Four league games, four wins, fifteen goals scored and none conceded. That is Brighton's run into Monday night, and the last chapter was a 5-0 win over Crystal Palace on Sunday that finished with Jack Hinshelwood smashing a volley in from two yards. Fabian Hurzeler's side are third in the Premier League after seven games, and the question hanging over the south coast is whether this is a fun autumn or something bigger.
The numbers behind the noise
Brighton have 16 points, behind reigning champions Arsenal and Manchester City, who still have a 100 per cent record. What makes the start easier to believe is that the goals are not a fluke of one hot weekend. No team in the division has scored more, no team has conceded fewer, and Brighton lead the league in shots on target while sitting second for expected goals, total shots and big chances. They have also kept five clean sheets, the most of anyone.
Among Europe's top five leagues, only Barcelona have scored more domestic league goals, 39 from nine La Liga games. Eleven different Brighton players have scored in the league already, helped along by three own goals. Diego Gomez's goal on Sunday, a long-range effort from the halfway line that made it 2-0 in the seventh minute, was the sort of goal that tells you a team feels very good about itself.
Life after Welbeck
Brighton lost Joao Pedro to Chelsea in the summer of 2025, and this year Chelsea came back for Danny Welbeck. Neither exit has knocked the club off its stride. Greek striker Charalampos Kostoulas, 19, spent most of last season on the bench, and he has been handed the central role this time. He has three league goals and two assists, and among teenagers in Europe's top five leagues only Lamine Yamal has more goal involvements.
Around him sit Hinshelwood, Yasin Ayari, Malick Yalcouye and Maxim de Cuyper, with a rejuvenated Pascal Gross pulling the strings from a deeper position. At the back, Brighton have managed without Jan Paul van Hecke and Carlos Baleba. Luka Vuskovic, signed from Tottenham, has settled in quickly, and the team remain unbeaten at home.
What history says
There have been only seven previous cases of a Premier League team scoring 23 or more goals after seven games. All but one went on to finish in the top three, and Manchester City won the title twice from that position, in 2011-12 and 2022-23. The exception was Kevin Keegan's Newcastle of 1994-95, who faded to sixth. Comparisons with those Entertainers have already started.
Match of the Day pundit Dion Dublin, who won the title with Manchester United in 1992-93, said "why not?", pointing to the togetherness and the manager's decision-making. Albion Roar podcast co-host Alan Wares was more careful, calling a title challenge "fantasy stuff" at this stage and suggesting the real target is Champions League qualification. Leicester in 2015-16 give some hope, having been eighth with 12 points at the same point of their title season, but Conference League football will stretch the squad.
Brighton also have the Manchester City question hanging over the table. An independent commission found City guilty of all charges relating to breaches of the league's financial rules last month, and City are appealing, so the size and timing of any points deduction are unknown. Brighton travel to the Etihad on Halloween as one of four successive away games, and my guess is that result tells us more about their ceiling than any of the goals so far.
Key facts: Brighton 5-0 Crystal Palace, Sunday 18 October 2026 (Diego Gomez made it 2-0 in the seventh minute; Jack Hinshelwood scored the fifth). Brighton: P7, 16 points, third. Four straight league wins, 15-0 aggregate. Next league test: Manchester City away, 31 October. Source: BBC Sport.
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