Brighton & Hove Albion are the highest scorers in the Premier League, with 19 goals in their opening seven games.
The problem for Roberto De Zerbi is that they have also conceded the most goals of any team outside the relegation zone, with Saturday’s 6-1 drubbing at Aston Villa increasing the total to 14.
Three goals were leaked in the other league defeat by West Ham at the Amex Stadium, plus another three in a losing start to the club’s first Europa League campaign at home to AEK Athens.
They have not kept a clean sheet after 13 shut-outs in 39 matches under De Zerbi last season.
Brighton conceded six goals in a top-flight game for the first time (Barrington Coombs/PA Images via Getty Images)
The biggest headache for the head coach is finding the most effective way to compensate for the loss of Moises Caicedo.
The Ecuadorian’s most significant attribute as a defensive midfielder was the manner in which he anticipated danger and recovered the ball, protecting the back four.
It’s the main reason Caicedo commanded a British record deal worth £115million ($146m) from Chelsea.
Brighton have signed a replacement but it will take a bit of time for 19-year-old Carlos Baleba to adjust following his £26million move from Lille.
Baleba has the physique and power to cope. That was evident during an encouraging starting debut for 64 minutes against Caicedo in the 1-0 defeat at Chelsea in the Carabao Cup, but he isn’t yet embedded into De Zerbi’s way of playing.
“We are conceding, but we have to speak honestly,” De Zerbi said. “We lost Caicedo, we lost a very important characteristic, and we are playing in a different way.
“Only Baleba can play with the same characteristics as Caicedo but Baleba is not ready yet. He has to improve, he has to understand our style.”
De Zerbi’s central midfield options are limited. Mahmoud Dahoud, another of the summer signings, is still getting fully up to speed after not playing much football at Borussia Dortmund last season.
Pascal Gross has missed the last three matches with a muscle injury. The Germany international isn’t physical, but he is clever, experienced and knows exactly what De Zerbi wants.
De Zerbi initially expected to be without Gross until after the next international break. He could be back in contention sooner than that, which would be a timely boost, with two more testing assignments looming away to Marseille in the Europa League on Thursday and at home to Liverpool three days later.
The versatile James Milner would have been another option for De Zerbi in the middle of the park. Unfortunately, the former Liverpool veteran isn’t expected to return from a muscle injury until after the clash against his old club.
Against Villa, De Zerbi handed midfielder Jack Hinshelwood his first Premier League start at the ground where the 18-year-old made his senior debut as a late substitute in May.
Hinshelwood oozes composure in possession and he has a bright future. Although he was one of the better performers, the aggressive intensity of Villa pair Douglas Luiz and Boubacar Kamara was replicated all over the pitch.
De Zerbi’s team didn’t cope with it, not in individual battles or collectively.
Adam Webster at Villa Park on Saturday (Nathan Stirk/Getty Images)
There are other reasons as well for goals being conceded at an alarming rate. Kaoru Mitoma was blindsided by the type of run in behind that he likes to use against his marker when the Villa full-back Matty Cash crossed for the first of three goals for Ollie Watkins.
De Zerbi’s style depends heavily on precision in possession, so it was irritating that Joel Veltman and Gilmour gave the ball away cheaply in the build-ups to Watkins’ second and third goals.
Gilmour started the game well, dictating the tempo and pinging passes, but the Scotland international’s looseness came at a crucial period of the match.
Watkins punished him, stretching Villa’s lead to 4-1, just as De Zerbi’s side were threatening a comeback from 3-0 down at half time in the opening 20 minutes of the second half.
Damage limitation isn’t in De Zerbi’s vocabulary. He injected more pace and energy into the team with a triple change at half-time, introducing Ansu Fati and Joao Pedro up front for Evan Ferguson and Danny Welbeck, and Tariq Lamptey at left-back for Pervis Estupinan, who scored an own goal in a rare below-par performance.
Joao Pedro set up the first goal of Fati’s season on loan from Barcelona, which will help in building his confidence, but De Zerbi made a telling observation when discussing reasons why his side are letting in goals with such frequency.
“The pressure of our attackers is not so strong at this moment,” he said. “And we are suffering too much with defenders. It’s not a problem of one player, two players; it’s a problem of the team.”
A period of illness has affected the sharpness of Ferguson — who was substituted at the interval for the second league game in succession — and the schedule is punishing. There’s no mileage in moaning about that. It’s what the club aspired to in qualifying for Europe for the first time.
In any case, the scale of the defeat at Villa Park cannot be blamed on tiredness. As De Zerbi pointed out, nine of the starting line-up didn’t play against Chelsea three days earlier.
He’s rung the changes in an attempt to keep players physically and mentally rejuvenated — there have been 39 changes in total across the last five games.
There is no let-up in the first half of the season. This spell of five matches in 15 days is followed by five games in 20 days after the October international break, then a further increase in the workload in November and December of six games in 18 days.
With the seven summer signings still bedding in, De Zerbi and his players have done well in the circumstances to win five games and to be in the top six in the table.
But an encouraging start is in danger of unravelling unless De Zerbi conjures a formula to tighten up at the back.
(Top photo: Matthew Lewis/Getty Images)
