With a record-breakingly young manager in charge at Brighton and Hove Albion, there are plenty of questions heading into the new season. Ahead of kick-off in the 2024-25 Premier League campaign, we ask five questions of the Seagulls.
How Will Fabian Hürzeler Do in the Premier League?
Football has a knack of making people feel old. When you see a player you remember coming through as a youngster eventually retire, or become a manager, or worse still, their son is now a professional footballer, it can make you immediately check your head for grey hairs.
Seeing someone born in 1993 become a Premier League manager might just take the biscuit, though.
Fabian Hürzeler arrived in the summer to replace the outgoing Roberto De Zerbi, with the 31-year-old impressing Brighton’s decision-makers off the back of taking football hipsters’ favourites FC St. Pauli into the Bundesliga.
Born in February 1993, Hürzeler will become the first ever manager born after the Premier League began in 1992 to take charge of a club in the competition.
Will he be able to handle to pressures of the Premier League, though? He has never managed in a top division and was only in charge at St. Pauli for a year and a half.
Seagulls chairman Tony Bloom said after the appointment was confirmed: “From the start of the process to appoint our new head coach, Fabian was always a standout candidate and one who had caught our attention with his exceptional work at St Pauli over the past eighteen months.
“He has a style of play that aligns with how we want a Brighton and Hove Albion team to play, and I’m confident it is one our supporters will appreciate and enjoy.”
Given they won the Bundesliga 2 title last season, it’s no surprise that their numbers were impressive. While five teams scored more than their 62 goals, St. Pauli boasted the best defensive record (36 goals conceded), faced the fewest shots (324 – at least 72 fewer than anyone else) had the joint-most shots along with Hamburg (547), and had the second highest average possession (57.2%).
At their best, De Zerbi’s Brighton were known to press high and win possession back in dangerous areas. St. Pauli won possession in the opposition’s final third more often than any other second-tier team in Germany (162), and forced more turnovers within 40m of the opposition’s goal line than anyone else, too (291).
If nothing else, it will be quite funny seeing him giving instructions to James Milner, who is almost exactly seven years his senior.
Can They Keep João Pedro Fit?
He was the big signing from Watford last summer, and João Pedro didn’t disappoint.
He became the first player to reach 20 goals in a single season for Brighton in all competitions since Glenn Murray in 2016-17 (23).
The Brazilian forward scored nine goals in 31 Premier League games (19 starts), but it was Brighton’s Europa League campaign where he really shone, scoring six goals in six games (5 starts). Only Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (10) and Romelu Lukaku (7) scored more in the competition in 2023-24, while he also hit five goals in just two FA Cup appearances.
Pedro missed a chunk of the season in February and March with a hamstring injury, and Brighton only scored 10 goals in the nine games he missed.
It should be noted that half of his 20 goals in all competitions for Brighton came from the penalty spot, but he was successful with 10 of his 11 penalty attempts (scoring from the rebound of the other) and even taking those away, his 10 non-penalty goals were still at least three more than any of his teammates managed. Brighton’s joint-second highest scorers were Danny Welbeck and Simon Adingra (both 7).
Knee and ankle problems saw Evan Ferguson miss periods of the 2023-24 campaign, but the Ireland striker will still have been disappointed with his return of six goals in 36 appearances in all competitions, even if only half of those were starts. If Hürzeler can get the best out of the youngster, it could take a lot of pressure off the shoulders of Pedro.
There is also the return of Kaoru Mitoma, who only played 19 Premier League games last season after having an injury-hit campaign. His spark and creativity from the left could really help Pedro.
The form of the 22-year-old Brazilian will almost certainly be crucial for Brighton this season, either way.
Will New Signings Hit the Ground Running?
It’s an accepted truth that Brighton are one of the best purchasers of footballers in European football. Their hit rate in recent years has been impressive, regularly bringing in unknown players who thrive at the Amex Stadium, potentially then moving them on for a gigantic profit.
So, who could be the next ones to make the journey from smart Brighton purchase to Premier League star?
When Arne Slot became head coach of Liverpool it was anticipated that some of Feyenoord’s best players might follow him to the Premier League, and they have, just not to Merseyside. In fact, they couldn’t be much further away.
Mats Wieffer has arrived at Brighton after a couple of impressive seasons in the Eredivisie, including playing a key role in winning the title in 2022-23. He averaged 2.52 points per Eredivisie game over his time with Feyenoord; in the competition’s history, no Dutch player (min. 50 games) has recorded a better average.
As mentioned in our recent article on Eredivisie exports, Wieffer also proved himself last season in the UEFA Champions League. In the group stage, only Galatasaray’s Lucas Torreira (61) won possession more often than him (50), while only six midfielders broke the opposition’s midfield line more often (39) before the knockout phase.
Another former Feyenoord figure to head to Sussex is winger Yankuba Minteh, signed from Newcastle United after an excellent loan spell at De Kuip last season.
Again, we recently looked at Minteh’s impact in the Netherlands, where he recorded 16 goal involvements (11 goals, 5 assists). That was an average of a goal or assist every 124 minutes – only top scorer Santiago Giménez (94 mins) was a more frequent threat for Feyenoord of those to play at least 500 minutes.
Along with that, Minteh’s average of 22.1 ball carries per 90 minutes was more than any other midfielder or forward in the Eredivisie last season, while he also led the same group of players for carry distance per 90 (284.3 metres).
Speaking of potent dribblers, Brajan Gruda is reportedly another target. The Mainz star has been linked with Bayern Munich this summer, but it seems he could be on his way to Brighton.
No Bundesliga player who played at least 500 minutes last season could match Gruda’s 7.8 dribbles attempted per 90 minutes, even ahead of famous dribbling enthusiast Jamal Musiala (7.75 per 90), while only nine Bundesliga players created more chances from open play per 90 than his 2.1.
We’re happy to start taking guesses on how quickly any of these three will be start being linked with Chelsea.
Should Hürzeler Keep a More Settled Team?
De Zerbi was either keen to rest legs last season with a Europa League campaign to consider, or he was just never sure of his best team.
Brighton made 143 changes to their starting XI in the Premier League in 2023-24; only Manchester United in 2013-14 and Manchester City in 2019-20 (both 144) have ever made more changed in a single campaign in the competition.
Hürzeler used 26 players in total in the league last season at St. Pauli, with only goalkeeper Nikola Vasilj playing in all 34 games. In total, eight players featured in at least 30 league games, with five starting 30+.
That the American-born manager stuck with the same goalkeeper throughout is particularly interesting, as De Zerbi showed no reservations about rotating there.
Across Brighton’s 50 games last season, Bart Verbruggen played 27 times and Jason Steele played the other 23. Will Hürzeler maintain that level of competition or pick his first choice? If he does the latter, keeping the other goalkeeper happy could be one of his first headaches as a Premier League boss.
Speaking of having a settled team, Brighton actually go into a season having suffered minimal losses in terms of key players leaving. Last summer they were shorn of their two star midfielders, Alexis Mac Allister and Moisés Caicedo, but perhaps due to a slightly underwhelming end to last season, the sharks haven’t circled this time.
There was a sad goodbye to Pascal Groß, who moved to Borussia Dortmund after seven years at Brighton. At the age of 33, though, it felt like the right time to let him go, even if the Germany international did make the most appearances of any Brighton player last season (47 games).
Adam Lallana has gone back to Southampton while Billy Gilmour is being linked with a move to Napoli, but in the main, Hürzeler will have the primary weapons that were available to his predecessor.
Could that be a key difference?
Will Another Breakout Star Emerge?
The reason Brighton have so regularly seen players leave is that they have been excellent in developing them.
In recent years, as well as Mac Allister and Caicedo, the likes of Ben White, Leandro Trossard, Yves Bissouma and Marc Cucurella have all left for big money.
While Seagulls fans won’t want to be thinking about more players leaving, do they have prospects who could at least play well enough to inevitably be linked with massive moves next summer?
Simon Adingra in one contender, having had an impressive debut campaign in 2023-24 after his loan at sister club Union Saint-Gilloise. He recorded 10 goal involvements (7 goals, 3 assists) in 40 games (32 starts), with only Groß (75) creating more open-play chances for Brighton than his 44, and no-one attempting as many as his 149 dribbles. Still only 22, the Ivorian will want to push on again this season.
Julio Enciso comes into the campaign with a slight injury issue after a busy summer of playing in the Copa America and at the Olympics. The 20-year-old Paraguayan was another who missed a lot of last season through injury, starting just seven games in all competitions, and will surely be hoping to make up for lost time.
Carlos Baleba was brought in last summer as a long-term replacement for Caicedo, but things didn’t quite click for him. The defensive midfielder started just 16 games after arriving from Lille, with his most memorable contribution arguably being a mistake that allowed Josh Brownhill to give Burnley to lead in their 1-1 draw in April.
However, Baleba is only 20 and arrived with plenty of promise from Ligue 1, and his new manager has been looking at him in a different role during pre-season.
“I think he is an option [in defence]. He can play,” Hürzeler recently said about Baleba. “He is very good against the ball. He is very athletic. He has good speed; he is good in one-against-one duels.
“And, with the ball, when he sees the game in front of him, he can play very good vertical passes, and he can create a dynamic from behind because of his runs. I think he will be an option there.”
Someone who will definitely be an option in defence is Valentín Barco. The left-back arrived in January from Boca Juniors and made three Premier League starts as well as his international debut for Argentina in the second half of last season.
His game time at Boca was split between left-back, left wing-back and left midfield, but almost all of his appearances for Brighton have come at full-back, and he could provide strong competition for Pervis Estupiñán in the team this season.
With the youngest manager in Premier League history, plenty of questions will be asked of Brighton this season. It will be fascinating to see Hürzeler and his players answer them.
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