THE success of Brighton's midfielders has gone from a mildly interesting footnote to one of the defining themes of the Dream Team season.
This progression has been underlined twice over in Game Week 28 as Kaoru Mitoma (£4.5m), Solly March (£4.1m), Alexis MacAlliser (£3.5m), Pascal Gross (£2.9m) and Moises Caicedo (£2m) combined for 48 points across their two fixtures!
On Saturday, the Seagulls somehow drew 3-3 with Brentford despite registering 33 shots (15 of them on target) and while the result would have frustrated Roberto De Zerbi, Dream Team gaffers were happy enough as March, Mitoma and Mac Allister racked up 25 points between them from the contest.
Then on Tuesday night, Brighton beat Bournemouth 2-0 and while none of the midfielders were on the scoresheet, Gross and Mitoma registered assists with the latter claiming the Star Man award.
In fact, the Japan international is the big winner of the Game Week so far having produced 18 points, two more than the next-best performer, Ollie Watkins (£5.5m).
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The skilful winger is now sixth-best midfielder overall having moved onto 140 points - an incredible effort considering he's not had European fixtures to enhance his schedule.
Mitoma now has more points than Martin Odegaard (£3.7m), the third-most popular player in his position.
And Arsenal's captain is under pressure from March too with Brighton's No7 just seven points behind him as well.
Seven Game Week points helped Mac Allister bring up his century and the World Cup winner is now 14th in the rankings among midfielders.
Having multiple midfielders in the top 15 at any one time is something generally left to Manchester City in recent seasons so it's hugely impressive that Brighton's crop have performed so successfully as a unit.
With all due respect to Gross and Caicedo, it's the three Ms (Mitoma, March and Mac Allister) who are the most viable options.
And yet their respective ownerships remains relatively low:
- Mitoma - 6.3%
- Mac Allister - 2.3%
- March - 2%
To put that into perspective, Jadon Sancho (£2.9m) features in 6.7% of teams and he's mustered just 56 points in total.
In regards to Brighton's upcoming fixtures, in previous years they would make for a stern test but on current form De Zerbi's men will fancy their chances against Tottenham and Chelsea before they take on Manchester United at Wembley in the FA Cup semi-finals.
They then finish the month against two relegation-threatened teams in Nottingham Forest and Wolves.
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It seems likely that at least three of Brighton's midfielders will finish the season inside the top 15 and if they qualify for Europe there could be even more points to come in 2023/24.