Albion Analytics: Ajax

There is the caveat that there has never been a better time to play Ajax. They sit 17th of 18 Eredivisie teams, the club’s lowest-ever league position, and took just five points from their opening seven games. But this is a club that know European football; they won three European Cups consecutively between 1971-73, were Champions League semi-finalists in 2018-19 and Europa League runners-up in 2017.

They had drawn their first two games of the group, 3-3 at home to Marseille and 1-1 in Athens against AEK, edging possession in both. Things were quite different on Thursday.

Brighton recorded 788 passes and 65% possession, the highest by any team to face Ajax since 2014. In Europe since 2018-19, Ajax have recorded a PPDA average of 8.94 — that is, opposition teams average close to nine passes before Ajax make a defensive action, an indication of an aggressive and high pressing team. At the Amex, that number was 36.8, comfortably Ajax’s highest in a European game over the past five years, and the first time since September 2021 (vs Sporting) that they did not record a high turnover.

Ajax tried to sit in a 4-4-2 mid-block to man-mark Brighton’s midfielders, force bad passes and counter-attack off turnovers. Roberto De Zerbi spoke afterwards at a surprise in Ajax defending with two strikers, and Brighton took time in the first-half to adapt. They kept the ball excellently through short passes, forcing the defensive block to shift and fatigue, and counter-pressed with aggression in the moments they did lose possession. Overall, a 93.1% pass accuracy was Brighton’s joint-highest in a game under De Zerbi (tied with Middlesbrough away in the FA Cup), but they committed just six fouls, the fewest since a 1-0 win against Bournemouth in February (5 fouls), 24 games ago.

Both goals reflected this.The first saw Albion camped in the Ajax half, before Lewis Dunk split the midfield into Kaoru Mitoma, who forced goalkeeper Diant Ramaj to parry, and Joao Pedro followed up with his sixth goal in all competitions this season, and is joint-top scorer in the Europa League (4 — with Freiburg’s Vincenzo Grifo).

Collectively, Dunk and centre-back partner Jan Paul van Hecke attempted 293 passes and completed 284 of them. Individually, their 164 and 129 passes attempted are the two highest totals by any player in a Europa League game this season. “We have to stay realistic — Brighton is one of the best footballing teams,” said Ajax striker Brian Brobbey afterwards.

The second, a back-to-front move, encapsulated Brighton’s patience and then penetration. It was one of ten shots Brighton had inside the penalty area, with 12 shots total.

As well as the win, keeping a first clean sheet since April (away to Arsenal) was essential for Albion, ending a run of 16 games in which they had conceded. De Zerbi called it an “important” clean sheet, one that helped Brighton end a streak of five without a win, as they come off the back of a difficult run of league fixtures and balanced against European competition. That their European results have improved in the first three games (loss, then draw, then win) is valuable.

Three games is a small sample, but tournaments are inherently short competitions. Of all Europa League teams so far, Albion have the highest field tilt at 71.3% — a measurement of the proportion of overall final-third passes a team makes in a game, including the opponent, with 50% indicating that each team made as many as each other. They also have the lowest long pass rate (4.4%) but the highest average xG per shot (0.16).

Finding ways to win against stubborn defensive blocks is also a challenge, but Brighton’s maturity in managing the game, at 2-0 for almost 40 minutes, is an important sign moving into the final three Europa League fixtures.