Arsenal continue with their 4th match in a row away from home with a trip down to the south coast to face an always tough Brighton.
Let’s breakdown the stats for this matchup.
Brighton Performance
Brighton have had a bit of a weird start to the season. They have seen goals fly in like crazy for them, they have matches where they have scored, 4, 4, 3, 5, and 3 goals out of their seven match played this season. They have also seen early red card in two of their four Premier League matches (though to be fair they were already ahead in both of them before that).
This makes them one of the weirder teams in the League and when you put them on the weighted goals and xG scatter they stick out in a unique way, as one of the highest scoring teams but also in the out of the ordinary lower right corner.
If we view things only where the match gamestate is still “competitive” (this strips out situations where there is a big lead) they fall back into a more normal position for what you would kind of expect from them based on the priors.
I think that this is a better fit for who and what they are. They are a good team, on their day they can play very well but they struggle to consistently play at the highest level.
Their 10-match rolling average shows this pretty clearly, they have stretches where they look strong but they haven’t been able to put it together for a full season. This has left them over and over just outside of the Champions League positions.
The start of their season has seen them play a bit of a mixed schedule. It is not super easy but they have not started out with the most punishing of early fixtures.
They caught Aston Villa at a great time, where the team was still being put together in the final days of the transfer window. They played away to Coventry, who look like they are still finding their feet plus had the benefit of a red card. They also have faced Chelsea and Leeds where they have dropped points.
Overall, this puts them in basically the exact same spot points wise they were last season against this same fixtures.
Brighton Form
