Brighton & Hove Albion vs Chelsea 15/09/20

15 September 2020

Brighton & Hove Albion and Chelsea face off against each other at the Amex Stadium in their opening match of the 2020/21 Premier League season.

Despite stumbling out of the blocks on the back of the restart in mid-June (W3, D3, L3), Brighton managed to avoid relegation last season. Curiously, though, while each three of their wins during that nine-game sequence came via a single-goal margin, all of those three defeats yielded a full-time margin of over 1.5 goals. However, only two sides had a worse winning percentage than Brighton (23.68%) last season, with just two of their total nine Premier League wins arriving against the sides from the upper half of the 2019/20 table. Welcoming Chelsea will hardly help the Seagulls improve that record, given that they’ve yet to taste victory against the Blues in the top-flight (D1, L5).

Meanwhile, new-look Chelsea will be looking to overcome a disappointing away form that has seen them lose in four of their last five road trips across various competitions (W1). Yet, Frank Lampard’s men have been a pretty exciting team to watch away from home in 2019/20, producing a jaw-dropping average of 3.78 goals scored/conceded per Premier League trip. Interestingly, none of their seven away league games last season in which they allowed the opening goal had ended in a stalemate (W2, L5). The Stamford Bridge outfit may not have to worry about conceding first, considering they’ve broken the deadlock inside the opening 20 minutes of play in each of their three top-flight trips to Brighton.