48 points the magic number to set a Brighton top flight record

When Brighton moved onto 44 points with their convincing 3-0 win at Wolves, all the talk was of a new Premier League points record and how Graham Potter and his players had broken new ground.

Which is true, presuming you are happy to go along with the Sky Sports viewpoint that football did not exist until 1992.

For whilst the Albion’s current high of 44 is their best from the club’s present spell in the top flight, there was life before the Premier League came along in 1992.

Brighton secured their best ever finish in the 1981-82 season under the management of Mike Bailey. 13th spot – a position that Potter and co look well placed to better with three games of 2021-22 left to play – was achieved with 52 points.

Back then, the old Division One was made up of 22 teams. The Class of 1982 therefore played four more matches than the current crop, so the best way to compare the records of the two sides is on a points-per-game basis.

52 points won over 42 matches equates to 1.23 points-per-game. Multiply that number by the 38 games that Brighton will complete in the 2021-22 Premier League campaign and you get 47.04.

For Potter and his Albion squad to beat the existing record based on this rather nifty piece of mathematics, they need to acquire 48 points.

Four more points from games at home to Manchester United, away against 1996 Coca Cola Cup runners up The Leeds United (A) and from West Ham at the Amex? That certainly looks doable.

Warren Morgan did some number crunching earlier in the week in an attempt to predict the battle for the top 10.

He had Brighton finishing in 10th place on 49 points, which as our sums show would break both the Albion’s points record and highest ever finish.

There are some interesting parallels to be drawn with the 1981-82 campaign. Brighton under Bailey might have finished even higher were it not for a desperately poor run of form over the final couple of months, losing six and drawing one of their final seven games.

That saw Brighton tumble from being in contention for Europe to their final – and still record-breaking – 13th place finish. What might have been had the Albion not suffered such a poor sequence of results?

The same question could be asked of Brighton this season. Between September and December there was that near-100 day winless run. February and March brought six consecutive defeats featuring only one goal scored. Both those sequences have punctuated an otherwise fantastic campaign.

Whilst winless streaks link these two best-ever top flight seasons, the football played in them could not be further apart.

Bailey favoured defence with negative tactics of the sort that Chris Hughton employed to keep Brighton in the Premier League between 2017 and 2019.

That caused resentment amongst supporters, who were turned off in their droves. Goldstone crowds dwindled as low as 13,000, these being the days when actual attendances were announced rather than tickets sold.

Eventually, this led to Bailey being sacked in December 1982 – less than six months after he led the Albion to their record-breaking finish.

Five months later and Brighton were relegated under the more attack-minded Jimmy Melia. There is a lesson in that about the balance between results and entertainment.

Potter of course could never be described as being a defensive manager. The lack of goals and wins at the Amex might have caused considerable boredom for season ticket holders in 2021-22 so far, but it is a different type of boredom compared to watching a team set out to defend their way to nicking a 1-0 win.

And of course the home form has been more than made up for by what has happened on the road. Victories at difficult venues like the Emirates, the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and Molineux; last minute equalisers against Chelsea, West Ham, Southampton and Palace; coming back from 2-0 down when visiting a Liverpool side who might yet end the campaign with a quadruple.

Brighton have the fourth best away record in the Premier League in 2021-22, compared with the fourth worst home record.

It is what has happened on the road that leaves Potter and his players on the brink of collecting 48 points to become the Albion’s most successful top flight side ever.

Now imagine if he sorts the home form in 2022-23. That 48 point mark could be obliterated…