Albion Analytics: 100 Premier League appearances for Kaoru Mitoma

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The Japan international has been a key player for us since his debut in 2022.

Liam Tharme

Albion Analytics

2026-01-22T11:00+00:00

Kaoru Mitoma has made 121 appearances for Albion in all competitions. 📸 by Paul Hazlewood.

Japan international Kaoru Mitoma brought up a century of Premier League appearances when he started in Brighton’s 1-1 draw at home to Bournemouth.

The 28-year-old, signed from Kawasaki Frontale in 2021 and first appeared for the Albion the following season (2022/23) having enjoyed a successful loan spell with Union Saint-Gilloise in Belgium — he scored five and netted three for a title-winning team.

Now, nearly five years on, Mitoma becomes the 14th different player to make 100 Premier League appearances for Albion, and the third from Japan in the competition's history, following in the footsteps of Maya Yoshida (154) and Shinji Okazaki (114).

In early 2025, Mitoma usurped Okazaki to the crown of most Premier League goals by a Japanese player, scoring twice in three days (away to Ipswich Town and Manchester United) to take his tally to 15.

Kaoru Mitoma has scored 22 goals in 100 Premier League appearances for Albion. 📸 by James Boardman.

Seven goals since means that Mitoma boasts an impressive return of 22 goals and 14 assists from his 100 league matches. That output ranks him in the top ten of wingers since his Premier League debut in August 2022: Anthony Gordon, Brennan Johnson, Cody Gakpo, Bryan Mbeumo, Leandro Trossard, Son Heung-min and Bukayo Saka are the only wide players to better Mitoma’s combined tally of goals and assists.

He and Pascal Gross (18 assists, 13 goals) are the only Brighton players with double digit numbers for goals and assists in that time, while Danny Welbeck (29) is the sole Albion attacker to have outscored Mitoma.

Crucially, a high volume of Mitoma’s goals impact games. On seven occasions he has netted the match-winner — the most by any Brighton player in the past four seasons — and 16 of his 22 strikes have changed the game state, either equalising or putting Albion ahead.

"He is a player who can make a difference and decide an equal game with one action, by dribbling or shooting," Hurzeler said of Mitoma in July 2024, shortly after being appointed head coach. "So, he is a very important player in my thoughts.”

Fabian Hurzeler has involved Kaoru Mitoma in all Premier League games he's been fit for since the German was appointed head coach. 📸 by Paul Hazlewood.

Impressively, 14 of Mitoma’s Premier League goal involvements (8 goals, 6 assists), have been against the ‘Big Six’ teams. He has scored and/or assisted against all of Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur.

Mitoma ranks seventh in the league for one-v-ones attempted from August 2022 onwards, one of just nine players to attempt more than 400, of which 65 have been in the penalty area. Meanwhile he ranks 11th for shots following one-v-ones (13) and only Jeremy Doku (18) has created more chances after dribbles than the Japan international (13).

Of the eight instances of a Brighton player attempting 100+ dribbles in a season, Mitoma accounts for three of them (2024/25, 2023/24 and 2022/23). Simon Adingra, Solly March, Joao Pedro and Yankuba Minteh (twice, including this term) complete that list.

Kaoru Mitoma scored one of the great Albion goals with his stunning strike against Chelsea last season. 📸 by Paul Hazlewood.

He has shown a penchant for headed goals and crashing the back-post, too. Danny Welbeck (12) and Lewis Dunk (11) are the only Brighton players to better his six headed goals since debut, with Mitoma ranking second again to Welbeck’s 24 for one-touch goals (14) — he has remarkable striker instincts for a winger.

A feature of Mitoma’s game is that he often has periods of proving unstoppable. On six different occasions he has scored in consecutive Premier League games, twice doing so in the final half of last season when he netted 7 times (the club’s top scorer from MD20 onwards), helping Brighton finish eighth on 61 points, their second-best in Premier League history.