Marked for Pascal Groß
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Loan watch8 Mar 2027
The goals keep arriving from Ibrahim Osman’s exile
23 goals in 24 games at Birmingham — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Brighton updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 27. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Loan watch8 Mar 2027
23 appearances at Leicester City and the goals keep coming. Brighton are watching this more closely than the borrowing club would like.
Market8 Mar 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market8 Mar 2027
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Brighton can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Pascal Groß and Brighton agree another 2 years.
Match6 Mar 2027
No end in sight to Brighton's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Brighton has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad8 Mar 2027
A falling-out at Brighton
Kaoru Mitoma and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match6 Mar 2027
0‑1 to Sunderland, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 55. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
Market15 Feb 2027
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Loan watch15 Feb 2027
20 appearances at Leicester City and the goals keep coming. Brighton are watching this more closely than the borrowing club would like.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Kaoru Mitoma in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Brighton this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Feb 2027
A row about effort at Brighton
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ferdi Kadıoğlu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Ninety minutes of Kaoru Mitoma at his very best
Marked 8.07. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Brighton.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jack Hinshelwood, and the manager let it.
Squad15 Feb 2027
10 shut-outs and counting. Goalkeepers are only noticed when they fail, and Bart Verbruggen has given nobody the chance.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 35. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Match30 Jan 2027
5 matches without a win for Brighton
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Brighton are no longer polite ones.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 2 signed and 3 gone
That is the business done at Brighton until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Market1 Feb 2027
Kaoru Mitoma wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Brighton hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Sebastian Jensen has agreed terms with Huddersfield Town for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words exchanged at Brighton
Kaoru Mitoma and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Loan watch1 Feb 2027
18 appearances at Leicester City and the goals keep coming. Brighton are watching this more closely than the borrowing club would like.
Loan watch1 Feb 2027
19 appearances at Birmingham and the goals keep coming. Brighton are watching this more closely than the borrowing club would like.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words at Brighton training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lewis Dunk is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match9 Dec 2026
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Brighton scored in the 120th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Chema Andrés, 21, steals the show — 8.19
Marked 8.19 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
At 35 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.37, and nobody on the pitch better.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match12 Dec 2026
Brighton cannot stop winning
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Squad14 Dec 2026
A falling-out at Brighton
Kaoru Mitoma and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match12 Dec 2026
It finished 2‑1, and it was Pascal Groß’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Brighton.
Loan watch14 Dec 2026
“I did not go to Tranmere Rovers to sit and watch. I want to come back to Brighton and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 18 matches say the rest.
In brief
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The terraces
One of their own: Yankuba Minteh
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Player ratings
One of those days for Yasin Ayari
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The dugout
The view from the dugout
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match24 Oct 2026
4‑1, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.77, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
At 35 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.09, and nobody on the pitch better.
Market26 Oct 2026
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Brighton can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Kaoru Mitoma in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Brighton this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Brighton training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lewis Dunk is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Marked 9.27 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Kaoru Mitoma beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 20. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The terraces26 Oct 2026
The crowd has taken to Diego Gómez
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
In brief
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Match
Sunderland blown away early
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Squad
Too much change too quickly at Brighton
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The dugout
The view from the dugout
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Crystal Palace have kept their man, and Brighton go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market3 Aug 2026
Chelsea come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Brighton did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Lewis Dunk: 18 seasons and counting
471 appearances across 18 seasons in one shirt. Careers like that are not built on purpose any more, and Brighton know exactly what they have.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Ryan Kent gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ryan Kent has just signed for Brighton, and for once the answer mattered.
Market3 Aug 2026
Kaoru Mitoma wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Brighton hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Kaoru Mitoma commits to Brighton for another 4 years.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad3 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Brighton
Pascal Groß and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market3 Aug 2026
The name of Babis Kostoulas has come up in conversations Brighton were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.