When Brighton broke their club transfer record to sign João Pedro ahead of the 2023/24 Premier League season, there were a lot of doubters. I’m ashamed to admit that I was one of them.
Brighton needed a goalscorer and Pedro had scored three goals in 31 Premier League appearances for Watford. He scored just 11 goals in the Championship the year prior.
A year-and-a-half on since his signing, I’ll admit I was wrong. Pedro isn’t just the reliable goalscorer that Brighton desperately needed. He is also one of the most underrated players in the Premier League.
The Goalscorer
Before I get into why I’m so high on Pedro, let’s go over just how wrong myself and the other doubters were about him last year.
Pedro went on to score 20 goals across all competitions for Brighton in the 2023/24 season. That’s the most goals any Seagull has scored in one season since the club was promoted to the Premier League in 2017. He is the only player in the last 20 years not named Glenn Murray to score 20 or more goals for Brighton in one season.
His match-winning goal versus Marseille and the goal to make it 4-1 against rivals Crystal Palace plus iconic celebration afterwards are some of the best moments in the club’s modern era.
According to Fbref, Pedro was in the top ten for xG created per-90 minutes and in the 89th percentile for goals per-90. He was also one of the most prolific penalty takers in Europe, scoring ten goals from the spot last season.
This season, Pedro already has a 95th-minute match-winner against Manchester United and clinical equalizing goal versus Arsenal under his belt.
The Chance Creator
So, as it turns out, Pedro is a goalscorer. One of the best in club history, in fact. As any Brighton fan though, they’ll tell you it’s not just about his goals.
Roberto De Zerbi’s tactics with Brighton last season saw Pedro typically playing as a part of a flexible front two with Ansu Fati, Evan Ferguson, or Danny Welbeck. This allowed Pedro to contribute more in build-up than your typical forward would. He thrived in this role, especially later in the season when Brighton’s starting wingers, Kaoru Mitoma and Solly March, went down injured.
Fbref puts Pedro in the 89th percentile of shot-creating forwards in Europe’s top five leagues. Only Pascal Gross, one of the best chance creators in the Premier League, had more shot-creating and goal-creating actions than Pedro. Unlike Gross though, Pedro does most of his chance creation through dribbling with the ball rather than passing it.
In teams who build from the back like Brighton, when the forwards drop deep to participate in buildup, they are simply doing it to keep the opposition honest or to create space behind them that another player can exploit with a well-timed run. Pedro fills this role well, but he also has the ability to turn, take players on, and open up defenses on his own.
As good as he was at creating chances from these deeper positions last year, Pedro looks even better at it this season. He looks to have put on more weight, which has seen him win more battles. He has also been given a much more important role this season lower on the pitch. He regularly plays alongside or deeper than Brigthon’s defensive midfielders when out of possession. So far, these changes have allowed Pedro to take his game to the next level.
A perfect example of what I mean was against Manchester United at the start of the second half in Matchweek 2. Pedro received the ball inside his own half and used his strength (plus a perfect touch) to get past a closing down Lisandro Martinez. He then drove into the open space behind Fernandes and slipped a perfectly-weighted ball into James Milner, who nearly scored. Pedro had plenty of chances to make similar plays like this against Everton and Arsenal.
Last season, he proved himself as a goalscorer. It’s early, but from what I’ve seen so far, Pedro looks set to have another breakout season where he proves that he is one of the best all-round players in the Premier League.
