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Liverpool beat Brighton 2-0 at Anfield, both goals coming in a first half that Brighton spent mostly looking at the ball rather than scoring with it. Pascal Gross turned a Florian Wirtz shot into his own net, and four minutes later Alexander Isak finished a Bradley Barcola cut-back to make it two. Brighton had 63% of the ball and 14 shots but only one on target, and Ayari hit the post late on, which is the kind of afternoon that makes a manager stare at a wall. That ends Brighton's eight-game unbeaten run, though they stay 3rd on 16 points after Matchweek 8; Liverpool climb to 4th on 15 points, and it is their first league win at Anfield this season.
Pre-match Talking Points
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1Liverpool sit 5th on 12 points after seven games, with three wins, three draws and a loss. Brighton are 3rd on 16. So the home side are, awkwardly, four points behind the visitors at Anfield. Win and they close the gap; lose and the slow start starts to look like a trend.
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2Brighton have been a proper nuisance for Liverpool over the years. Before their November 2024 meeting, Liverpool had won just one of their previous seven league games against them. Fair to say this is not a fixture Liverpool fans circle as a free three points.
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3Keep an eye on Hugo Ekitike, who Liverpool's own website has had down as a Player of the Matchweek nominee this season. Liverpool have scored only eight goals in seven league games, so the question everyone will be asking is who gets them the goals. If it is him, you heard it here first.
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4The subplot is Liverpool's goal shortage. Eight scored, seven conceded, a goal difference of just +1. That is a long way from a side that won the title as recently as 2025. Brighton, meanwhile, have scored 21. We did not find confirmed team news this morning, so check the line-ups an hour before kick-off.
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5The hook: Brighton's goal difference is +15, exactly the same as league leaders Manchester City. They are the best attacking side nobody is talking about, and a win at Anfield would make people start. Liverpool, for their part, would very much like to stop being the story for the wrong reasons.
Team Talking Points
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1Liverpool won 3-1 at bottom side Crystal Palace on Sunday and climbed back into the top four. Alexis Mac Allister, Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak scored. Coming after a sticky run, it was the result Andoni Iraola needed going into the break.
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2Wirtz's goal was his first in the league this season. For a player who cost a small fortune, that's been a running joke among rival fans. Liverpool supporters will insist his all-round play was always more important than goals, and they're partly right.
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3The international break hasn't been kind. Virgil van Dijk played the full 90 at Selhurst Park, then pulled out of the Netherlands squad, reportedly after playing through a minor problem for weeks. Dominik Szoboszlai picked up a knee sprain in the same game and is a doubt for Hungary. Neither is a disaster yet, but both are worth watching.
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4Alisson was named man of the match at Palace with several big saves, and he was unlucky to concede a stoppage-time penalty. That's a reminder that Liverpool's win was less comfortable than the scoreline suggests.
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5The fixtures coming up are huge. Manchester United visit Anfield on 22 November, and over the next few weeks a Merseyside derby against a high-flying Everton and a game against Chelsea follow. A month from now we'll know whether Iraola's Liverpool are genuine contenders or just good at beating teams at the bottom.
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Top thing to say down the pub
Wirtz finally scored in the league, so now everyone can stop asking. The real test is United, the derby and Chelsea in the next few weeks.
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Avoid saying
"Liverpool are nothing without Klopp" — he's been gone since 2024, they've won the league since, and it suggests your football knowledge stopped updating several seasons ago.
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1Brighton are second in the Premier League going into the international break, with 22 points from 10 games. They've also got the best goal difference in the division at +19 – better even than leaders Arsenal's +10. Drop that stat and you'll sound like you've been reading the small print.
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2Last weekend they beat Brentford 2-0 at the Amex. Diego Gómez opened the scoring with a long-range screamer on his weaker foot, and Pascal Gross – back at the club and still pinging them in – added a penalty just before half-time.
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3The defence is the quiet story. That was their seventh clean sheet of the season and their fourth in five home league games. For a team usually praised for pretty football, they've become surprisingly hard to score against.
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4Fabian Hurzeler, still one of the youngest managers in the league, is having the best spell of his time at the club. Earlier in the season Brighton also thrashed newly promoted Coventry 5-0 – a result that set the tone for the whole autumn.
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5Next up is a trip to Hull on Sunday 22 November, then the fixtures get tougher. Brighton fans are cautiously excited – being five points behind Arsenal in second is uncharted territory, so let them enjoy it without saying the words 'title race' too loudly.
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Top thing to say down the pub
Best goal difference in the league and seven clean sheets already – Brighton aren't just the pretty-football side any more, they're properly hard to beat.
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Avoid saying
"Brighton always sell their best players, they'll fall away" – yes, they sell well, and yet here they are second in the table. It's the business model working, not a weakness, and Brighton fans are very tired of explaining that.