We look ahead to Saturday’s Premier League action with our data-powered Everton vs Brighton prediction and preview. Can Sean Dyche’s men continue their upturn in form?
Everton vs Brighton: The Quick Hits
- Brighton and Hove Albion are predicted to overcome Everton on Saturday, winning 40.3% of the Opta supercomputer’s 10,000 pre-match simulations.
- Everton have won three of their last five Premier League games, as many as they had in their previous 20.
- Brighton’s Evan Ferguson has scored 10 Premier League goals in 2023, the most by a teenager in a single calendar year since Wayne Rooney in 2005 (11).
Match Preview
Everton host Brighton at Goodison Park on Saturday looking to close the gap between the sides in the Premier League table to just four points.
Everton’s poor start to the season had fans deeply concerned over their Premier League status while Brighton were being spoken about as one of the main challengers for UEFA Champions League qualification.
And yet, now 10 games into the campaign, Brighton have fallen off the pace and sit six points off fourth-placed Liverpool while Everton are just three points away from the top half. Football, and particularly the Premier League, can change very quickly, and with 28 games still to go this season both teams will be looking for three points this weekend to either arrest their slide or continue their recent improvement.
Following a 1-0 win at West Ham last time out, Everton are aiming for back-to-back Premier League victories for the first time since October 2022 (the first one of which was against the Hammers). Brighton, meanwhile, are winless in four Premier League games, their longest run without a league victory since Roberto De Zerbi’s first five games in charge in October last season.
Dominic Calvert-Lewin scored the winner at West Ham and his return to form has been a major boost for the Toffees, with his three goals in seven Premier League games this season more than he managed in 17 matches last term (two). He has also only scored more Premier League goals against Crystal Palace and Newcastle United (five each) than he has against Brighton (three) and should be raring to go against one of his favourite opponents come kick-off.
De Zerbi will be desperate for his team to show improvement at the back, with Brighton both scoring and conceding in their last 14 Premier League games. Only Everton (16 in 2012-13) and Aston Villa (15 in 2007-08) have gone on longer runs. It wasn’t such a problem earlier in the season when the Seagulls were simply outscoring teams, winning five of their first six and all by a margin of two or more goals, but recently the goals have dried up slightly, and so have the victories.
But Brighton may look at their next five fixtures as the type of schedule that could see them get back on track, with Opta rating their next five games as the second easiest in the league behind Crystal Palace. All but one of the Seagulls’ next five opponents head into Matchday 11 in the Premier League’s bottom half while Brentford, the final game of that run, are currently 10th.
Finding the net will be crucial for Brighton on Saturday at Goodison Park, where Everton’s last seven Premier League home wins have all been to nil. They have not won when conceding at least once on home soil since May 2022, drawing two and losing 14 since then.
Evan Ferguson and Kaoru Mitoma are two players who should give Brighton a good chance of finding the net, the latter producing the most shot involvements following a carry of any Premier League player (18 – nine shots, nine chances created), while excluding central defenders, no player has progressed the ball more than the tricky Japan international this season (1,635 metres).
Ferguson, meanwhile, leads Brighton with five Premier League goals this term, taking his total in the competition for 2023 to 10, the first of which came in a 4-1 win against Everton at Goodison Park in January. However, since then just two of his goals have come away from home, and the teenager is yet to find the same scoring touch on the road that he has shown at the Amex Stadium.
Everton were in EFL Cup action in midweek, beating Burnley 3-0 at Goodison Park to reach the quarter-finals. Thankfully for Dyche, his team suffered no further injuries, though he will remain without Dele Alli and André Gomes. Everton could be boosted by the return of Seamus Coleman in the coming weeks having resumed training following a long-term knee injury, though the Brighton game will likely come too soon.
For De Zerbi, Solly March and Danny Welbeck continue to be absent from the lineup but full-backs Pervis Estupiñán and Tariq Lamptey could feature having missed time of late with injury. Jakub Moder and Julio Enciso are also unavailable.
Everton vs Brighton Head-to-Head
Everton have enjoyed success against Brighton, beating them at least once in nine of the 10 previous league campaigns in which they’ve met, with the exception being 1981-82.
Brighton, meanwhile, have won their last two Premier League away games against Everton, having failed to win any of their first eight visits to Goodison Park in league competition (two draws, six defeats).
Dyche’s men stunned Brighton in the teams’ last meeting in May, ending a seven-game winless run by thumping the Seagulls 5-1 at the Amex Stadium, a resounding victory that took Everton out of the relegation zone and helped set up their great escape to preserve their Premier League status.
Recent Form
Brighton have lost 6-1 to Aston Villa and 2-1 at Manchester City in their last two Premier League away games – they’ve not lost three in a row on the road since May 2021.
Those defeats have come as part of a poor run in which De Zerbi’s men have won just two of their last seven in all competitions, held to a 1-1 home draw by bottom-half side Fulham in their last match.
Everton have been better of late, winning five of their last seven outings in all competitions, aided by improved displays in front of goal, netting at least once in eight of their last 10 fixtures. The Toffees sit 15th, five points above the bottom three, and Dyche will be looking for a home victory this weekend to put further distance between his team and the drop.
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off this weekend, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
Everton vs Brighton Prediction
The Opta supercomputer favours Brighton to come away from Goodison Park with all three points on Saturday, winning 40.3% of the 10,000 simulations conducted ahead of MD11.
Everton are given a 30.5% chance of recording back-to-back home victories after beating Bournemouth in their last Premier League match at Goodison Park, while the teams share the spoils 29.2% of the time.
Everton’s recent form is doing wonders for their chances of staving off the drop according to the Opta supercomputer, now estimated to go down just 8.6% of the time having been predicted to be relegated 18.7% of the time prior to their win at West Ham last weekend. For Brighton, their most likely finish is seventh, though they are given a 4.9% chance of cracking the top four.
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