Who can stop Brighton’s ­ascension in English and European football? They are setting standards, ­practices ­leaving almost everybody else ­trailing in their wake. A ­second‑place position in the ­Premier League would once have read like a glitch in a ­Football ­Manager ­session. Not in November 2026, where they appear the only team capable of throwing down any sort of challenge to Arsenal.

Under low winter sun, Brentford, an opposition to which Brighton are often, if lazily, compared, were ­swatted aside. If Keith Andrews’s team, and their fans at the Amex ­Stadium, could level blame at a couple of ­refereeing decisions, they received little chance of rescuing anything. Brighton squeezed them, toyed with them.

If Pascal Gross, scorer of a perfectly hit penalty, attempted to dampen expectations of a title challenge, his manager, Fabian Hürzeler, allowed fans to dream. “They should always be excited, it’s our job to make them excited,” he said.

A successful return to the Amex Stadium following five Brighton away trips, more than 5,000 miles on the road including victories at ­Manchester City and Getafe over the past two outings. Brentford returned to a stadium where they have never won in the Premier League. Normal service was duly resumed, any Brighton negatives coming in a failure to add to their first-half goals.

An up-and-under straight from the kick-off was a rare Brentford foray into the Brighton box. Bart Verburggen catching it on the full prefaced an easy afternoon for the Brighton goalkeeper. There are many further dimensions to ­Hürzeler’s team. Last week Paul Scholes, an unlikely ­progressive, declared himself an admirer of a “level of ­coaching” he suggested is ­unsurpassed in ­English football. “The one thing that is non‑negotiable is to always put the team first,” Hürzeler said.

Diego Gómez’s opener was not as spectacular as the halfway-line goal of the season against Crystal Palace but a beauty nonetheless. Caressing the ball first with his left and then with his right, he laid up a thrash past Caoimhín Kelleher. Its trajectory was unerring, unstoppable. Hürzeler revealed: “Yesterday, he changed to shooting with [his] left foot … I couldn’t see him scoring with his left foot. I asked him after where this quality came from.”

The path to a commanding win opened up. Igor Thiago did not last many ^­minutes beyond his failed attempt to lob ­Verburggen. Scuffling in midfield with Chema Andrés, his shove was first ruled a yellow by the referee, Michael Oliver. In stepped the video assistant referee, Stuart Attwell: “violent conduct” and “with force” was the verdict from Stockley Park.

Afterwards, Andrews was ­visibly unhappy: “We’ve lost two games and both when down to 10 men. So we need to analyse ourselves first. In both scenarios we can do better. In both scenarios the opposition player has been the one to provoke the situation.”

Infact, both Yehor Yarmolyuk and Vitaly Janelt were dismissed against Liverpool, and if Andrews rues such lapses of discipline he was more unhappy at the initial decision’s video-assisted overturn: “The game is in a state now of a place I don’t particularly like.”

Straying beyond the confines of his technical area in a manner likely to add him to Mikel Arteta’s “massive storage of images” of such breaches, Andrews asked his team to dig deep but Brighton’s dominance of possession became near-total.

Luka Vuskovic, ­serving ­previously as a deep-lying playmaker, won the penalty. Keane Lewis-Potter’s ­panicked response to a physical 18-yard box mismatch was to snatch at the ­Croatian’s shirt. Gross’s penalty was struck as truly as Gómez’s goal. “We need to be cuter,” Andrews said. “I take real pride in the way we defend set pieces and we need to do better because that wasn’t good.”

Andrews’s half-time ­adjustments, bringing on Yarmolyuk and Nathan Collins, was an attempt to protect Brentford’s goal difference. Brighton continued to pile on pressure, their ­possession share reaching beyond 75%. A set piece became Brentford’s sole route back, though Mathias Jensen’s diagonal into ­zVerbruggen’s hands would not have passed muster in rugby’s Nations Championship.

Ironic cheers from the away end came when Brentford won a corner, and then another – rare excitement at Brighton’s defenders being asked to do something other than build an attack. The visitors’ fighting spirit at least sustained, though threatened to spill over. When Kevin Schade shoved ­Vuskovic to the ground by the touchline, another red card was a possibility, only for Oliver and Attwell to rule a yellow as sufficient this time.

Brighton’s push for honours and further horizons will require more than spectacular goals. “You see the Premier League, the margins, you look at the results – we are not ­getting carried away yet,” Gross said. “Every game we have to suffer a lot.”

Hürzeler, like Andrews constantly straying beyond the confines of his technical area, does not countenance any let-ups. When Brighton meet the unstinting demands of their coach, so many are left in their wing mirrors.