Brighton & Hove Albion 2021-22 season predictions

At risk of blowing our trumpets, we did rather well with our predictions about what would happen to Brighton in the 2020-21 Premier League season and so we have decided to have another bash for 2021-22.

Yves Bissouma as Player of the Season would have been on the money had an avalanche of votes not arrived from the Leeds area for Ben White. Tariq Lamptey was arguably the Premier League’s breakout star – let alone the Albion’s – before injury in December wrecked the remainder of his campaign.

Neal Maupay did finish as top scorer although admittedly he probably should have had double the eight goals he mustered. Jayson Molumby failed to be the surprise success we had hoped and our prediction of a 13th place finish was three higher than the Albion actually managed.

So, what of the new season? At the risk of ending up with a lot of egg on face in nine months time, here are our Brighton & Hove Albion predictions for the 2021-22 season.

Brighton’s 2021-22 Player of the Season will be Yves Bissouma
Yes, we know, how boring to predict exactly the same bloke to finish as Player of the Season two years in a row. Bissouma though is a class above anyone else Brighton own and presuming he is not sold between now and May, he can take the crown that Bashar al-Assad levels of vote rigging denied him in 2020-21.

We ran out of superlatives for Bissouma long ago, so let us just say this – if the Albion do hold onto him beyond the end of the transfer window then it will be by and far away their best bit of summer business (unless that silver bullet striker arrives).

And what if Bissouma does make his £50 million move to Liverpool, Spurs, Manchester United, Manchester City, Paris Saint Germain or one of the countless other clubs he has been linked with? Who then will be Player of the Season?

Somewhat of a left field suggestion perhaps, but have you ever seen Joel Veltman have a bad game since his £900,000 arrival from Ajax? What made his form even more impressive last season was that he spent most of the campaign playing out-of-position at right wing back once Lamptey was crocked.

With Ben White sold to Arsenal and Potter having (hopefully) retired his selection roulette wheel, Veltman is the obvious choice to take over from White in the Albion’s back three.

Centre back is Veltman’s natural position, so one of our more confident predictions is that he will be even better for Brighton in 2021-22. That could be enough to win him Player of the Season if Bissouma departs to leave a clear field.

Brighton’s 2021-22 breakout star will be Taylor Richards
We were asked by BT Sport and Sussex Live to give our predictions for a young Brighton player to keep an eye out for in the 2021-22 season and both times we nominated Reda Khadra.

In a sign of how little we know, that now seems unlikely as Khadra looked certain to move on loan to Blackburn Rovers. A season-long stay at Ewood Park apparently fell through at the last minute, but the fact that Graham Potter sanctioned sending Khadra to a place where people go to the pub in their dressing gowns to watch Jeremy Kyle on the big screen suggests that the winger is not in Brighton’s first team plans.

Another young attacker who Potter has spoken glowingly about in pre-season is Taylor Richards. He was signed for £2.5 million as an 18-year-old from Manchester City in the summer of 2019 and famously marked his first appearance in a Brighton shirt by scoring a Panenka penalty in a pre-season friendly against Crawley Town.

There were rumours of a questionable attitude during his first season at the club. A loan spell learning the ropes in League One with Doncaster Rovers last season seems to have helped him grow up and he thrived at the Keepmoat Stadium, scoring 11 goals and claiming five assists in 45 appearances from midfield.

Brighton do not score anywhere near enough goals from the middle of the park with the honourable exception of Pascal Gross. No midfielder other than Gross managed more than one in the Premier League in 2020-21, a glaring area for improvement which could help ease the burden on the centre forwards.

Whilst it would be asking a lot for Richards to bring his eye for goal in League One straight into the top flight, Potter clearly rates him very highly.

The Albion boss is not averse to chucking players directly into his first team squad from spells in the bottom two tiers, as Robert Sanchez and Steve Alzate can attest to following their time at Rochdale and Swindon Town respectively. Richards could be the next Brighton success story fresh from League One.

Brighton’s 2021-22 top scorer will be Neal Maupay
Okay, this particular element of our Brighton 2021-22 predictions is based on the Albion not signing a new centre forward. Should no striker be incoming, then it is hard to like beyond Maupay again to take home the golden boot.

There are other contenders for the crown but they all have question marks over them. Danny Welbeck outscored Maupay from open play in 2020-21; for Dat Guy to finish as top scorer though would mean getting on the pitch far more regularly than he seems capable of.

Leandro Trossard shines when the warmer weather is about. He was brilliant at the start of last season and excellent at the end, most notably when terrorising the champions as Brighton beat Manchester City 3-2 at the Amex.

As soon as winter arrives, the Vampire of Genk tends to hibernate, marking him out as a Belgian version of Paul Brooker. If Trossard could play as well in the winter as he does in the autumn and spring, then in theory he could double his output of five goals a season. That would probably be enough to see him finish as top scorer. Bloody big if though, isn’t it?

Of course, the hope here has to be that the actual answer to who will finish as Brighton top scorer in 2021-22 is someone who is not yet an Albion player.

Find that clinical centre forward that the Seagulls’ xG is crying out for and the world is our oyster. Muddle through again with the same roster of misfiring strikers and another season of looking over the shoulder looms.

Brighton’s 2021-22 surprise success will be Michal Karbownik
Michal Karbownik, remember him? The teenager was already a full Polish international when he arrived at the Amex in January for £5 million from Legia Warsaw, since when he has not played a minute of Premier League football.

This is not unusual when it comes to a young player joining Brighton. Tariq Lamptey had to wait six months and one lockdown before he was handed his Albion debut.

Alexis Mac Allister was treated equally carefully and we are still yet to see Moises Caicedo despite him being one of the hottest young properties in South American football.

Karbownik has followed a tried and tested path of being given time to adapt to English football. His chances of greater involvement in 2021-22 look good thanks to the lack of depth in both wing back slots.

Solly March and Dan Burn fulfilled the role on the left last season. Burn though is ruled of the opening weeks of the campaign through injury, meaning that there is a possible vacancy there behind March in the pecking order.

Over on the right, Lamptey remains sidelined and, as already noted, Veltman is needed at centre back. Gross finished the season at right wing back but his creative talents are surely better suited to being used in the middle of the park.

Brighton have been linked with a couple of new faces to strengthen those wide areas. Tino Livramento instead moved from Chelsea to Southampton after the Albion refused to give the Blues the option of a buy back clause in the deal and Spanish Olympic silver medalist Marc Cucurella remains a Getafe player for now.

Karbownik has been called the Polish Phillip Lahm for his ability to play down both flanks and as a holding midfielder. With a comparison like that, he is surely worthy of a first team opportunity sooner rather than later.

Brighton’s final finishing position will be 12th
There have been some wildly contrasting predictions for Brighton & Hove Albion’s 2021-22 finishing position thrown around. On TalkSport last week, you had Dean Ashton predicting a top six finish followed by Danny Mills on the same station a matter of hours later saying Brighton would end up relegated.

The reason nobody seems sure of what Brighton will do comes down to that dreaded two-letter abbreviation beginning with x and ending in g.

If the Albion suddenly start performing to their xG – via the helping hand of a new striker – then they will fly up the table. If however it is the same old story of missed chance after missed chance after missed chance, then another relegation battle looms.

That is bad news given that Norwich City, Watford and Brentford look better equipped to survive than the likes of West Brom and Fulham did in 2020-21.

The truth of where the Albion will finish lies somewhere in the middle, which is why we have gone for 12th. Potter has a squad with players coveted by other clubs (Bissouma and Lamptey), proven performers who should be on the cusp of the England set up (Dunk, Webster and March), experienced current and former internationals (Veltman, Welbeck and Adam Lallana), the man with the second-most assists of any German in Premier League history (Gross) and the best young goalkeeper in the top flight (Robert Sanchez).

Striker or no striker, if Potter gets things right and the Albion have a little bit of luck then this bunch of players should be capable of bettering the club’s highest ever finish of 13th.

They are definitely better than last year’s 16th spot, that low position being largely due to recording only two wins from the opening 18 games.

Once Potter moved to a more pragmatic style and settled on his strongest XI, the Albion were capable of going toe-to-toe with and beating the likes of Spurs, Liverpool and Manchester City. Stick with what worked in the second half of 2020-21 and see how far it takes us in 2021-22.

See you all in nine months time then, when Brighton have been relegated with Lallana at centre back and having recorded 90 percent possession in every game. Graham’s beard will still look fantastic though, at least.