Albion Analytics: The season in review

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The numbers behind a fruitful season for Albion.

Liam Tharme

Albion Analytics

2026-06-11T06:00+01:00

Fabian Hurzeler guided Albion back into Europe, with an eighth place finish enough to qualify for a spot in the UEFA Europa Conference League final playoff round. 📸 by Paul Hazlewood.

With the World Cup starting on Thursday evening, we thought we'd take one last opportunity to look back on our 2025/26 campaign, with Albion Analytics reviewing the season.

Albion will make their return to European competition next season, two years after their debut, following an eighth place finish.

“When you reflect on the season, then it's definitely an achievement,” head coach Fabian Hurzeler told reporters after a final day home defeat to Manchester United. “I think it's very important to see our development in the last years,” he added. “We are consistent where we can challenge the establishment.”

That Albion finished in eighth — with four teams scrapping for the final two European places on the final day — owed to their strong finish to the season and to important results against teams around them.

Fabian Hurzeler oversaw 14 wins in 38 Premier League games during the 2025/26 season. 📸 by Simon Roe.

They won seven times and kept five clean sheets in their final 12 matches, which included significant victories over Brentford, Chelsea and Sunderland, all of whom were in the mix. This was not quite as spectacular as in 2024/25, when they won 10 of their final 19, but it proved to be enough, like in 2022/23, and means that Brighton have made consecutive top-eight finishes for the first time as a Premier League club. They have been a top-half team in four of the last five seasons, save for 2023/24 when they finished 11th as a Europa League club.

Dealing with patchy form is the next step for Hurzeler. Brighton had an equal split of wins, draws and losses after nine matches, and between two separate strong runs of form — ten points from four matches in November, and five wins in six between February and April — sat a period of just one win from 13 matches.

Hurzeler, though, found solutions. Brighton played with a clearer identity following the return of Pascal Gross from Borussia Dortmund in the winter window, which facilitated Jack Hinshelwood moving into No 10. The versatile England under-21 international has thrived there, scoring four times and setting up three more, while working in tandem with striker Danny Welbeck, who had a personal best scoring season — his 13 goals tied Glenn Murray (from 2018-19) as the most by a Brighton player in a Premier League term.

Albion built this season on a defensive base. They only conceded 46, which made them the third-best defence overall, behind Manchester City (35 goals against) and Arsenal (27). It is the fewest goals conceded in a season since 2021/22 (44) and 13 fewer than last term — goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen prevented more than five goals above average based on post-shot expected goals, which ranked him in the top three showstoppers in the league.

'Box-crashing' Jack Hinshelwood scored after 35 seconds against Wolves, our fastest goal in the Premier League. 📸 by James Boardman.

A key part of Hurzeler’s out-of-possession style is high pressing. Brighton topped the league for high turnovers (192), bettering Arsenal in that metric (179), a team known for their aggression and quality at smothering opponents. This enabled Brighton to pin teams back. Opponents played 13.3% of passes long against Hurzeler’s side, with only those facing Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool being direct more often. By doing most of their defending upfield, Brighton came out on the right side of games more often than not. They won six times by a single goal and five times by two goals.

With the ball, plenty of success was had from wide areas. Yankuba Minteh led the team for assists (four) while seven different players chipped in with three apiece. Brighton completed the second-most crosses in the division (192, behind Wolves’ 198) and ranked in the top five Premier League sides for goals scored from crosses (14) — this suited the striker instincts of Welbeck, as well as Hinshelwood’s box-crashing role. Under Hurzeler, they have become a much more frequent crossing team compared to when Robert De Zerbi was head coach.

James Milner made his 654th Premier League appearance in our win at Brentford, making him the record holder for the most appearances in the Premier League. 📸 by James Boardman.

What proved decisive was how Brighton scored early and late in games. They netted nine times in the first 15 minutes of matches, with all of those at the Amex — they were the joint-best team for fast starts by that metric, along with West Ham and Manchester City. Hurzeler deserves credit for the impact made by his substitutes. He brought players off the bench 178 times, with only Marco Silva at Fulham shuffling his pack more (180), and the 12 goals scored by Brighton substitutes was another league high.

Hurzeler leant on experience towards the end of the season, with three teams — in both wins over Forest and the final-day defeat to United — which rank in the 12 oldest starting XIs for Brighton in Premier League history. This was also a campaign in which James Milner, who started in the away win over Brentford, broke the all-time Premier League appearance record (658 games, 39 for Brighton).