Brighton are primed to kick off their Premier League season on Saturday at the Amex Stadium as they welcome newly promoted Luton Town.
The season sees Brighton begin their inaugural season playing European football, following their sixth place finish last season.
Roberto De Zerbi managed to turn Brighton’s undoubted potential across the past few years into genuine brilliance.
Credited by many as the leagues most exciting team, Brighton are set to go again starting this Saturday.
They face arguably the best team they could play at home to start the campaign, with Luton many peoples favourite to go down.
With such an active summer at the Amex, it will be interesting to see the line-up which De Zerbi goes for.
Here we’ve tried to predicted the line-up we want him to go with…
Brighton predicted XI
Brighton are one of the leagues most difficult to predict, with such a full roster of talent with names which seemingly come from nowhere.
In goal however, we do expect Bart Verbruggen to be eased into the line-up, with Jason Steele not putting a foot wrong so far, and should retain his place at least initially this season.
At left back, Pervis Estupinan will start given he is probably among the first names on the team-sheet. In the opposite full-back slot, Tariq Lamptey would be our ideal choice but with his injury recovery on-going we would opt for James Milner instead.
In central defence, Lewis Dunk is an absolute shoe-in with the captain being one of De Zerbi’s most trusted lieutenants.
Next to him we would like to see new signing Igor ahead of Adam Webster, Igor possesses all the qualities to be a massive asset to Brighton, so play him early.
In midfield, we would like to see Billy Gilmour who we expect to raise his level this season, with long term Seagulls star Pascal Groß the experienced head next to him. Moises Caicedo the obvious omission given the ongoing transfer rumours.
The three behind the striker are the most difficult positions to call here.
We would like to see new big money arrival Joao Pedro start, the Brazilian has been referred to as a ‘special’ player and we think given the chance he can show why.
In the middle we want Julio Enciso to start with Kaoru Mitoma on the left to continue his rise to stardom.
Evan Ferguson is the man we want to see leading the line consistently this season as he is definitely ready for that responsibility.
Brighton preferred XI: Steele; Milner, Dunk, Igor, Estupinan; Gilmour, Groß; Pedro, Enciso, Mitoma; Ferguson.