Danny Welbeck scored twice to sink Liverpool 2-1 at the Amex on Saturday and suddenly everything feels different on the south coast.
Three wins from four in the league. Forty-three points from 31 games with seven still to play. A positive goal difference. And whisper it quietly, but a European place that no longer looks like complete fantasy.
It has been a strange old season for Brighton. Inconsistent would be the polite word. Maddening would be more accurate.
Eleven wins, ten draws, ten losses is the record of a team that cannot decide what it wants to be. One week the Albion are thumping Brentford away from home and the next they are losing 1-0 to Crystal Palace at the Amex in front of a crowd that looks like it would rather be anywhere else.
But something has shifted in the past month. And if the most recent run of form is anything to go by, Fabian Hurzeler might just be starting to figure this out.
The Brentford game changed everything
The turning point was probably that trip to the Gtech Stadium on 21 February. Brighton won 2-0, James Milner broke Gareth Barry’s all-time Premier League appearance record by playing in his 654th game, and for the first time in weeks, the Albion actually looked like a side that trusted each other.
Milner’s cameos from the bench earlier in the season had become a running joke. Three minutes at Anfield purely to get a nice round of applause from Liverpool fans. Thirty seconds against Everton.
Brighton famously conceded with Milner on the pitch in both of those games, prompting more than a few Seagulls supporters to wish the whole thing would just hurry up and be over.
But then something clicked. Given a proper run of minutes at Villa Park after Carlos Baleba got himself booked inside 60 seconds and a full start at Brentford, Milner showed there is genuine quality still in those 40-year-old legs.
Wayne Rooney reckoned on Match of the Day that he could keep going for a few seasons yet. The conspiracy theorists who believe Hurzeler ordered Baleba to go berserk just to get Milner on the pitch might not be far wrong.
Welbeck doing what Welbeck does
If Milner’s record provided the spark, Danny Welbeck has been carrying the flame. Two goals against Liverpool in what was comfortably his best performance of the season.
Another in the 2-1 win over Nottingham Forest a few weeks earlier. At 35, Welbeck continues to be one of the most underappreciated strikers in the division.
There were plenty who questioned whether Brighton should offer him a new deal. Those people look very silly right now.
He leads the line with an intelligence that few forwards in the Premier League can match, and his movement drags defenders out of position in ways that create space for Yankuba Minteh and Georginio Rutter to exploit.
Minteh, in particular, has been thrilling to watch since arriving. His goal against Sunderland continued a run of form that has surprised most people outside of the Amex, although those of us who have watched him closely all season know what he is capable of.
For a player who cost a fraction of what the Albion received for Julio Enciso, Minteh already looks like the better piece of business.
A squad built for the run-in
One of the less appreciated aspects of this Brighton side is the depth Hurzeler has at his disposal.
Ayari has been a revelation in midfield. Boscagli and Kadioglu offer genuine quality at the back. Diego Gomez keeps chipping in with goals from positions where you would not expect them.
Even Jan Paul van Hecke, who has had his critics this season, has put together a run of solid performances since the turn of the year.
The squad turnover has been relentless over the past few seasons, with the club following a model of selling high and reinvesting smartly.
Caicedo, Mac Allister, Cucurella, and now Enciso have all moved on for significant fees. What Brighton have done better than almost anyone else in the league is replace them without missing a step.
Tony Bloom’s analytical approach to recruitment, honed over decades in the world of probability and data, continues to pay dividends.
That model gives the Albion a depth that most clubs in the bottom half of the table simply do not have. When Hurzeler rotates, the quality drop-off is minimal. That matters enormously over the final stretch of a long season.
Where do Brighton finish?
The league table makes for interesting reading. Forty-three points already banked means safety is not quite mathematically certain but is effectively guaranteed. The real question is how high this team can climb.
Bournemouth and Fulham sit just above Brighton on 42 and 41 points respectively. Everton, also on 43, are level.
A top-half finish is absolutely in play, and a strong end to the campaign could push the Albion into the European conversation.
Even a casual look at the odds across online casinos and sportsbooks tells you the market has noticed the upturn.
Brighton’s price for a top-eight finish has shortened significantly over the past few weeks.
Seven games remain. Trips to Burnley and Tottenham look winnable. A home fixture against a Wolves side that have been in freefall all season should yield three points.
The visit of Manchester City is the glamour tie, but Pep Guardiola’s side have not been the fortress they once were this term.
If Brighton can maintain anything close to this current run of form, 55 points is not out of the question.
That would likely be enough for eighth or ninth place, which for a team that was flirting with the bottom five as recently as early February would represent a remarkable turnaround.
The bottom line
Nobody is getting carried away. This is Brighton, and we have been burned too many times to start planning trips to the continent just yet.
Hurzeler’s side have a habit of following up a brilliant result with a head-scratching one, and the schedule still has enough difficult fixtures to keep everyone grounded.
But there is a quality and a togetherness in this squad that was not there two months ago.
Welbeck is scoring. Milner is contributing. Minteh is developing into one of the signings of the season, particularly given how things ended for Julio Enciso.
And the manager, after months of looking like a man searching for answers, finally appears to have found a system and a mentality that suits the players he has.
Forty-three points with seven games left. Europe might be a stretch. But a strong top-half finish, after everything this season has thrown at us? That would be something worth celebrating.
It would also be the latest vindication of a club that has quietly become one of the best-run operations in the country.
From the Withdean to the Amex, from League One to competing for Europe, Brighton’s story is one the Football Association should be holding up as a blueprint for how to build a sustainable top-flight club. Because right now, it is working.
About The Author
WeAreBrighton.com have been covering the Albion since the start of the 2009-10 season, back when the Seagulls were a struggling League One outfit playing in front of less than 8,000 fans every week at Withdean Stadium.
It has grown into the most popular fan-run Albion news site with multiple nominations at the Football Content Awards. WAB is also the leading unofficial Brighton social media channel with over 125,000 followers across various platforms.