Albion Analytics: Our fine start to life in Europe

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Here's how the numbers look after we finished top of Group B in the Europa League.

Liam Tharme

Albion Analytics

2023-12-24T06:00:00Z

A night to remember at the Amex.

Head coach Roberto De Zerbi described Brighton topping Europa League group B as the “best moment in my time” at the club. The numbers show they were worthy winners.

Only four teams — West Ham, Atalanta, Slavia Praha, Bayer Leverkusen — took more than their 13 points, and Brighton were just one of four teams to not lose any of their three away games. That is particularly impressive considering it was the ‘group of death’ featuring European Cup/Champions League winners in Ajax and Marseille, and, including Albion, the only group to feature three teams in Opta’s top 50 power rankings prior to matchday one; that is a global team rating system that assigns ability scores to over 13,000 clubs.

Albion finished with a flourish, winning their final four games consecutively (2-0, 0-2, 0-1 and 1-0), a feat only matched by Bayer Leverkusen, who went through their group with a perfect record.

The contrast of Brighton’s first three halves of European football — the home game against AEK Athens and the first half in Marseille — to their nine halves since, is stark. They conceded five times and only scored twice in the first three halves, putting up about as many shots as they conceded (20 for, 21 against; 9 on target for, 10 on target against) despite creating more big chances (7 versus 4) and better quality chances based on xG.

“I’m not a big coach, I’m not used to playing this competition — we have to adapt,” De Zerbi said after the draw on France’s south coast. How Brighton adapted. Since Jordan Veretout’s 20th minute goal in Marseille, Brighton have not conceded in over four-and-a-half Europa League games, a run of over seven hours without opponents scoring. In that run (of nine halves) they have outshot opponents 51-42 (19-9 on target), but critically have created chances worth double the quality (6.54-3.1xG) and given up just two big chances to the nine created, scoring six without reply.

Fittingly, the home win over Marseille was Brighton’s best game in Europe this season; they made 15 final-third regains, the most by any team in any Europa League game in 2023-24. Brighton allowed Marseille just five shots, with none on target and no big chances, and just ten touches in the Brighton box — their fewest faced in a European game. It was their fourth clean sheet of the tournament, a feat only matched by Slavia Prague. And yet, only Sporting (14) bettered Brighton’s 12 sequences of nine-plus passes that ended in a shot — three resulted in goals, something no team could improve on.

Brighton won in Amsterdam and Athens with minority shares of possession, and yet beat Ajax 2-0 at home — the same scoreline which they won the away game by — with the highest possession by a team against Ajax since 2014. They are just the seventh team, in all competitions, to complete a double over Ajax since 2017-18.

Those achievements are particularly significant considering the youthfulness of Albion's teams. Only Rennes, Leverkusen, Sturm Graz, Toulouse, Ajax and Liverpool have named a younger starting XI in the Europa League this season than Brighton’s line-up away to AEK Athens, which featured six under 23s and had an average age of exactly 25, featuring three academy graduates in Lewis Dunk, Evan Ferguson and Jack Hinshelwood.

Joao Pedro was undoubtedly Albion’s start of the group stage, making it fitting that he scored the decisive goal to ensure they topped the group.

Only Fotis Ioannidis (71% at Panathinaikos) scored a higher proportion of his team’s goals than Joao Pedro, who netted 60% (6/10) of Brighton’s goals. He won three penalties, tying him for most penalties won in a Europa League season since 2018/19: only Christopher Nkunku for RB Leipzig in 2021/22 and Christopher Wernitznig for Wolfsberger AC in 2020/21 have won three, and that is with the knockout rounds still to come.

Midfielder Billy Gilmour afterwards spoke of Brighton’s desire to go all the way. They could be just four wins from lifting the trophy next year.