Albion Analytics: The stunning numbers under De Zerbi

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Saturday's 3-0 win over Liverpool continued Albion's excellent goalscoring run.

Liam Tharme

Albion Analytics

2023-01-16T09:00:00Z

Solly March now has four goals in his last four Premier League outings.

Brighton romped to a seventh victory in 15 games under Roberto De Zerbi with a comprehensive 3-0 Amex defeat of Liverpool.

Even in such few games, it now means Albion have been victorious against three ‘big six’ sides in the Italian’s reign, including wins against Arsenal (Carabao Cup) and Chelsea (Premier League).

For the fourth time in the last five games and, incredibly, eight times in De Zerbi’s 15 matches across all competitions, Brighton scored at least three goals — they achieved this feat 14 times in Graham Potter’s 158 games in the Premier League, League and FA Cups.

Solly March’s sensational form has epitomised the Albion upturn in attacking performance. The academy graduate had scored just four times in his first 156 Premier League appearances but has as many goals in his last four appearances.

March has been operating as a left-footer on the right of De Zerbi’s trademark 4-2-3-1, regularly getting into one-versus-one situations against the opposition left-back and also cutting inside to shoot.

Since De Zerbi’s arrival, across all competitions, March has played the most minutes (1,273) of any Albion player and shown his attacking balance, taking as many shots (26, with 12 on target) as he has created chances, scoring four and assisting five — those nine direct goal involvements are the most of any Brighton player by three.

His involvement in 83 of Brighton’s shot-ending sequences (12 of those resulting in a non-penalty goal) is the most among the team and he also tops the chart for dribbles attempted (44) and open-play crosses (31) — March is revitalised.

De Zerbi had spotlighted March upon his arrival and after the Liverpool win said, "I have very smart players and they understand when there are different situations. They know what they have to do on the pitch, depending on the different situations."

At full-time at the Amex on Saturday, Brighton were the top-scoring side across Europe’s top-five leagues (Premier League, La Liga, Ligue 1, Serie A, Bundesliga), in all competitions, since the post-World Cup resumption — 17 goals and scoring at an average of once every 26.5 minutes.

Brighton fans are likely to be familiar with the Expected Goals (xG) metric — a predictive statistic that calculates the average, elite level conversion rate of a chance based on specific factors (distance from goal, assist method, shot clarity, etc) — and this does show the Seagulls to be running hot in-front of goal, though this is ultimately goalscoring form that few teams in the world can keep up.

Under De Zerbi, Brighton rank seventh in the Premier League for xG (17.06), scoring seven more goals than the average conversion rate of the chances made. Only Newcastle can match them for goals scored (24) in that time.

But there is serious sustainability to Brighton’s approach play, as they rank second for possession (60% average) and third for final-third pass accuracy (83.2%) — they are the third-most accurate shooters in the league (43.3%) and have created the fifth-most big chances (30), scoring just under half (14) and finishing these chances at an above-average rate.