Brighton vs Tottenham Odds
| Brighton Odds | +155 |
| Tottenham Odds | +155 |
| Draw | +275 |
| Over / Under | 2.5 -211 / +160 |
Brighton look to get themselves back in the top four race when they host Tottenham.
They were held to a 1-1 draw in their last match against Crystal Palace, which keeps them in ninth place in the table. For a club that had so much promise last season, this year has been a bit of a disappointment. Roberto De Zerbi is dealing with a lot of injuries to key players, but the good news is Brighton may have the most depth of anyone in the Premier League.
Tottenham were not the better side in their 2-1 win over Everton on Saturday, but three points is three points. Ange Postecoglou is dealing with his own set of injuries as Tottenham are now down both of their starting center backs. Spurs are still sitting inside the top four, but this is going to be a very difficult test for them on Thursday.
Here is my Brighton vs Tottenham prediction.
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Brighton
This is one of those matches that could be good for Brighton. Arsenal pressed them incredibly effectively last Sunday and Tottenham are going to apply a similar amount of pressure.
Tottenham haven't been as effective as Arsenal with their high press and Brighton have been doing a good job of playing through their opponents' pressure. Things have kind of switched though in terms of what teams are doing out of possession against Brighton. For the longest time, teams were sitting in narrow defensive blocks to try and limit central progression. Even Crystal Palace of all teams came out with the intention of pressing Brighton high and it worked because it led to their only goal.
De Zerbi wants opposing teams to press them because Brighton has been so good at building up through pressure by finding pockets of space left by the man pressing the ball. The issue that Brighton have run into is predictability. Teams know what they are trying to do in build up, so to counteract that De Zerbi has been changing his build up structures. Brighton came out against Crystal Palace in a 3-4-3 and tried to build up in that while also switching to their patented 4-2-4.
The De Zerbi and Brighton Build Up
De Zerbi has looked to mix his build up play with Brighton to avoid predictability.
Below is how he links the play through the centre of the pitch with a 4-2-4 or 3-4-3 formation.
Look for these patterns tonight against Palace.… pic.twitter.com/dqZ34grIqu
— Tactx (@Tactx_) December 21, 2023
The key principle with Brighton is always the four man box midfield, which allows them to almost always have a 4 v 3 in build up, which is why they are so good at playing through opponents.
Brighton have been dealt a blow on the injury front losing their most important player Karou Mitoma for about a month. He is incredibly key to Brighton's build up.
Tottenham
Tottenham are in another really bad position because of injuries. Christian Romero is now out for four to five weeks, which means Tottenham are now having to go back to their second choice center back pairing of Ben Davies and Eric Dier. In the three matches when van de Ven was hurt and Romero was suspended earlier this season, Tottenham allowed 6.4 expected goals and five big scoring chances.
The issue for Tottenham is their style of play. It's incredibly reliant on them being effective with their high press. When both Romero and van de Ven were healthy they were incredibly good at stopping opponents in 1 v 1 situations when the first line of the press was broken, now that they aren't there teams have had a much easier time creating big chances against Tottenham.
Anther reason why their transition defense has been so poor is because of their build up structure. Postecoglou wants his team to build up in a 2-3-5, which is used by a lot of the top sides. The downside of the build up structure is when you lose the ball, you are incredibly exposed in wide areas. Romero and van de Ven were such good defenders in wide areas that it covered up this deficiency. Without it leaves Tottenham with a glaring weakness when they lose the ball.
Brighton vs Tottenham
Prediction
This is a really good buy low spot for Brighton. Even though they are going through a lot of injuries at the moment, they have incredible depth in their attack and have been one of the better teams in the Premier League at playing through pressure, which they are going to see a lot against Tottenham.
This is a really bad spot for Spurs, who have already drastically over-performed this season and now are down their top two center backs on top of losing James Madison.
Brighton have been really good at the Amex this season, putting up a +5.0 xGD, while Tottenham have a -0.5 xGD away from home.
I have Brighton projected as a +117 favorite, so I like the value on them draw no bet.
