For two or three years now, it's been standard to nod approvingly at how well-run Brighton, Brentford and Bournemouth are, and to move on. What else is there to say? It's true, of course – these are sides who have made the most of relatively limited resources. But there's also an underlying assumption in the designation: that these are clubs who have no higher aspiration, that their limit is earning praise for upper mid-table finishes.
This season, perhaps, offers an opportunity to change that. Other than Arsenal, every major club is undergoing significant transition. Manchester City may have started the season with seven straight wins, but there's every chance the punishment for their multiple breaches of Premier League regulations takes them out of the race for the top five. In that context, why shouldn't one of those efficient smaller sides qualify for the Champions League?
Brentford began the weekend in third and with, perhaps, a slight sense of frustration that they had drawn four games. Again, they will feel they might have done rather better on Saturday; they were leading Liverpool 1-0 when Yehor Yarmolyuk foolishly flicked his head towards Jérémy Jacquet and was sent off just before half-time. The result was a 2-1 defeat and a sense of an opportunity missed. Bournemouth have not had the easiest start under Marco Rose, but Sunday's 2-0 win over Sunderland perhaps hints at a brighter future.
Which left Brighton to carry the charge of the B clubs, which they did in emphatic style, ending a run of four derbies without success with a crushing 5-0 win . Crystal Palace had been extremely fortunate to survive a first-half battering from Nottingham Forest last week. They were thoroughly outplayed in the early stages again, and this time found themselves 3-0 down inside 10 minutes. Perhaps the opening goal, a cross headed into his own net by Jaydee Canvot, was fortunate, but it was an error induced by the intensity of Brighton's start. The second goal, a perfectly weighted drive from just inside the Palace half from Diego Gómez, spoke of a side playing with immense confidence. Already this season, 11 different players have scored for Brighton in the league. They have become the image of a side without stars, the whole far greater than the individuals who comprise it.
The difference from February, when Brighton last played Palace, is stark. They lost that game 1-0, meaning they had won just one of their previous 12 Premier League games. Generalised grumbling had begun to curdle into calls for Fabian Hürzeler to be sacked. When they lost Carlos Baleba, Jan Paul van Hecke, Danny Welbeck and James Milner over the summer, there were reasons to wonder whether they could keep going with the process of continuous renewal.
There were the usual assorted signings, the usual mix of Premier League experience and exotic unknowns. The 19-year-old centre-back Luka Vušković, who spent last season on loan at Hamburg from Tottenham, already looks at home (and who really thought, when Spurs and Brighton effectively swapped centre-backs, with Van Hecke moving to London, that Brighton would not end up with the better of the deal?). The 21-year-old Spanish midfielder Chema Andrés, who arrived from Stuttgart, sparkled from the bench against Arsenal and has excelled in the two games since.
But the stand-out performer this season has been a far more familiar name: Pascal Gross, who returned in January after a season and a half at Borussia Dortmund. No player in the Premier League has registered more than his four assists this season. Nobody has run further. He has three goals. He averages a league-high 3.0 key passes a game. To bring back a player who is now 35 has been a masterstroke.
The victory over Arsenal before the international break suggested a team capable not merely of accumulating points against the league's lesser lights, or even of challenging the elite, but of overwhelming them. Arsenal were suffocated by the Brighton press and, while a couple of low-xG long-range finishes in the first half helped, the fact is that Brighton dominated the match to a remarkable extent.
The question is whether they can keep it going. Just as their transfer policy is now an accepted feature of the Premier League, so too is Brighton's mid-season slump. They haven't won a game in December since 2023. Is this squad strong enough to sustain the challenge? Europe seems not to be unsettling Brighton as it did on their first foray, or as it appears to be draining Bournemouth, Crystal Palace and Sunderland – which may be a reflection on the relative quality of the Conference League.
They are doing this without Kaoru Mitoma, Yankuba Minteh and Mats Wieffer, all of whom should be back at some point over the next month. That suggests the depth of this Brighton squad. It's always a major step for a club unfamiliar with the Champions League to haul themselves into the top five. At times it often feels a mental barrier as much as anything.
But if any of those B clubs are ever going to break into the Champions League, they may never have a better opportunity than Brighton do this season.
