Vote for your Brighton Team of the Decade: Central Midfield

December 21, 2019December 21, 2019 WeAreBrighton.com 0 Comments

In case you hadn’t heard or realised, the 2010’s are coming to an end. It’s been quite the decade for Brighton and Hove Albion with the Amex Stadium opening, two promotions and the realisation of the dream of Premier League football.

All of that success has been delivered by some excellent footballers. To recognise that fact, we’re putting together a Brighton Team of the Decade made up players selected by your votes. They’ll be lining up in the 4-4-2 of Chris Hughton’s Championship promotion season and the full team will be revealed before the clock strikes midnight to reign in the 2020’s.

Central Midfielder

When Andy Naylor picked his Brighton Team of the Decade on Twitter a few weeks ago, it was his selections in the middle of the park which caused the most debate. That mainly focused around who was the better player out of Dale Stephens or Liam Bridcutt, but that isn’t the only bone of contention you’re likely to face when picking two central midfielders here.

It turns out we’ve actually had some very good players in there over the course of the last 10 years, all with varying skill sets. Aside from the past three seasons of the Stephens-Davy Propper partnership, there’s also been quite a turnover owing to the Albion’s rise from League One to the top flight, injuries and various loans expiring.

As a result, we’ve got a bumper 10 man shortlist for you to pick from.

Andrew Crofts
The Albion’s first captain of the decade, Andrew Crofts was handed the armband by Gus Poyet in one of the Uruguayan’s first acts as manager. He finished the 2009-10 season as Player of the Year, earning a move to Norwich City as result.

After helping the Canaries to the top flight, Poyet re-signed Crofts in the summer of 2012. He suffered three long-term injuries in his subsequent four seasons at the Amex, a real shame as when he was fit and firing he was a superb all-action midfielder who finished with a record of 13 goals in 125 appearances. Crofts returned to the Albion for the third time this summer from Yeovil Town as a specialist player for Simon Rusk’s Under 23s. At the age of 35.

Gary Dicker
Gary Dicker featured in every single game of the League One title winning season, his contribution to that outrageous campaign being every bit as important as the likes of the more heralded Adam El-Abd, Elliott Bennett and Glenn Murray.

He got found out a little bit after promotion to the Championship by the pace of the game, but with 153 appearances in Albion colours he still gave an awful lot to the cause during the early part of the decade.

Liam Bridcutt
Because of the way that his Albion career ended, there seems to be a bit of revisionism over Bridcutt’s time at the Albion. Yes, he handed in a transfer request to force through a move to Sunderland. But he was still Brighton’s most outstanding player in two of the best seasons the club have ever had.

Bridcutt won Player of the Season in back-to-back years, something that only a couple of other players have achieved. He was consistently voted into the PFA Championship Team of the Year by his peers. At 24, he is one of the youngest players to have captained Brighton in a competitive game. Even when Gus Poyet said Bridcutt could play for Real Madrid, it didn’t seem like over-the-top bluster. That’s how good he looked for the Albion

Andrea Orlandi
Ah, Sexy Orlandi. Probably the best looking player we’ve had this season – sorry Messrs Brezovan and Propper – he was also one of the most creative. It says much about Orlandi’s talents that his signing softened the blow of Vicente missing most of the 2012-13 season through injury.

Injury disrupted his second season with the Albion and that led to Oscar Garcia releasing him at the end of the 2013-14 campaign. He clearly loved his time with Brighton and still looks out for the Albion’s results to this day. A bloody good guy.

Dean Hammond
“Brighton are set to announce the return of a club legend” said Naylor late on deadline day 2012. That sent Brighton fans into overdrive, expecting the imminent arrival of Bobby Zamora at the Amex. Instead, we got Dean Hammond.

Easily Naylor’s finest moment during his time at The Argus. Even without the crushing disappointment of Hammond not being Zamora, his return on-loan from Southampton wouldn’t have been greeted with much excitement anyway. After all, Hammond had become public enemy number two – behind Dan Harding – for wildly celebrating a Southampton goal in front of the South Stand at Withdean two-and-a-half years previously.

All that was soon forgotten though as we were reminded of just what a good player Hammond was. He played 41 times in the 2012-13 season in the heart of Poyet’s midfield, doing a very underrated job along the way.

Dale Stephens
Signed from Charlton Athletic in January 2014 as Bridcutt’s replacement, Stephens has since gone onto play over 200 times for the Albion. He’s been an automatic pick for Oscar, Chris Hughton and now Graham Potter. Sami Hyypia never had the opportunity to select Stephens as he spent the first seven months of the 2014-15 season injured, which may go to explain why we were so dire under Hyypia – other than the fact that he was inept, obviously.

Since Potter took over in the summer, Stephens has been playing some of the best football of his career. There have always been Albion fans who perhaps haven’t appreciated quite how good he is, but there’s been no getting away from it so far this season.

Joao Teixeira
One of the only highlights of the 2014-15 campaign, Joao Teixeira still managed to look a real talent on-loan from Liverpool despite being surrounded by shit like Gary Gardner.

His six goals from 27 games were enough to see him finish as second top scorer behind Lewis Dunk (that’s how bad we were that year), he was voted as Young Player of the Year when we actually had enough young players to justify an award for it and finished second to Inigo Calderon in the main award too.

There was a nice moment a couple of years later when he returned to the Amex with Wolves and received an excellent ovation from the Amex crowd. The only problem being that this was a different Joao Teixeira, who looked very baffled by the whole experience.

Beram Kayal
Hughton’s first permanent signing as Albion manager and what a signing it was. Beram Kayal arrived for £250,000 from Celtic and from the moment he scored on his debut against Nottingham Forest, it was very clear we had a seriously talented player on our hands.

One of the first names on the team sheet when fit over the course of the next two seasons in the Championship, him and Stephens formed one of the best central midfield partnerships in the divisions. A broken leg on the eve of the 2017-18 season ruled Kayal out for the start of the Albion’s Premier League debut. As a result, he never really got a proper run of games in the top flight before moving to Charlton Athletic in August after 131 games for the Seagulls.

Davy Propper
Orlandi isn’t the only ridiculously good looking player to make our shortlist for the best Brighton central midfielders of the past 10 years – there’s Handsome Davy Propper too.

Propper and Stephens have been the beating of heart of Brighton in the Premier League since promotion and the £9m paid to PSV Eindhoven has proven to be an absolute bargain. No lesser judge than Marco van Basten recently compared Propper to Barcelona’s wonderkid Frenkie De Jong.

The one thing missing from his game is goals. He’s scored just twice for the Albion, although there are signs that little statistical quirk might be about to change now he has been given more licence to get forward under Potter.

Pascal Gross
Okay, we know Pascal Gross isn’t a central midfielder. Not a traditional one anyway. But if he gets voted into the Team of the Decade, then we’ll be willing to adjust the formation to include a number 10 to accommodate the German playmaker.

That’s how good Gross has been since arriving from Ingolstadt in 2017 for just £3m. Nobody has assisted more goals for Brighton in the Premier League than Gross. Only Glenn Murray has scored more. The kids may not like him because he isn’t on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook, but there’s no doubt that he has been one of Brighton’s most important players of the past three years.