Brighton roundup: perfect league start leaves Seagulls fifth ahead of Leeds visit

Brighton & Hove Albion head into the first weekend of September fifth in the Premier League with a flawless record from their opening fixture, and with a home game against Leeds United on the horizon. The wider results picture is more of a mixed bag. Here is the state of play on the south coast.

Where Albion stand

According to the Premier League table, Brighton have played one, won one, scored four and conceded none: three points and a goal difference of +4. That leaves them fifth, behind Manchester City and Hull City — both on six points from two games — and Newcastle United and Everton, who have four apiece. Among the sides on three points, Albion's goal difference is the best in the early standings, and they are, according to the same table, one of only five teams yet to concede in the league.

Further down, the table makes for curious reading: Liverpool are 11th on two points and Tottenham Hotspur prop up the division without a goal or a point to their name. Early tables are for orientation rather than conclusions, but Brighton's start could hardly have been cleaner.

The results so far

FanTribe's results data lists three fixtures involving Brighton:

• a 3-2 defeat away to Chelsea;
• a 4-0 home win over Aston Villa;
• a 3-0 home defeat by Manchester United.

The Villa scoreline is mirrored on the other side of the table, where Aston Villa's row reads played one, lost one, no goals scored and four conceded. The Chelsea and Manchester United results also appear in the data, which does not specify the competitions they were played in; the league table, as it stands, counts only one Brighton fixture. Manchester United, for their part, sit 16th with a defeat from their only league game.

What's next

Two fixtures are on the schedule:

• Brighton v Leeds United — Saturday 5 September, 3pm UK time. Leeds arrive tenth with three points, one goal scored and none conceded.
• Coventry City v Brighton — Sunday 13 September, 2pm UK time. Coventry sit 17th after two defeats, with nothing scored and four shipped.

The FanTribe view

Our club data currently shows a fan count of zero for Brighton on the platform, so there is no crowd-sourced sentiment to pass on just yet — early-season optimism has yet to translate into sign-ups. If you are an Albion supporter reading this, the data desk would like to hear from you.

What the numbers do say is straightforward enough: a perfect league start, a top-five place, and a fortnight of fixtures — against a Leeds side that has also won its only game and a Coventry team still searching for a first goal — that will tell us whether this early position is built to last.