How De Zerbi's personnel tweaks rectified Brighton's goal issues
When Brighton & Hove Albion drew 3-3 with Liverpool at the beginning of October, Roberto De Zerbi selected a front three of Pascal Gross, Leandro Trossard and Danny Welbeck in what was his first game in charge of the Seagulls.
Three-and-a-half months later, an entirely different triumvirate helped Brighton blitz the same opponents 3-0 at the Amex Stadium, keeping them in contention for the European places.
Solly March, Evan Ferguson and Karou Mitoma were the three players who started up top on Saturday, and their performance as a collective will no doubt have convinced De Zerbi to keep faith with that trio going forward.
The attack is not the only part of the team that has changed since De Zerbi’s maiden match at the helm. Brighton lined up in a 3-4-3 for that game at Anfield, but in each of their league outings since the World Cup they have deployed a 4-2-3-1 formation.
In fact, of the 10 outfielders that started in that 3-3 draw in October, only the central midfield duo of Alexis Mac Allister and Moises Caicedo played in the exact same roles at the weekend. That is testament to De Zerbi’s flexibility and also serves as proof that, although he inherited a solid foundation from Graham Potter, the Italian has now made this team his own.
March was the star of the show against Liverpool, notching a brace to send Jurgen Klopp’s men packing. According to WhoScored’s rating system, he was the standout performer in the entire Premier League this weekend.
All three forwards were involved in Brighton’s opening goal. Ferguson put pressure on Joel Matip to force a turnover. Brighton then worked the ball to Mitoma, who rolled a pass across the face of the box for March to tap home at the back post.
A few minutes later, March rifled a left-footed shot into the far corner of the net to double Brighton’s advantage, before Welbeck put the icing on the cake late on.
March has spent much of this season at wing-back, but he has responded brilliantly to being pushed further forward by De Zerbi. He now has four goals and two assists in four post-World Cup appearances, having taken 10 of his 37 shots this season in those matches. March strikes the ball cleanly and provides energy and intensity out of possession, while De Zerbi must also appreciate his ability to absorb tactical instructions.
On the other flank, Mitoma is showing why he has always been so highly rated back home in Japan. After spending last term on loan with Belgian outfit Union SG, the winger found game time hard to come by under Potter earlier in 2022/23. But after forcing his way into the team, Mitoma has made himself undroppable.
The Japan international is electric in full flow. He left Trent Alexander-Arnold for dead on more than one occasion on Saturday, using a combination of trickery and speed to leave the Liverpool right-back trailing in his wake.
Mitoma loves running at defenders. Of those players with more than 10 league appearances under their belt this season, only Allan Saint-Maximin (3.9), Said Benrahma (2.6) and Samuel Edozie (2.3) are averaging more successful dribbles per 90 minutes than Mitoma (2.2).
If Mitoma was always likely to break into the side eventually, few anticipated Ferguson becoming such a prominent part of De Zerbi’s plans at this early stage of his career. The 18-year-old only featured in one Premier League game last season, and he has still only played 174 top-flight minutes this term.
During Potter’s time at the club, Brighton’s principal shortcoming was their profligacy in front of goal. Trossard helped to solve that problem earlier in the campaign, notching seven goals in his first 12 matches of 2022/23, but he has now announced that he wants to leave the club.
Ferguson is a very different type of player to Trossard, but De Zerbi will hope he can be the goalscoring centre-forward that Brighton have long lacked. The Irish teenager has found the net twice in his four outings to date, two of which came as a substitute.
He offers other qualities too: his mobility was evidenced by the way he pressed from the front against Liverpool, while he also demonstrated a knack for receiving the ball back to goal, holding it up and then finding a team-mate. It was an impressively accomplished display for someone so young.
Brighton are just three points behind fifth-placed Tottenham Hotspur, on whom they have a game in hand. As they showed against Liverpool, the south coast side play like a top team. They rank fifth in the league for possession and pass completion, joint-fourth for shots on target per game, and sixth for attempts inside the penalty area.
With their three starting attackers all in top form, the sky is the limit for De Zerbi’s Seagulls.
