Bobby Zamora as attacking coach? Make it happen, Brighton
Since Graham Potter took charge, the Albion have been pretty rubbish when it comes to putting the ball in the back of the net. Many of us have theorised that what the Albion need is a dedicated attacking coach, a role that one of the best Brighton strikers of all time has now offered his services to fill – step forward, Robert Lester Zamora.
Speaking to The Argus about the Seagulls’ record-breaking 2021-22 season, Zamora was full of praise for Graham Potter and his players.
He said he believes that Europe is the next logical step in Brighton’s upwards trajectory – and that he would like to help the club get there by coaching the club’s strikers.
The article said: Zamora revealed an ambition to offer specialist coaching to strikers and said he had spoken about it with Albion head coach Potter.
He said management was not for him, adding: “I couldn’t deal with the owners, the press, the players, the agents. For me it would be just working with strikers.”
It could not be more clearer. Zamora fancies a go at becoming a coach with Brighton and he has put his services to Potter. When he can start?
Potter should consider this offer akin to winning the jackpot at the PlayAmo casino. Zamora is a man who understands Brighton, is universally popular around the club and has scored goals at the highest level.
Not only that, but he has the experience of being part of a Fulham team under Roy Hodgson who achieved exactly what Tony Bloom wants for the Albion – to become a top 10 Premier League club with the odd foray into Europe.
And the Cottagers’ Europa League adventure actually took them all the way to the final, where an outstanding Atletico Madrid side needed extra time to beat them in Hamburg. What an away day on the Reeperbahn that must have been.
The need for Brighton to be more clinical in goal has been an underlying theme of Potter’s reign so far. This reached its peak in 2020-21, when the Albion lived an xG nightmare.
Those dreaded expected goals stats would frequently tell us Brighton should have scored two or three goals in a game in which they drew a blank.
Not that we needed xG to point out something was very wrong. The eyes could do that all by themselves through a series of astonishing misses across the campaign, leading to the creation of the WAB Miss of the Season Award.
Aaron Connolly and Alireza Jahanbakhsh squandered open goals from three yards out against Sheffield United. Connolly managed to put the ball over the bar from five yards away at West Brom. Connolly dragged wide when one-on-one, front and centre of the Arsenal goal at the Emirates.
It was not just the best customer Shoosh! have who kept missing, of course. Even an international class striker like Danny Welbeck found something in the water at the Amex that made him put simple chances off target when he first arrived.
At times, it felt like Neal Maupay was on a one-man mission to break some sort of Guinness World Record for chances buggered, most notably when he struck a penalty 18 feet wide at home to Liverpool. And then subbed himself off with a snapped enthusiasm five minutes late.
Ah yes, penalties. In the past two seasons, we have seen Maupay, Pascal Gross, Danny Welbeck and Alexis Mac Allister all miss spot kicks during Premier League games.
Throw penalty shoot outs into the mix and their names are joined by Enock Mwepu, Yves Bissouma and Leandro Trossard. Seven different players missing penalties is quite impressive in a way.
Whilst Brighton fans have begged for the club to sign a more clinical striker capable of taking the countless opportunities the Albion create, Potter has often said he does not believe a “silver bullet” to be the answer.
Instead, he talked up the abilities of his coaching team to improve the goal scoring output of the players he does possess. And then he gives Bruno the responsibility of working with the attackers on the training ground.
Now, nobody has a bad word to say about El Capitan. In terms of right backs, he is the greatest in Albion history. But the crucial term in that sentence is right back.
Six goals in 235 games for Brighton as a defender is not exactly a record that screams of a bloke who is going to be the most effective at teaching strikers how to score.
And yet Bruno finds himself in the job because he is the best option amongst Potter’s coaching staff. Potter himself was a left back in his playing days, assistant manager and method actor Billy Reid a defender or defensive midfielder and Bjorn Hamberg has never played, just coached.
Nobody in the Albion’s senior coaching team is a forward player by trade. And whilst it might be a little too simplistic to say that Brighton struggle to take their chances because none of Potter’s coaching staff were strikers, it surely cannot do any harm to have someone who spent their entire career scoring goals passing on that experience and working on finishing?
A lot of Brighton fans thought Glenn Murray would be that man when he retired. Who better than the Albion’s second-highest ever scorer, a man with 111 Seagulls goals as part of a career total of 202?
Murray though is busy carving out a post-playing career as a pundit, and is bloody good at it too. Unless he becomes bored by the media or could find time to fit in working with the Albion, it seems unlikely we will see Murray on the training ground at the American Express Elite Football Performance Centre anytime soon.
Zamora would be the next best thing then, right? 182 career goals across all four divisions, 89 of those coming in the stripes. It is a record nobody can argue against.
The naysayers against Zamora becoming a Brighton attacking coach might point to his lack of experience or qualifications. Speaking to The Offside Rule podcast in 2019, Zamora said he had his FA Level B badge but did not want to go any further in terms of the UEFA qualifications needed for elite coaches.
And that is the thing. Zamora does not need his UEFA badges if he has no intentions of becoming a manager or even an assistant in the professional game.
What he is offering is to rock up to the Amex, show the Albion’s strikers how to put the ball in the back of the net, try and help improve their conversion rate, and then go and do some fishing.
If a silver bullet striker costing £30 million is out of the question, then it seems like a no-brainer to use an actual forward to teach actual forwards to make the most of the copious chances Brighton carve out.
Bobby Zamora as attacking coach – make it happen, Brighton.
