Tactical flexibility, playing through the press and what the stats say ahead of Leeds United - the lowdown on Brighton

Football can be a funny sport sometimes.

If you look at the underlying numbers in the Premier League this season, you’ll see that Spurs and Brighton have created a similar quality of chances this season and conceded a similar quality of chances.

Turn your eye to the league table, though, and you’ll see Spurs just outside the Champions League spots and Brighton just above relegation.

What does this tell us? Certainly that Spurs are probably not as good as we might have been led to think. But also, that Brighton are probably better than their league position allows.

Here are three aspects of Graham Potter’s system to look out for on Saturday:

Tactical flexibility

Much like Marcelo Bielsa, Brighton head coach Graham Potter is something of a darling in the tactics world.

His teams are coached to be flexible and can seamlessly move between structures in-game.

Most of the season, Brighton have played a 3-4-3 but they can move into a 4-2-3-1 or a 3-5-2 as and when it is needed.

Given the tactical nature of the two managers, expect to see some in-game structural tweaking as one responds to the other and vice-versa.

Playing through the press

Like Bielsa, Potter is the master of getting his team to move the ball and players into dangerous areas to increase their likelihood of scoring.To do this, he will encourage his team to work the ball through the Leeds press so they can attack the Leeds back line directly, trying to work weaknesses to exploit.

Against top-table sides, Leeds have sometimes looked quite porous this season.

Brighton will be a good test of how good Leeds’ press really is.

Poor finishing/unlucky defending

Leeds fans will know all about the frustrations of creating good quality chances but falling at the final hurdle by finishing poorly. They will also know the frustration of limiting the opposition to few chances but still conceding.

This season, Brighton have done both. According to their expected goal numbers – a figure which assesses the quality of chances created and conceded – Brighton have scored two goals fewer than you might have expected and conceded nine goals more.

Perhaps it is Leeds fans’ turn to enjoy an opponent struggling to translate good play into good results?