals in the league season. He and Dante Vanzeir combined for goals a league-high 13 times (6 assists from Undav, 7 assists from Vanzeir).

And Brighton’s biggest move in the window saw them capture highly-rated teenager Julio Enciso, who can play anywhere across the forward line but thrives in the number 10 role. Should the Paraguayan play in the Premier League, he would become the 17th different debutant aged under 24 under Graham Potter.

Five subs

The Premier League have announced the return of five substitutes (which can be used in a maximum of three breaks) for the 2022/23 season. Having initially been implemented following Project Restart at the tail end of the 2019/20 season, where Brighton used the full five substitutes the most times (8) of any club. In the 2021/22 campaign, only four clubs made more substitutes than Albion (111), with the Seagulls also ranking among the top five sides for earliest timing of substitution (22 minutes played per sub, on average).

In terms of minutes played, Brighton’s top five substitutes last season were: Solly March (329), Tariq Lamptey (291), Danny Welbeck (276), Alexis Mac Allister (220) and Neal Maupay (160). Combined, Albion substitutes recorded eight goal involvements last season (4G, 4A), with Alexis Mac Allister the best ‘super sub’, scoring twice and assisting once off the bench, notably at Burnley on the opening day.

In total, Albion netted 14 and conceded just eight in the final 15 minutes of games, their best period of the match for outscoring opponents, and thus could benefit from having even extra firepower from the bench next season.

Starting fast

Brighton had their best-ever start to a Premier League campaign last season, winning four of their first five games and sitting in the top four at the end of matchday five.

A fast start could be even more beneficial this season, given the campaign is split into 16 games and then 22 later matches, with the winter World Cup in Qatar, at which a number of Albion players are expected to feature.

In terms of the first five games, Brighton’s start to the season only ranks joint-12th for difficulty, though they did not manage to win any of the four fixtures last season that they start the 2022/23 campaign with (2-0 loss at Manchester United, 1-1 draw at home to Newcastle, 1-1 draw away at West Ham, 1-1 draw at home to Leeds).

Manchester United boast a formidable opening day record, too, winning their first match of the season in ten of the last 13 seasons, though Brighton have beaten United on three different occasions in the Premier League, notably at the tail end of last season.

As a Premier League side, Brighton are yet to draw on the opening day (and are also yet to draw against Manchester United in this division), winning twice and losing three times, though both those wins have been in the last three seasons.

Great expectations

Having broken numerous club records last season, and done so while posting incredibly good underlying numbers (xG, xGA), numerous different data sources are expecting similar things from Brighton in the 2022/23 season.

FiveThirtyEight’s model predicts Brighton to finish eighth in the league with 54 points, which would be two more club records. InfoGol also expect Graham Potter’s side to finish in eighth spot, and quantify the Seagulls with a two-thirds chance of ending the season in the top half.