Player analysis: Yankuba Minteh

Brighton have started the 26/27 season flying. Most recently with an impressive 3-0 against Arsenal. Having scored already 16 goals there isn’t a single team more prolific than them. What is more impressive is that they have achieved this without their injured star attacker Yankuba Minteh.

Since joining Brighton from Feyenoord in 2024 Minteh has played 73 premier league games. In those games he has contributed 10 goals and 9 assists. A respectable but rather shy return for a starter in such an attack heavy side. Minteh is only 22 years old with just four seasons under his belt. Looking at the underlying numbers however we believe this might be a player just about to explode.

Our models has valued Minteh between £64–82m. During the summer it was reported Brighton was looking for around £70m for him when Liverpool were interested. Which falls just in our value span. Considering the inflated sums premier league proven players have been going for over the summer one could argue that it is a low asking price.

Let's start with Wide Runner, because it's clearly his best role. Elite tier, ranked first out of 67 qualifying wingers in the league, which on its own should turn a few heads. His dribbling and crossing are both sitting at 92 in ranking, which is about as good as it gets at this position anywhere in the Premier League, and a wide shot ranking of 96 tells you he's constantly the one getting into the spots on the pitch that actually create chances. The only number that brings this back down to earth a bit is break xG at 55 — fine, nothing special — so his value here isn't really about bursting through and having a shot himself, it's about getting into the right areas over and over and putting the ball in.

As a Playmaking Winger he's Great tier, 10th of 95, still comfortably a top-10 creator in the league on the back of an elite xA score of 84 and a strong big-chances number at 81. His xA stats actually shows his teammates underperformed in taking the chances he gave them last season. Key passes are a bit further behind at 77, still good though. What I find interesting is that cross accuracy actually drops to 65 here, and when you put that next to his elite crossing volume as a Wide Runner, it tells you something pretty clear: he's putting an enormous number of balls into the box, and enough of them are finding a teammate to make him genuinely dangerous, but he's not yet a pinpoint crosser. Right now it's quantity doing the heavy lifting, not precision. Him finding the positions to put crosses in but not being great at delivery might cause some clubs to look another way depending on playing style. For a more defensive minded side with fewer attacks, making the most of every one is a must. Playing for a team that has a lot of attacks and that pushes down the opponent in their own box however would play to his strength in this case as making that space to put I the cross would be more important.

Yankuba Minteh · Brighton & Hove Albion · Premier League 25/26

Wide RunnerElite · 1 of 67

Rank 99.3%Score 78.0%Qualified

Stat profile

Role-shaped metrics vs Premier League pool (radar = percentile).

• Break xG55(0.10)
• Wide channel96(34.1%)
• Fast break81(17.1%)
• Dribbles92(2.44)
• Crosses92(5.97)

Duelist Winger backs up what's already obvious by this point: dribbling shows up again at 91, elite again, clearly his signature skill no matter which role you're looking at him through. Ground duels and duel win percentage both sit around 70, solid without being anything special, and fouled sits low at 14, meaning he isn't someone who draws a lot of contact or free kicks off defenders.

Box Winger is where things actually get a bit less flattering, and tellingly it's also his lowest tier out of the four, Good, 17th of 70. The two standout numbers here are still genuinely impressive though: on-ball separation at 98 and off-ball separation at 80, so he clearly knows how to find space centrally too, not just out wide. But everything to do with actually finishing chances is weak npxG at 49, shot quality at 52, goals at 42, and clinical finishing all the way down at 32. That's not a small gap, and if I'm being honest, it's the one real weakness in his whole profile. He can get himself into good central positions, he just isn't the one you'd trust to finish them.

Yankuba Minteh · Brighton & Hove Albion · Premier League 25/26

Box WingerGood · 17 of 70

Rank 76.4%Score 59.9%Qualified

Stat profile

Role-shaped metrics vs Premier League pool (radar = percentile).

• npxG49(0.14)
• Pocket shots74(63.4%)
• Off-ball separation80(50.50)
• Shot quality52(0.10)
• Goals42(0.11)
• Clinical32(0.80)
• On-ball separation98(45.20)

Minteh slightly underperformed his xG last season, which is a good sign, meaning he can find those positions. The biggest problem is clearly his finishing — low scores across the board for goals and finishing are rather troubling. The silver lining, however, is his incredible on-ball separation, which is most likely the reason for his high crossing tally. A player capable of creating his own space in this way will always have high potential. Unfortunately, there are still some concerns to be had about his end product, but the stats back him up as already being a great player. With his defensive contribution sitting at 95%, there is also one more thing to be excited about.

He is an elite dribbler and a good creator, one of the league's best at finding and creating space for himself. Still young and fairly inexperienced, he still has a lot of room to grow. The goalscoring and forward intuition will hopefully come, but even without it, there's still a lot he brings to any team. He's a dangerous one-on-one player and a real threat in behind. Combined with his ability to stay out wide and stretch a defence, this makes him a great tactical piece for top clubs against high-pressing teams. His dribbling and on-ball separation also make him great at unlocking deep blocks, even if the final ball needs some fine-tuning.

There are many clubs that should look to sign Yankuba Minteh, either to start or to complement their current attack. He would have been a great signing for Liverpool, bringing that playmaking and dribbling skillset combined with a big engine for pressing. For now, however, he remains at Brighton, and we're confident he'll leave a big mark this season once he's back to full fitness.