Ipswich Town travel to Sussex to take on Brighton & Hove Albion tomorrow afternoon. Alex Jones takes a closer look at the high-flying Seagulls.
The journey so far
If you cast your mind back to Valentine’s Day 2017, you might remember Ipswich’s last game against Brighton. Luke Chambers’ early goal opened the scoring at the Amex Stadium but Tomer Hemed equalised to seal a point for the hosts, with the game ending in a 1-1 draw.
Unsurprisingly, every single player in Ipswich’s squad has since moved on as they were relegated two years later. As for Brighton, Lewis Dunk and Solly March are still there. They’ve both played an important part in the Seagulls’ journey to this point.
Under Chris Hughton, they sealed promotion to the Premier League a couple of months after that match against Town, finishing second in the Championship behind Newcastle United. The following season, they secured a comfortable 15th place finish in the top flight, ending up seven points above the drop zone.
Although they were consistently a bottom-half team for the next three seasons, things clicked into place under Graham Potter, who took them up to ninth in 2021/22. From there, they’ve shown consistent improvement, reaching as high as sixth to qualify for last season’s Europa League, meaning that they played European football for the first time in their history.
They’re the clearest benchmark for how a team can win promotion, consolidate and kick on to achieve what was previously considered to be unthinkable.
The De Zerbi days
One of the key figures behind Brighton’s success is Roberto De Zerbi, who stepped in for the club during their time of need.
Potter’s big-money move to Chelsea left a bit of a sour taste in the mouths of supporters, with almost all of his backroom staff joining him at Stamford Bridge just a matter of weeks into the 2022/23 campaign.
De Zerbi’s success in Italy and at Ukrainian club Shakhtar Donetsk had done a lot to raise his profile, but many outsiders still weren’t convinced by him. That all changed very quickly as he guided the Seagulls to a top-six finish in his first campaign.
The following season was clearly harder. They struggled to balance the Premier League with Europe. They ended the campaign in 11th place, and while they topped their Europa League group, they were ultimately dumped out of the tournament by AS Roma in the round of 16.
Nobody can say for sure what happened after that, but it was clear that De Zerbi’s relationship with the club had started to fracture. Rumours started circulating that he was unhappy with their transfer business as Chelsea and Manchester United reportedly began to eye him up. He ended up leaving at the end of last season and now manages Ligue 1 outfit Marseille.
Brighton were left to rebuild again, which looked like a tough job on the surface.
Who’s the new guy?
Ipswich boss Kieran McKenna spent much of the summer as the favourite for the job despite links to ‘big six’ clubs, but he ended up signing a new deal to stay at Portman Road. A return for Potter was seemingly on the cards for a while, but it never materialised.
One thing that Brighton are good at doing is finding incredible quality from left-field markets, often improving their playing squad in that way to generate profit. This time, they’re looking to do it with a manager, appointing Fabian Hürzeler.
At 31, he’s the youngest permanent manager in the history of the division. For extra context, midfielder James Milner made his Premier League debut in 2002, when Hürzeler was just nine years old. The former England international is one of five players in the squad who are older than their head coach.
His experience is minimal, having ended his playing career early to focus on coaching. After four years at amateur side FC Pipinsried, he took on the job at 2. Bundesliga outfit St. Pauli, guiding them to the top flight at the end of last season after more than a decade away.
Many people doubted that he was the right man for the job, with many others believing that it’d take a long time for him to adapt to life as a Premier League manager. He’s taken charge of three games so far, beating Everton and Manchester United before drawing Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium.
A busy summer
One thing that’ll definitely help Hürzeler is the fact that Brighton have gone big on summer recruitment. In fact, when it comes to net spend, they top the division ahead of Ipswich.
Ibrahim Osman was signed from Nordsjælland and sent out on loan to Feyenoord, while Yankuba Minteh - who spent last season on loan at the Eredivisie club - joined from Newcastle United for £30m.
Continuing the link with the Rotterdam-based club, they brought in talented midfielder Mats Wieffer for a little over £25m. Brajan Gruda was signed from Mainz for a similar fee, with Leeds United’s attacking superstar following him after the Seagulls triggered the £40m buyout clause in his contract.
Not satisfied, they finished the window by signing Matt O’Riley and Ferdi Kadıoğlu from Celtic and Fenerbahçe respectively. Both players cost around £25m, taking their total spending to around £290m.
It wasn’t all positive. The departure of Pascal Groß to Borussia Dortmund was hard for a lot of fans to take, while Billy Gilmour’s move to Napoli was seen as an important one to balance the books. Deniz Undav never seemed to click in English football, so selling him to Stuttgart for big money was seen as good business.
All in all, it’s hard to see their summer as anything but a success.
Team news
Of Brighton’s six summer signings, four are currently dealing with injury issues. Gruda and Wieffer are both doubts heading into the game against Ipswich, while O’Riley is certainly ruled out. Kadıoğlu could return to make his debut for the club, as confirmed by Hürzeler in his pre-match press conference.
The Danish international made his debut against Crawley Town in the Carabao Cup, coming out on the wrong end of a vicious tackle from Jay Williams that saw him withdrawn after nine minutes. He’s expected to be out for around three months after undergoing surgery on his ankle.
He’s joined on the treatment table by Milner and March, who are both set to miss the next few games. One big positive for them is that Joël Veltman is fit again and will be available.
For many clubs, this would be seen as a huge blow, but Brighton have the depth and quality to handle the absences. They’ve still got a strong and experienced back line with plenty of flair and quality in attack.
Minteh looks dangerous on the right and Kaoru Mitoma is seemingly getting back to his best, while João Pedro and Danny Welbeck have both started the campaign well in front of goal. On top of that, Rutter, Julio Enciso and Simon Adingra can change the game from the bench.
One issue for Hürzeler is how he replaces Milner, who hobbled off early during Brighton’s draw against Arsenal. On top of that, Enciso and Pedro faced off during the international break as Paraguay beat Brazil in World Cup qualifying. That match took place at 1:30am BST on Wednesday morning. Will both be ready to feature for the Seagulls after the 16-hour flight back to Sussex?
Possible XI: 4-2-3-1: Verbruggen; Veltman, Van Hecke, Dunk, Estupinán; Ayari, Baleba; Minteh, Pedro, Mitoma; Welbeck
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