Crunching the numbers behind our 2024/25 campaign

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A look back at the campaign, by Albion Analytics.

Liam Tharme

Albion Analytics

2025-06-02T06:00+01:00

Danny Welbeck scored ten Premier League goals for the first time in a season. 📷 by James Boardman.

Head coach Fabian Hurzeler said he would “judge the season my way” after Brighton’s 4-1 final day win away to Tottenham Hotspur.

Albion's eighth season in England’s top-flight was objectively their second-best, finishing one point and two places (61pts and 8th) worse off than the Europa League-clinching campaign of 2022-23 (62pts and 6th).

“I think we did enough to get Europe, we cannot influence other results,” Hurzeler said. “I think it’s a great achievement and we can be proud.”

Context is important. Behind Nottingham Forest (who more than doubled their points total from 32 to 65) and Brentford (+17pts from 39 to 56), Brighton were the third-biggest points improvers from 2023/24 to 2024/25, finishing 13 points and three places higher than last campaign (48pts and 11th).

Further, it shows the competitivity and quality of the rising Premier League middle-class that Brighton are one of the highest points-earning eighth place teams in competition history. This is only the eighth time in over 30 Premier League years — though admittedly this is the fourth time in the past five seasons — that eighth place has earned 60+ points, with Albion joining 2020/21 Arsenal, 2009-10 Everton and 1995-96 Tottenham Hotspur as the highest-pointed eighth-place finishers (61pts).

In trademark fashion, they started the season strongly, topping the table after a 3-0 win away to Everton on matchday one. They went unbeaten in their first seven Premier League games under Hurzeler and, 11 games into 2024/25, at the November international break, they sat sixth but tied on 19 points with third-place Chelsea.

Only twice all season did they lose consecutive Premier League matches (vs Everton and Nottingham Forest at the start of 2025, and against Crystal Palace and Aston Villa three days apart at the start of April).

For comparison, there were at least six times where Brighton won at least back-to-back games. There was one run of four straight wins starting in February and into early March, and they won four of the final five league games of the campaign, including all of the final three. It is a significant improvement on 2023/24, where they only won consecutive matches twice all season (in August and September).

Albion came from behind to win 23 points during the season. 📷 by Paul Hazlewood.

In fact, it was Brighton’s best second-half of a Premier League season (from gameweek 20 onwards) in club history. They won ten, drew four and only lost five of their final 19 matches, which put them joint-fifth with Newcastle for points won in the reverse fixtures (34).

Only Manchester City and (40) and Liverpool (41) scored more than Brighton’s 37 goals from January 3 onwards, which meant that they took points from 19 of the 20 teams in the league (only losing twice to Crystal Palace).

Impressively, Hurzeler’s side had the most different goalscorers in the league (18) and this was the first campaign Brighton have had three different players hit ten-plus Premier League goals: Danny Welbeck, Joao Pedro and Kaoru Mitoma.

Only Bournemouth (20) scored more times in the final 15 minutes than Brighton (19), with Hurzeler making the most subs of any head coach (184) and reaping the rewards. Fulham, with 17, were the only team to have more goals scored by substitutes than Brighton’s 15.

Fabian Hurzeler guided Albion to 16 wins in 38 Premier League matches in his first season in charge. 📷 by James Boardman.

For the first time ever, Brighton finished a Premier League season with a better goals return than their expect goals. They scored 66 times from shots worth about 59 ‘expected goals’, putting them in the top five teams for overperformance, and finally bringing some regression after being 40 goals below expectation in the previous five seasons combined (-6.8 in 2023/24; -5.8 in 2022/23; -6.2 in 2021/22; -11.9 in 2020/21; -10.4 in 2019/20).

The long-term trends are positive, with Brighton finishing in the top-half in three of the last four Premier League seasons and making at least the quarter-finals of the FA Cup for the third time in seven years.

Hurzeler, when speaking about the positives of the season, was quick to emphasise “things to improve.”

Tactically, they can improve in transition, coming out bottom for fast break goals scored (2) but conceding the most (10), with a notable period in the spring where they had vulnerabilities against counter-attacking opposition.

Albion took the lead 26 times during the Premier League season, winning on 16 occasions. 📷 by Paul Hazlewood.

There is also an extent to which their game management can improve. They dropped points from winning positions early in the campaign especially, only winning 16 times from 26 leads, drawing eight matches and losing twice — that totals 25 points dropped, though it should be mentioned that the Premier League is in an era of comebacks across the board, and Brighton had the joint-most points won from behind with Manchester City (23).

These are improvements Hurzeler and his staff will relish chasing: "That is the challenge for next season,” he said after Tottenham.

For a head coach who arrived last summer with a hyperfocus on his youth, and a busy summer window, 2024/25 was a season packed with success.