Selling Mooy to Shanghai showcases the strength in depth at Brighton
When a football club sells an individual who played 32 times in the previous season and almost single handedly tore apart the likes of Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal, there would normally be an outpouring of anger and sorrow.
And yet Aaron Mooy leaving Brighton & Hove Albion for Chinese Super League club Shanghai SIPG has been met with little more than a shrug. Think of that overused Alan Partridge GIF and you are getting somewhere close to how unbothered Albion fans have been by the whole deal.
The lack of reaction is remarkable given that in January, every Brighton supporter was pleading with the club to turn the Australian midfielder’s loan from Huddersfield Town into a permanent deal.
When the Albion exercised that option, there was plenty of joy. £5 million for a player who was the main inspiration behind the 3-0 home win over Spurs and the 2-1 away victory over Arsenal was seen a steal.
Fast forward eight months and there has been barely been a word of discontent surrounding Mooy’s departure. Which is testament to the strength in depth that Graham Potter is building.
Brighton fans can afford to be nonplussed about selling a player who was a very important part of last season’s squad because losing Mooy to Shanghai does not look like it is going to adversely impact the Albion in 2020-21; Potter still has a wealth of options to choose from at number 10.
Adam Lallana has signed on a free transfer from Liverpool. Alexis Mac Allister should be pushing on with nine months of living in England under his belt.
And the criminally underrated Pascal Gross ranks eighth in the whole of Europe for chances created by any player since August 2016. Gross is on 293 – one more than certain Eden Hazard.
Not a bad little roster of playmakers for Potter to choose from. The choices don’t stop there, either. Potter values versatility above almost anything else and one of the most understated aspects of his Brighton squad is the number of players who can fill multiple positions.
In the unlikely event that Lallana, Mac Allister and Gross are all unavailable at the same time, then Potter can turn to Leandro Trossard to play as a number 10, as he did on occasions in 2019-20 seasons.
Yves Bissouma may have made the holding midfield role his own post lockdown, but he too could be deployed in a more advanced position.
Davy Pröpper often plays as a number 10 for the Netherlands and Steve Alzate was given much more licence to attack than we have seen so far in the 1-1 friendly draw with Chelsea. So versatile is Alzate that it is probably quicker to list the positions he can’t pay in, rather than those he can.
This strength in depth is not just reserved for the number 10 position either. Brighton’s stock of defenders is well documented; earlier in pre-season, we worked out their value to be £181.5 million.
Martin Montoya has since left for Real Bettis and Shane Duffy and Matt Clarke have moved on season long loan deals to Celtic and Wayne Rooney’s Derby County respectively – but even with those departures, the Albion have a wealth of available talent in their back line.
There is plenty of competition in the holding midfield department too. We have already mentioned Bissouma and despite being more hated than a communist dictator by some sections of the Albion support, Dale Stephens remains a quality player in that position.
The highly rated Jayson Molumby should be in the shake up, Alzate too can play there and Ben White offers an intriguing option having filled the role on a couple of occasions during his loan spell with 1975 European Cup runners up The Leeds United.
In fact, the only outfield positions in which Brighton look short are up front and at left back. Potter does not rate Bernardo for reasons that nobody is yet to fathom and however good Dan Burn was last season, he remains a square peg in a round hole filling that role.
Striker wise, Potter has just Neal Maupay and Aaron Connolly to rely on. Maupay had a highly encouraging first season as a Premier League player, notching 10 times and Connolly showed glimpses of his talent.
Both need to become more clinical given the opportunities that they were guilty of missing. Another forward to ease the burden is a necessity, especially in light of Glenn Murray’s move to Watford. Brighton are just a couple of injuries away from having no available strikers.
Overall though, this is shaping up to be arguably the strongest squad in Albion history. The lack of furore over Brighton selling Mooy to Shanghai highlights that – it is hard to recall any other time when losing a vital cog in the previous season’s team has been met with such apathy.
As recently as five years ago, we were tearing our hair out at the prospect of losing Joe Bennett and Greg Halford. Now, a player as good as Mooy can leave with barely a whimper uttered. 2020-21 is looking like it could be a very good season indeed.
