Brighton buy winger Trossard for club record £18m

The deal is finally done. Brighton and Hove Albion have completed the signing of Genk winger Leandro Trossard for a club record £18m.

The Belgian moves to the Amex on a four-year-deal having captained Genk to the Jupiler League title last season, their first in eight years and only the fourth in the club’s history.

Trossard played a huge part in that success, scoring 22 times and claiming 11 assists from out wide for the brilliantly nicknamed Smurfs.

That form pushed him into the international fold with Belgium. He’s been called up to Roberto Martinez’s talented squad on three occasions but is still yet to make his debut.

Trossard came through the ranks at Genk, making his debut as a 17-year-old in May 2012. He spent the majority of the next four seasons out on loan, joining Lommel United for the second half of the 2012-13 season where he scored seven times in 12 games in Belgium’s second tier.

In 2013-14, Trossard moved to Westerlo for whom he played 20 games and scored four goals. 2014-15 was spent back with Lommel with a further 41 appearances resulting in 17 goals.

His first taste of regular top flight football came with a season long loan at OH Leuven in 2015-16. His time in the town that gave the world Stella Artois was a successful one, yielding nine goals and seven assists from 31 Jupiler League fixtures.

That was enough to push him into the first team reckoning at Genk. Over the past three seasons, he’s played 118 times for the Smurfs, scoring 39 times and picking up 21 assists.

Trossard has been used pretty much exclusively on the left side of a 4-3-3 by Genk, although they have also deployed him as a number 10 on occasions.

That suggests he will provide direct competition for Jose Izquierdo – currently recovering from a knee operation – and Solly March, although March’s versatility means that he can be deployed down either flank. It also gives the squad five wingers, which may be one too many.

Despite being primarily left foot, Trossard does like to cut inside as well. That unpredictability in knowing which way he is going to go has marked him out as being something of a nightmare to deal with for Jupiler League full backs.

Most interestingly of all is that he’s been brought into the professional game by a club with an outstanding record of developing young talent.

Among the names to have come through the Genk ranks over the last decade are Kevin De Bruyne, Thibaut Courtois, Yannick Carrasco, Divock Origi, Wilfred Ndidi, Kalidou Koulibaly and Christian Benteke.

The fee being paid for Trossard eclipses the £17m forked out last summer for Alireza Jahanbakhsh. While the big money transfer of both the Iranian and Jurgen Locadia means that we should probably approach this deal with cautious optimism rather than unbridled joy, Brighton do at least have a good record of signing players from Belgium.

Anthony Knockaert, Maty Ryan and Jose Izquierdo have all come from the Jupiler League. Ryan in fact was a teammate of Trossard’s at Genk, although the winger was out on loan for the two seasons in which Ryan played for the Smurfs.

The fact that Trossard comes from a country that the Albion have previously mined for new players suggests that this is as much a Paul Winstanley signing as a Graham Potter one.

Still, Trossard’s chances of being a success at the Amex should be greater with a more attack-minded manager in Potter.

Winstanley must also be feeling the pressure of getting it right given the disastrous last couple of transfer windows he has had, after which he has surprisingly kept his job.

The deal could actually be seen as something of a coup given that Trossard has no shortage of admirers across Europe.

At various points over the last year, Arsenal, Southampton, Borussia Dortmund and Monaco are all said to have been tracking the 24-year-old.

But it’s the Albion who have managed to capture his signature. On paper, this looks like a good signing. Let’s hope it turns out that way.