Two teams looking to avoid a European hangover meet on Sunday. We look ahead to this Premier League match with our data-powered Brighton vs Liverpool prediction and preview.
Brighton vs Liverpool: Quick Hits
- Liverpool (47.8%) head to the Amex Stadium as favourites against Brighton (25.2%), according to the Opta supercomputer.
- Jürgen Klopp’s men are looking to bounce back having seen their 17-game unbeaten Premier League run end at Tottenham last weekend.
- Mohamed Salah will be taking on one of his favourite opponents, only registering more goal involvements against Manchester United (14) and West Ham (13) than he has against Brighton (12).
Match Preview
Liverpool take on another of the Premier League’s strong starters this Sunday as they look to bounce back from a gutting – and contentious – defeat to Tottenham last weekend. They’ll be facing a Brighton & Hove Albion team still licking their wounds after suffering a 6-1 hammering at Aston Villa.
Jürgen Klopp was left fuming after nine-man Liverpool’s late 2-1 loss at Spurs was clouded by a huge VAR error that saw a legitimate Reds goal ruled out for offside. Curtis Jones and Diogo Jota both received red cards, while a VAR miscommunication saw Luis Díaz’s fine finish disallowed despite replays showing the Colombia international was clearly onside, thus denying Liverpool a goal that would have given them a 1-0 lead and potentially changed the course of the game.
As it happened, Spurs took the lead themselves moments later, and although Liverpool did equalise through Cody Gakpo, they succumbed in the dying seconds of the match as Joël Matip put into his own net.
Klopp was delighted with his team’s display in the face of adversity despite the defeat, which ended a 17-match unbeaten run in the league that had fans optimistic for the rest of the season. They’ll look to pick up the pieces of that streak in what promises to be a tricky trip to Brighton.
Roberto De Zerbi’s side have won five of their seven Premier League games and are within touching distance of Liverpool, just a point and two places behind the six-time European champions in the league table. They have suffered three defeats in their last five games in all competitions, though, including a shock 3-2 home loss to AEK Athens to kick off their UEFA Europa League campaign.
Fans should expect goals, with Brighton’s seven league outings this season producing 33 of them. Only three teams in Premier League history have had more goals in their opening seven games of the campaign, though De Zerbi will be desperate for them to go in the right end this week having watched his team concede six at Villa. They’re a great team to watch for the neutral, having scored and conceded in each of their last 11 league matches.
Liverpool continuing their habit of collecting red cards would certainly help the Brighton cause. They’ve already been shown four reds in the top flight this term, the most of any team at this stage of the season in the history of the Premier League. One more and they’ll also equal their club record for reds over a full season in the competition.
No one was sent off on Thursday, however. Both teams picked up positive results in Europa League action, with Brighton coming from two goals down to pick up a great point away to Marseille while Liverpool saw off Belgian side Royale Union Saint-Gilloise 2-0 to make it two wins from two in Group E. Another big boost is that both seem to have avoided any fresh injury worries ahead of kick-off on Sunday.
For Klopp, though, the two suspensions from the Spurs loss loom large. Jones and Jota will be unavailable, while Gakpo – who went down injured immediately after levelling last weekend before being taken off at half-time – looks unlikely to be fit, and Thiago Alcântara remains out. Alexis Mac Allister is expected to start against the club he played 98 Premier League games for before making the move to Liverpool prior to this season.
As for Brighton, the team news is positive in midfield as De Zerbi’s injury worries look to be easing after having to start 18-year-old Jack Hinshelwood at Villa. Pascal Groß scored on his return to the side in Marseille, putting him in line to start against Liverpool while experienced former Liverpool pair Adam Lallana and James Milner are both likely to be in contention.
But De Zerbi was handed a fresh blow this week as Pervis Estupinan looks set for a spell on the sidelines. Jakub Moder and Julio Enciso are long-term absentees.
Brighton vs Liverpool Head-to-Head
Last season, this fixture was one of the many highlights that Brighton enjoyed in a hugely successful campaign that saw them record the best league finish in the club’s history.
They thumped Liverpool 3-0 in January, their first home league win against the Reds since 1961, as a Solly March double and a late Danny Welbeck strike put Klopp’s side to the sword.
That result was the latest in what has been an upturn in fortunes for Brighton against Liverpool, taking points off the Reds for the fifth time in six attempts having lost their first six Premier League games against the Merseyside club between 2017 and 2020.
However, Brighton have never won back-to-back league games against Liverpool. If they do end that run, there’s every chance March is involved; he’s either scored (two) or assisted (three) five of his team’s last eight Premier League goals against the Reds.
Recent Form
Liverpool’s 17-game unbeaten Premier League run came to an end against Spurs. On Sunday, they’ll hope to avoid suffering back-to-back defeats, which also directly preceded that lengthy undefeated streak.
Despite that loss, Liverpool are the side in slightly better form, with Brighton looking a little out of sorts and somewhat erratic in recent weeks. The humiliation at Villa Park put a downer on their excellent start to the season, though they still head into the weekend in the top six and haven’t lost successive league games since last October.
Groß and João Pedro scored as Brighton side picked up their first ever Europa League point in midweek. De Zerbi will be keen for his side to stop leaking goals, however, as they’re yet to record a clean sheet this season.
Klopp will be confident Liverpool can take advantage of any defensive weaknesses, and although his team were not at their free-flowing best in the Europa League, their 2-0 victory did see them find the back of the net for the 20th straight game in all competitions, a run that stretches back to early April of last season.
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.
Brighton vs Liverpool Prediction
The Opta supercomputer has Liverpool as the favourites to get back to winning ways with a victory over Brighton on Sunday.
An away win is graded as the most likely outcome at 47.8%, though the Seagulls are given a decent chance of coming away with all three points themselves at 25.2%. The teams to share the spoils stands at 27%, though Liverpool and Brighton have combined for just one draw this season from 14 games.
This fixture, one of the tightest among our weekly Premier League predictions, could have huge implications further down the line, with both teams expected to be among those pushing for Europe. Liverpool are considered the favourites to qualify, with a top-four finish rated at a 91.6% probability, while Brighton ending the season in the Champions League spots happens in 14.5% of 10,000 supercomputer simulations of the Premier League campaign.
The Reds’ most likely finish is second to title favourites Manchester City, one place above the prediction model’s pre-season suggestion of third. Brighton are expected to finish seventh, just behind the likes of Arsenal, Tottenham and Newcastle United, and in the exact position the supercomputer estimated prior to the campaign getting started.
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