Brighton 4-0 Villarreal: 5 things learnt from Albion’s final friendly

Brighton 4-0 Villarreal made it four wins out of four for the Albion in pre-season with 14 goals scored and three conceded.

You should never ready too much into friendly results. But a 100 percent record under Fabian Hurzeler means Brighton will be Premier League champions 2024-25, right?

Villarreal certainly had no answer to the aggressive pressing style introduced by Hurzeler, which so impressed the 11,000 Albion supporters who turned up.

Joao Pedro, Yankubu Minteh and a Danny Welbeck brace did the damage. Hurzeler even removed his baseball cap for the first time, giving everyone a glimpse of his new head of hair. It looked lovely.

Here are five things we learnt from Brighton 4-0 Villarreal.

James Milner is an early Hurzeler midfield favourite

Whenever Roberto De Zerbi selected James Milner at full back last season, I broke out in a cold sweat. The world and his wife could see a pensioner faced with any sort of quick or nippy winger was a recipe for disaster. And it so often was.

Hurzeler has kept Milner far away from the full back positions so far, instead using him exclusively as a central midfielder. He has even worn the captain’s armband in the absence of Lewis Dunk.

If we are to assume the starting XI for Brighton 4-0 Villarreal is the same as will take to the field at Everton next week, it is a role Milner will fulfil in the Premier League.

Improvement needed defensively

Jason Steele has back-to-back clean sheets but the Albion will need to improve defensively and quickly once the competitive action gets underway.

A better team than Villarreal could have scored two or three. The visitors should have been ahead inside 60 seconds, only for Arnaut Danjuma to hit the post with the goal gaping.

Danjuma then hit the side netting and was denied by a great Jan Paul van Hecke block. Sean Dyche and Everton will take those sort of opportunities if presented with them at Goodison Park on Saturday.

Brighton looked particularly vulnerable down their right hand side. This was not necessarily the fault of Joel Veltman, who appeared to have some sort of free role whereby he would pop up all over the pitch from right back. He even ended up on the left wing at one point.

The abandonment of what you might call rigid, fixed positions will make the Albion a lot of fun to watch this season. But it will also mean they are likely to concede a lot of goals.

Yankubu Minteh is the real deal

WAB have dedicated plenty of words to Yankubu Minteh already and the £33 million signing from Newcastle United did not disappoint on his first outing at the Amex.

He set up Welbeck for the second Brighton goal and went onto score the third himself. Goals and assists look guaranteed.

Minteh though brings more than just that. His work rate so far has been phenomenal and proven vital to Hurzeler’s pressing tactics.

Not only can Minteh press, but he frequently wins the ball whilst doing so. Those traits in combination have the potential to make him a star – especially once his decision making improves, as it inevitably will with greater experience.

Billy Gilmour looks likely to move on

Brighton named 13 substitutes but there was no place for Billy Gilmour in Hurzeler’s 24-man squad. The midfielder has been back in training with the Albion and yet whilst Dunk was thrown straight into the starting XI, Gilmour did not even make the bench.

You do not have to read too much between the lines to therefore conclude Gilmour is not part of Hurzeler’s plans.

Milner and Mats Wieffer are odds on to start as Brighton’s midfield two against Everton. Carlos Baleba is likely next in line. Yasin Ayari has done his cause no harm with some decent pre-season showings.

If Gilmour is now sixth in the pecking order, his departure to Napoli appears a formality once the Serie A side meet Brighton’s asking price.

Also in the same boat as Gilmour is Jakub Moder. The Poland international has not featured so far under Hurzeler. If a suitable bid comes in for Moder, he too will be off this summer having almost joined Leicester City earlier in the transfer window.

Everton will be a much sterner test

As impressive as Brighton 4-0 Villarreal was, there remains a sense that Brighton have not really been tested in what has been an easy pre-season schedule.

Kashima Antlers and Tokyo Verdy were League One standard opponents at best. In any case, the Japanese Tour was always more about growing the brand and selling merchandise than it was preparing for the Premier League season ahead.

Paul Barber OBE publicly admitted as much. Making a nice change from executives of other clubs who insist flying to Australia for a friendly match two days after the final game of the regular seasons is of benefit to their players. Hey, Spurs and Newcastle.

QPR finished six points above the Championship relegation zone. Villarreal were eighth in La Liga and arrived at the Amex having lost to St Etienne and drawn with Nottingham Forest in pre-season.

Albion supporters were split in opinion after Brighton 4-0 Villarreal. Were the visitors crap? Or had the Seagulls made them look crap? The same debate raged following last week’s 1-0 win over QPR.

What we can say with certainty is that the Albion will face 38 far tougher games over the next nine months in the Premier League, starting at Everton on Saturday.

Dyche’s side will be more resistant to Brighton pressing. As already noted, they will punish the Albion’s weaknesses at the back.

90 minutes at Goodison Park will give a clearer picture of where Brighton currently stand and where they might be headed under Hurzeler than the 360 minutes of pre-season action combined.

Bring on Goodison Park.