Brighton & Hove Albion are targeting a return to European football this year, explains Brian Owen, sports reporter at The Argus.

After finishing sixth in the 2022/23 Premier League campaign, the Seagulls competed on the continent for the first time in their history two seasons ago.

Fabian Hürzeler's side sit 11th in the table - above Brentford on goal difference - ahead of Saturday's meeting between the two sides at the Amex (3pm kick-off GMT).

Brighton are 11th in the Premier League as domestic football returns following the November international break. How would you summarise their campaign to date?

In terms of league position, I would not take any notice of it because of how close it is; Brighton would have been sixth if they had scored a winner against Crystal Palace on 9 November.

It just seems to have been up and down, really. There have been weeks where there has been so much optimism - the recruitment has been brilliant, they have got a bright, young coach, Danny Welbeck for England.

Then there are weeks where it is - the coach is inexperienced, he does not know his best team, why did they not buy experienced players? It seems to be fluctuating between one week up, one week down.

After they lost at Manchester United in the league and Arsenal in the Carabao Cup, some supporters were getting concerned and critical; I can understand being disappointed to lose matches, but not quite being that alarmist after losing at those two places.

It has been an up and down season, but I feel there is a lot more they can do. They have got to this position with considerable room for improvement, which is promising, and they are not too far behind teams who are said to have had really good starts.

It is somewhere in the middle of the two extremes!

Given how tight the Premier League is shaping up to be this season, will they have half an eye on qualifying for Europe again?

More like one-and-a-half eyes, I would say! Definitely - and they have not made any secret of that.

They said at the start of the season the aim was to get back into Europe, especially with quite a few teams taking part.

Welbeck said to me in the summer that they hoped to make the most of teams being in Europe and having those extra commitments.

I know, from when Brighton did it, it does make a difference.

It is wearing, both mentally and physically, you pick up injuries and two of the competitions have got more games in them than when Brighton were there.

It is a specific, stated aim, along with the more general one of trying to win every match. The more I think about it, I would go the whole way and say they have two eyes on qualifying!

Though he didn’t receive an England recall this month, Welbeck has been in fine form this season. Just how good has he been?

The goals promote his work, but he does a lot of other work elsewhere. He gets the publicity because, at one point, it was six goals in five games, but he does a lot in respect of the pressing and the build-up play on the pitch, then we are told he is good around the place during the week.

It was suggested, because of his age and the fact he has had a few injuries, he was allowed a bit of leeway in training, but Fabian Hürzeler has said he has to pretty much be the best.

If younger players see him running his heart out in training every day, they will think there is no reason why they cannot do that, so he has to set that standard.

He had a nightmare game at Everton in the first away game of the season, where he missed an open goal and a penalty, then picked up an injury, but he has come back from that really quickly.

The concern is that there is not much else if he was to be absent, so in terms of not going off with England, there were mixed feelings with Brighton supporters; it would have been nice for him, but did they really need him going to Albania in the middle of what could just be a week of rest and training?

By now, the plan was that Evan Ferguson would be the star centre-forward, but he has not kicked on and they are still looking for the successor to Welbeck.

Which player should Brentford be keeping an eye out for on Saturday?

Yankuba Minteh has been really good while Kaoru Mitoma has been out injured. He blows hot and cold, but he has been more hot than cold this season.

At Palace, he was erratic in his end product and really frustrating, but generally he has been less frustrating, more productive.

There was one goal where he went down the outside and used his right foot, which he tends to try not to use, so he has made great strides and he tends to do a lot of the defensive graft as well.

Ferdi Kadıoğlu was a signing ahead of last season, then got a foot injury and pretty much missed the whole season.

He has come in at left-back, in theory, but he pops up all over the place. He does not get many headlines, but he is a livewire, so I would like to mention him, too.

What should Keith Andrews’ men expect in terms of shape and style?

Brighton do try to pass the ball out from the back through Jan Paul van Hecke. Minteh is one winger, but they have not really played a winger on the other side, with Mitoma being out; they have used Diego Gómez as an inverted winger.

They press quite well out of possession, but there have been comments that they have not had the intensity as a team that was expected when Hürzeler arrived at the club.

They do play some quite attractive football, certainly if you compare them to Palace in the last game.

Technically, the formation is a 4-2-3-1, but like most teams, a lot of the time, they will only have three at the back and they have Mats Wieffer, a defensive midfielder, at right-back, who joins in in midfield quite a lot.

What’s your score prediction?

Brighton have kept two clean sheets in their last two, having not kept one this season before that.

I do not want this to be famous last words, but they went to Arsenal and Palace and defended really well against corners and long throws, which may be relevant to this game.

I am going to go for a 2-1 home win, but I think it will be a game of fine margins.