Brighton have scored 17 goals in five consecutive wins, but their most revealing result wasn’t the biggest. At Sunderland, Pascal Struijk’s dismissal left them protecting a one-goal lead with more than half an hour remaining. They kept Sunderland out, then sent two substitutes forward to finish the job. Georginio Rutter supplied Jaouen Hadjam, and Brighton won 2-0.
The contrast with their 4-3 defeat at Chelsea was striking. Brighton had conceded three times inside 32 minutes at Stamford Bridge. Six league matches into the season, they’re third with 13 points and 18 goals. The attack remains productive, but the Sunderland performance offered something a high-scoring defeat couldn’t: evidence they can protect an advantage when the game changes against them.
Their subsequent 4-0 Conference League win over Kauno Žalgiris completed a sequence that also included victories against Coventry, Manchester United and Arsenal. Four clean sheets have accompanied those five wins across all competitions. The run belongs to an established project, now in Hürzeler’s third season, rather than an opening burst under a new manager.
The pressure behind Brighton’s winning run
His pressing gives that variety a common starting point. After five Premier League matches, Brighton led the division with 7.2 possession recoveries in the attacking third per game and 22 big chances created. Winning the ball that close to goal can remove several passes from an attack. Opponents have to defend before they’ve recovered their positions.
Pascal Groß gives those recoveries a better chance of becoming something useful. The 35-year-old, who returned from Borussia Dortmund in January, won September’s Premier League Player of the Month award with two goals and three assists. He offers the judgment to accompany the running: when to release a teammate, when to deliver early and when to shoot himself.
Against Arsenal, Groß scored from outside the penalty area and delivered the corner that Chema Andrés headed in for Brighton’s third. He also covered more ground than anyone else in that match. He’s contributing to the intensity as well as directing what Brighton do with the ball.
Groß deliveries and rehearsed corners
Corners have become an increasingly useful source of goals. Brighton scored three from them in their first five league matches, with summer arrivals Chema and Luka Vušković both converting Groß deliveries. Recruitment supplied additional aerial targets. Work on the training ground is helping those targets escape their markers.
After Vušković scored against Leeds, Lewis Dunk said: “We worked hard on our set-pieces over the pre-season.” Dunk explained that teammates had carried out their blocking assignments to create the opening. The finish belonged to the new defender; the space was a collective effort.
Different roles, more sources of goals
Hürzeler has also found production by changing a player’s job rather than waiting for an injured starter to return. Kaoru Mitoma’s injury has brought Maxim De Cuyper, ordinarily a fullback, into attack on the left. He scored the opener at Sunderland, showing that Brighton can retain a goal threat without asking a replacement to reproduce Mitoma’s exact qualities.
The wide players still have defensive responsibilities. De Cuyper and Diego Gómez led Brighton’s tackle totals after five league matches, with eight and 13 respectively. Gómez, who joined from Inter Miami in January 2025, helps make the pressure a team activity rather than an assignment left to the central midfielders.
Other improvements have taken longer to emerge. Malick Yalcouyé returned from loans at Sturm Graz and Swansea City and earned man-of-the-match recognition against Leeds. Charalampos Kostoulas had six goal involvements across all competitions by the Arsenal game, already twice his total from the previous season. Development is producing first-team returns alongside the summer signings.
Rutter’s two goals against Kauno Žalgiris, with Jack Hinshelwood and Matt O’Riley also scoring, extended that distribution. Brighton have already had 10 different Premier League scorers. A defender’s header, a winger’s finish and a substitute’s counterattack count equally, and Hürzeler has been getting contributions from each.
The test beyond five straight wins
The size of the victories still needs perspective. Against Arsenal, Brighton produced 1.33 expected goals to the visitors’ 1.58. They generated more shots and more big chances, but Groß and Kostoulas also supplied exceptional finishes from distance. Brighton can try to repeat the pressure that unsettled Arsenal; they can’t budget for those shots finding the corner every week.
Nor does five straight wins establish a new permanent level. Brighton also scored 18 goals in their first six league matches in 2023/24, collected two more points than they have now and finished 11th. The coming months will test whether this squad can sustain its intensity while managing domestic and European fixtures. Mitoma, Yankuba Minteh and Mats Wieffer remain unavailable for the Palace match.
Brighton don’t need every match to resemble the Arsenal win. They need the organized pressure, well-rehearsed corners and useful contributions from outside the starting lineup to survive the afternoons when the spectacular finishes don’t arrive. At Sunderland, they offered an early example of how that might work.
