Brighton & Hove Albion have had a decent start to the new Premier League season, winning two of their first three matches. The Seagulls’ number 9 Neal Maupay has started all three games so far, scoring a goal each in both their victories. Maupay’s impressive start to the season currently sees them sitting in 8th spot, and has given hopes to Brighton supporters for their best ever season in the top tier of English football.
This is Neal Maupay’s third season in the Premier League after scoring ten and eight goals in his first two seasons. He has started the third season on a different level, scoring two in three, showing signs of improvement which have given Brighton hopes of finishing in the top half of the Premier League for the first time.
The black line in the above visual represents the average of all premier league players in the given stat. Looking at the attacking and creativity stats of Neal Maupay for the 20-21 season, one can notice that he was above the Premier League average for most of these attributes, like goals scored, xG per 90 minutes, shots on target percentage etc.
Maupay has shown tremendous signs of improvement early in the season. It is easy to notice that Maupay has improved on almost all of the attributes from last season. He has exceeded the average value of the Premier League by a much bigger difference than last season for most of the above attributes like headed shots, successful dribbles, shot on target percentage etc. These attributes show that Maupay has improved a lot on the attacking and creativity front this season, and the 25-year-old might just be ready to lead Brighton to a top half finish this season.
Maupay has also shown a huge improvement when it comes to the passing statistics. He has made the most number of accurate passes in the final third as depicted by the bar with the 100% label. Maupay has opened up this different side to his game, where he is not only focused on getting goas for his side, but also on holding the ball upfront, allowing the midfielders to play off of him.
The above shot map represents each and every shot taken by Maupay from the 20-21 season. One can notice that he took most of the shots from inside the box, with the exception of a few shots from distance. All of his goals came from inside the box, as he had a shot on target accuracy of around 60%.
So far this season, Maupay has taken all of his shots from inside the box, with the exception of one shot from distance. Even among the shot from inside the box, it is visible that so far, he has taken all his shots from much better positions. This has led to an increase in his shot accuracy percentage as well as his xG.
Therefore, it should be fair to say that the early signs of the new season hint that Maupay has shown a lot of improvement and he definitely has the potential to lead the Seagulls to their first top half finish in the Premier League.
