Relegation is a distant worry – Brighton are playing well enough for Europe
So, as we slide into the second half of the season as skilfully as Dan Burn slides in to a tackle on a player worth more than most League One squads combined, let’s take another look at where Brighton & Hove Albion are, how we got here and what’s next.
We stand in the giddy heights of ninth. One defeat in the first nine games got things off to a fantastic start, including coming from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 at Anfield.
Over the past month, we have held the European Champions twice and put in a series of quite brilliant performances, such as when winning at Goodison Park for the first ever time.
We have fewer defeats than any side outside the top three of Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea, and have the sixth best defence in the Premier League.
It is five games since we last tasted defeat, having ended a record 11 game top flight winless run on Boxing Day against Brentford.
The post whistle boos at the Wolves game nine days before Christmas seem a long time ago, but I suspect the hacks will be referencing it in their match reports – as one did after the Chelsea game at the Amex – for the rest of the season.
We have drawn more games – 11 – than any other side in the Premier League. So many of those points have been snatched at the dying embers of the game by last minute equalisers from (mostly) Neal Maupay.
It was a personal highlight to see his overhead worldie against West Ham at the London Stadium on my first away trip for a long time.
Whereas last season it felt like we were squandering two points on too many occasions when we should have won, this season a number of our honours-even results have felt like wins, the recent 1-1 with Chelsea at the Amex being a good example.
Yet there is still that nagging doubt – despite goals from across the squad, as with Alexis Mac Allister and Dan Burn in the excellent demolition of Everton which effectively sealed Rafa Benitez’s fate – that we are lacking a solo magician and clinical finisher upfront.
That is unfair on Maupay and Danny Welbeck to an extent, but as The Athletic’s Chelsea correspondent Liam Twomey tweeted this week: “As someone who pretty much only watches Brighton when they play Chelsea, I can only conclude that Brighton are one reliable goal scorer away from being champions.”
That may be, this season at least, a stretch bigger than many people’s work trousers after lockdown, but it’s good to hear.
There are still a few days for Dan Ashworth and his team to spring a surprise striker signing, but maybe that’s more for the closed season, if at all. It is still possible that the answer lies with on-loan players or even the under 23s, but we shall see.
Covid-19 has played havoc with fixtures, meaning some teams have played 22 games (poor exhausted Chelsea 23) while others have completed only 19 matches.
In the case of bottom team Burnley, Sean Dyche and his Clarets have managed just 17. This means the table isn’t a fully clear picture of current standings.
Our weekend opponents Leicester are four points behind us but they have two games in hand. It makes an away win, or at least another draw, all the more important at the King Power Stadium.
We are one win from overtaking Wolves in ninth but they have a match in hand over us too. Six or seven points ahead, Arsenal and Tottenham have extra games to play.
Most importantly, we have more than double the points of any team in the bottom four. That means there would have to be an extraordinary and near unprecedented change in form for us to even be remotely threatened by relegation.
This is the first season where we are not listed amongst the relegation rivals or battlers, and where pundits regularly feature us in their top 10 predictions.
Living up to those predictions and finishing the campaign in the top 10 has to be our goal now. Doing so would be a matter of pride for all of us and a credit to Tony Bloom and the whole club for getting us in the position to be challenging at the top of the English game.
Most exciting of all? Despite all the caveats of games in hand, too many draws and narrow margins in most of our games, say it quietly or say it loud, at the halfway mark, Brighton & Hove Albion are just six points off playing European football next season.
There is little question we are playing well enough to deserve it.
Warren Morgan @WarrenBHAFC
