Can Brighton win the Premier League? What their chances say after nine games
After nine games of the 2015-16 season, Leicester were fifth in the Premier League, five points off the top. They won the league.
After nine games of this season, Brighton are third, five points behind Arsenal, with the best goal difference in the division. On Saturday they won 1-0 at the Etihad. So the question is fair: can Brighton actually win the Premier League?
The table says it is possible
Five points after nine games is not a big gap. Since 2010-11, four of the sixteen champions were five points or more behind at this stage: Manchester United in 2010-11, Manchester City in 2013-14 and 2020-21, and Leicester in 2015-16. Six of the sixteen were third or lower. On the table alone, Brighton are exactly where a surprise champion would be.
So I looked at what the table cannot show: the chances behind the results, using expected goals (Opta's measure of how likely each shot was to go in, from where and how it was taken).
The attack is title-level
Brighton have created 35 big chances (chances a player would be expected to score) in nine games, level with Manchester City for the most in the league. Their expected goals, 17.2, are second only to City's 18.3. On the chances they create, Brighton look like a team that belongs at the top.
The goals have run far ahead of the chances
Brighton have scored 24 goals from chances worth 17.2, and conceded 7 from chances worth 13.0. On chances, their goal difference would be about +4, fifth in the league. In reality it is +17, the best in the league.
Add those two gaps together and Brighton are 12.8 goals better off than their chances deserve, after nine games. The next team is Brentford at 5.7. At the other end, Nottingham Forest are 11.4 goals worse off than theirs, which is part of why they are second from bottom.
That kind of gap does not usually last. In the last six full seasons, the biggest gap any team held over a whole season was 19 goals. Brighton are two-thirds of the way there after a quarter of the season.
The defence is not
The part that worries me is not the finishing. It is the chances Brighton give away. Their expected goals against, 13.0, ranks 11th in the league: mid-table. They have conceded only 7 because shots that usually go in have not, through their goalkeeper, their defenders and opponents' finishing, not because opponents are short of chances.
Champions out-create opponents by about a goal a game
Every Premier League champion in the last six full seasons had an expected goal difference of roughly a goal a game or better, from +0.98 (Arsenal last season) to +1.73 (Manchester City in 2021-22). Five of the six were the best team in the league on that measure, and the other was second. Brighton are at +0.47, fifth.
My verdict
No, I do not think Brighton win the league. Their finishing and their goalkeeping will cool down, and when they do, the gap to Arsenal and City will open.
But that is not the interesting part. The attack is real: Brighton create chances at the level of the best team in the country, on a squad worth a little over half of Arsenal's or City's. If I were their sporting director, I would not spend January on another striker to chase a title. I would spend it on the defence, because the chances Brighton allow are what will cost them if the luck turns, and a Champions League place is theirs to lose.
How I measured it
All figures are Opta data from FotMob after nine Premier League games of 2026-27. "Goals above chances" is goals scored minus expected goals, plus expected goals against minus goals conceded. Past seasons use FotMob's full-season team expected goals from 2020-21 to 2025-26; 2019-20 is left out because FotMob's expected goals for that season are incomplete. The positions after nine games are calculated from every result since 2010-11. Squad values are FotMob's.