Brighton have taken 42 points from 26 games against the Big Six since the start of 2024-25, which is the strongest return in the Premier League Bermuda Triangle debate. Bournemouth sit next on 35, while Brentford are on 22. That gap is why the meme reads more like a Brighton story than a three-way equal split.
Brighton's edge in the Big Six results
The recent results point the same way. Brighton beat Arsenal 3-0 less than 24 hours after Brentford beat Chelsea 3-0 on Friday night, while Bournemouth lost 1-0 to Liverpool after Alisson made a recovery stop to deny an early opener. On current league form, Brighton have 10 points from their first five Premier League matches, compared with Brentford's 9 and Bournemouth's 3.
The bigger point is the scale of Brighton's return over time. They have not been relegated since their promotion in 2017 and have qualified for Europe twice. Ahead of the 2025/26 season, the three clubs had also generated a combined £485m from player sales. That business model helps explain how all three keep punching above their weight, but it does not flatten the numbers. Brighton are still the club doing the heaviest lifting in this particular storyline.
Brentford's reputation and the wider triangle
Matthew Benham's comments to Sky Sports sit neatly with Brentford's recruitment model. He said: "The model was 'meh' on him but the fact our scouts, and especially the technical director Lee Dykes, were so positive outweighed the data." He also said: "If you have a player in their mid-20s who has played a couple of hundred games, the model better like him or we are not going to sign him."
That is a club built on judgment as much as spreadsheets, but the match returns still leave Brentford behind Brighton and Bournemouth in the Big Six frame. The triangle idea survives because all three have caused problems for bigger sides, yet the numbers put Brighton at the centre and leave Brentford with the weakest record of the trio. Bournemouth's return is stronger, and that is enough to keep them in the conversation.
The three-club label works because there is a real shared pattern. It just works better when Brighton lead the discussion, and the latest results have only made that harder to miss.
Written by Jack Mercer with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 2 outlets. How we work →
