Albion Analytics: Bournemouth numbers crunched

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Albion made it back-to-back wins with the victory against Bournemouth.

Liam Tharme

Albion Analytics

2024-11-25T06:00+00:00

Joao Pedro has been directly involved in four games in his last two Premier League matches. 📷 by James Boardman.

Albion made it consecutive Premier League wins for the third time this season - they only managed that twice in 2023/24 - with a 2-1 victory away to Bournemouth.

It’s only their second Premier League win at the Vitality Stadium in six attempts, with four previous defeats — it was Brighton’s worst ground to visit (for most losses) outside of ‘Big Six’ opponents, and a venue that Arsenal, Manchester City and Newcastle United have all failed to win at this season.

A fifth win of the season by a marginal goal (the most in the league) started strongly, when Joao Pedro opened the scoring after just three minutes and 17 seconds. That is the earliest Premier League goal scored away to Bournemouth and the third time this calendar year Brighton have scored inside the first five minutes. The other two were Lewis Dunk against Crystal Palace (2 minutes, 22 seconds, in February) and Danny Welbeck away to Liverpool (1 minute, 26 seconds, in March).

Pedro’s goal made it three consecutive Premier League starts with a goal for the first time in his career, while he became the first Brighton player to score and assist in consecutive games in the competition, as he set up Kaoru Mitoma with a through ball for Albion’s second. For Mitoma, Bournemouth are his favourite opponent, with four of his 12 Premier League goals against them.

Joao Pedro scored and setup one against Bournemouth on Saturday. 📷 by James Boardman.

Brighton winning the game by scoring both big chances was emblematic of their season thus far. They’ve scored 16 out of 36 big chances (which Opta define as a situation where a player should reasonably be expected to score, such as a one-versus-goalkeeper or close-range tap-in), giving them the third-highest conversion rate (44.4%) from such situations in the league.

Only Wolverhampton Wanderers (45.5% — 10/22) and Leicester City (54.5% — 12/22) have fared better, while it is the most clinical Brighton have been since 2018-19, when they scored 50% of big chances (23 out of 46).

Though, Albion’s win owed equally to their ability to prevent chances at the other end, and keep them out when necessary. Head coach Fabian Hurzeler said it was a “good game to prove our togetherness, to show that we can defend and suffer together”.

By virtue of gamestate (with Albion spending almost the entire game ahead and having midfielder Carlos Baleba sent off after an hour), Bournemouth edged possession but found Brighton’s defence stubborn.

Igor Julio has won four of the seven Premier League games he has played in so far this season. 📷 by James Boardman.

They only completed six of 36 attempted crosses and just five of their 19 shots were on target. Brighton were successful at having bodies in the way, as Bournemouth’s average xG per shot (the chance quality in terms of average conversion rate) was 0.08, almost half what Brighton managed at the other end (0.15, with 0.94xG from 9 shots) — quality, not quantity from Albion.

Bournemouth were not the first and won’t be the last to struggle at breaking Brighton down with crosses. Premier League opponents have only completed 20.2% of crosses against the Seagulls, the lowest against any team in the division this season. In fact, Brighton account for three of the 11 best teams at defending crosses since the start of 2020/21 — just 16.3% of opposition crosses completed in 2021-22 and 19% in 2020/21.

Brighton are the only Premier League team to not concede a headed goal this season, and are putting up their best numbers for clearances per game (17.9) and aerial duel success (54.4%) since 2019/20 (18.2 clearances/game and 54.7% aerial duel success).

Even though they rank sixth for starting line-up changes this season (22), and are one of four teams to not field an unchanged XI, Hurzeler and Albion have found a way with an alternative centre-back partnership of Jan Paul van Hecke and Igor Julio, who have stood strong in absence of captain Lewis Dunk.

Bart Verbruggen has conceded 15 goals in ten Premier League appearances so far this season. 📷 by James Boardman.

Another three points on the road means it is four wins from six games for Brighton since the start of October, with only one defeat. It’s as many wins as in their 19 league games prior to that (4 wins, 7 draws, 8 defeats) and makes them the joint-most in-form team in the league, tied with Liverpool (13 points won).

The promise there is that the recent run for Brighton included four of last season’s top seven (City, Liverpool, Tottenham, Newcastle) and their next six games are against opponents no higher than tenth.

They’ve already made 2024/25 their best start of a Premier League campaign, with 22 points and fifth place after 12 games. Playing as the Friday night fixture (at home to Southampton) next week means they have the chance to go second, albeit temporarily, with a win.