Chelsea vs Brighton Prediction: Premier League Match Preview

We look ahead to Saturday’s Premier League game at Stamford Bridge with our Chelsea vs Brighton prediction and preview. Two sides with European ambitions clash looking to continue their positive starts to the season.

Chelsea vs Brighton Stats: The Key Insights

• The Opta supercomputer has Chelsea as the favourites to win this one, with the hosts winning 53.4% of its 10,000 pre-match simulations.
• Chelsea won both Premier League meetings with Brighton last season, despite having a player sent off in each game.
• Brighton are one of four sides still unbeaten in the Premier League this season coming into this weekend’s games, though their last three have all been drawn (W2).

Chelsea will look to make it four straight wins in all competitions when they host Brighton and Hove Albion at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.

Chelsea followed up Premier League wins against Bournemouth and West Ham with a 5-0 thumping of League Two Barrow in the EFL Cup on Tuesday, with Christopher Nkunku netting a hat-trick while new man Pedro Neto was also on the scoresheet.

That made it two wins from two at Stamford Bridge in cup competitions this term, though they are yet to triumph on home soil in the league, losing to Manchester City and drawing with Crystal Palace.

While Enzo Maresca’s men have won all three of their away league games to leave them heading into the weekend in fifth, failure to pick up three points against Brighton would mark just the third time in the Premier League era they have failed to take a victory from their first three home league games of the season.

However, they’ll be coming up against a Brighton side looking to go their six opening games of a top-flight season unbeaten for the first time ever, The Seagulls are currently seventh and just three points off second-placed Liverpool.

Despite their unbeaten start, though, Brighton’s last three league games have all been draws, last drawing four straight back in October 2014.

Chelsea, meanwhile, have won eight of their last 10 Premier League games. Indeed, since the start of May (when this run began), no team has won more Premier League points than them (25).

Only Man City (13) have scored more goals than Chelsea (11) in the Premier League so far this season. The Blues are currently overperforming their expected goals (xG) more than any other side this term (11 goals, 8 xG), while their shot conversion rate of 18.6% is the highest on record in a single campaign (since 1997-98).

Their prowess in front of goal has been aided by the improvement of Nicolas Jackson, who has been involved in 13 goals in his last 13 Premier League games for Chelsea (nine goals, four assists), one more than he’d managed in his first 27 appearances (nine goals, three assists).

But Fabian Hurzeler’s side have a striker of their own in fine form. Danny Welbeck already has three goals and one assist to his name in the Premier League this season, and he has scored three goals in his last four league games against Chelsea, with all three of these strikes coming as a substitute.

In terms of injury news, Brighton will be without Matt O’Riley, James Milner, Solly March, and João Pedro, who suffered a setback in midweek after making his injury return off the bench in the 2-2 home draw with Nottingham Forest last weekend.

Meanwhile, Reece James will remain absent for Chelsea, though Roméo Lavia could be fit enough to make just his second league appearance of the campaign.

Chelsea vs Brighton Head-to-Head

After a run of five Premier League games without a win against Brighton (D3, L2), Chelsea did the double over the Seagulls last season.

Brighton have only lost one of their last four Premier League away games against Chelsea (W1, D2), though it was a 3-2 loss in this exact fixture last season.

The last meeting between the sides was at the Amex Stadium in May, with 10-man Chelsea picking up three valuable points on their way to Europa Conference League qualification thanks to goals from Cole Palmer and Nkunku.

Chelsea vs Brighton Prediction

Chelsea are backed by the Opta supercomputer to make it three consecutive league wins this weekend, coming out victorious in 53.6% of pre-match simulations.

Brighton come away with the three points themselves 24% of the time, while they stretch their unbeaten run to seven in all competitions with a draw in 22.4% of simulations.

Both teams are considered challengers for Europe, with the supercomputer now rating Chelsea’s most likely finish as fourth, qualifying for the Champions League in 43.4% of simulations.

Brighton’s chances of returning to Europe are considered less likely, with ninth their most probable finish, reaching the Europa League spots 6.6% of the time.

Chelsea vs Brighton Predicted Lineups

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.

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