Brighton & Hove Albion Summer 2021 Transfer Window Round Up
Many Brighton fans lost their minds at the closing of the summer 2021 transfer window as, for the fourth successive window stretching back two years, the Albion failed to bring in a senior centre forward for their Premier League squad.
In fact, the Seagulls had managed the seemingly impossible and actually ended the summer weaker in attack than they had been at the start. Percy Tau, Florin Andone and Andi Zeqiri have all been shipped out with no incomings to fill the void.
It means that Brighton will have to negotiate at least the first four months of the season with only three strikers on the books. Of those, Danny Welbeck has a body made of ceramic and Aaron Connolly spends more time fighting in nightclubs and breaking lockdowns to bonk women than he does scoring goals.
In Neal Maupay then we trust at the same time as praying to the injury and suspension Gods not to hit more than one of our remaining centre forwards at the same time, otherwise Jason Steele might be getting a go up front.
Not signing a striker is clearly a concern. The more mind boggling aspect though is that the Albion have allowed four forwards to depart, leaving such a thin roster.
Abdallah Sima is the other man joining Andone, Tau and Zeqiri on the train out of Brighton, heading straight to Stoke City on loan after the Albion paid £7 million to Slavia Prague for his services.
Willingly leaving yourself so light in such a crucial position is an unnecessary gamble. It is little wonder that supporters were talking about chopping their arms off live on Periscope in despair.
The club did attempt to sign a forward earlier in the summer. Nichoas Gonzalez looked like it was going to happen until he decided that Fiorentina were a better option. There was also the annual approach for Darwin Nunez of Benfica followed by his annual rejection.
Could more have been done once it became clear those were two deals that were never going to get over the line? You would have to imagine yes.
The recruitment team surely did not have only two players on their list of targets for a position which the world and his wife knew needed strengthening.
Step back from the striker issue for a minute though and has this been an unmitigated disaster of a transfer window for Brighton that a lot of fans are claiming? Yves Bissouma has not gone anywhere which is arguably a better piece of business than any new signing would be.
£50 million has been banked for Ben White. Over £10 million has been cleared off the wage bill in players who Potter did not rate and the squad has continued to evolve as younger faces with big resale potential have arrived.
The Albion also have a sizable contingent of development squad players out on loan in the lower leagues and across Europe. So many actually that we do not have the time or space to list them all in our Brighton summer 2021 transfer window roundup. Thankfully, Warren Morgan covered most of the loan army in his recent piece.
Here then is all the permanent business completed by the Albion over the course of a very busy three months. No striker means that Brighton’s xG nightmare might go on for a while yet, but there has still been some decent stuff done.
Brighton and Hove Albion players in, summer 2021:
Enock Mwepu – Red Bull Salzburg, £22 million
Brighton’s biggest buy of the summer was Zambian midfielder Enock Mwepu who arrived from Red Bull Salzburg for £22 million. Capable of playing anywhere in midfield, as a striker and in both full back positions, his clever reading of the game and ability to pick the perfect pass has earned him the nickname of The Computer.
Initially, it was thought that Mwepu would be Bissouma’s replacement. That Bissouma somehow remains an Albion player instead means that Potter has an embarrassment of riches in the middle of the park.
Mwepu started the opening match of the season away at Burnley but was withdrawn at half time. He seemed to struggle with the pace of the Premier League; if that is the case, he would not be the first player to need time to adapt to the unique challenge of English football.
We got a glimpse of what he can do with a brilliant 30 yard, defence splitting ball to send Jakub Moder running clear for the opening goal in the 2-0 win away at Cardiff City in the League Cup.
Patience will be needed when it comes to Mwepu making an impact in the top flight. Bissouma remaining at the club gives Mwepu the chance to find his feet slowly.
Marc Cucerella – Getafe, £15 million
The pursuit of Spanish left wing back Marc Cucurella began in May and was only concluded on deadline day when Brighton finally met the £15 million release clause in his Getafe contract.
Many fans were mystified about why it took so long to get a deal done when the Albion knew exactly how much they had to pay to get their man.
Seemingly, there were disagreements to overcome about how much money Getafe wanted up front, with Brighton preferring to pay in instalments.
In the time it took to iron out, Cucurella flew to Japan and came back again with an Olympics silver medal as part of the Spain Under 23 time who went all the way to the football tournament final.
All is well that ends well. Cucurella will bring much needed natural width, capable of playing anywhere down the left hand side. This should prevent Potter sending out central midfielders as wing backs, the treatment that poor Pascal Gross and Jakub Moder were subjected to with unsurprisingly disappointing consequences in the 2-0 defeat to Everton.
Kjell Scherpen – Ajax, £4.2 million
Brighton needed capable back up to Robert Sanchez and they will be hoping that Dutch under 21 goalkeeper Kjell Scherpen signed for £4.2 million from Ajax can provide that.
A pre-season injury means that we have barely seen him, bar a mixed performance at Rangers in the Albion’s opening friendly against the reigning Scottish Pub League champions.
He made some decent stops at Ibrox as well as getting into a right mess with the ball at his feet, gifting possession to the hosts and having Shane Duffy bail him out with a goal line clearance.
Abdallah Sima – £7 million, Slavia Prague
The signing and immediate loaning to Stoke City of £7 million striker Abdallah Sima was the deal that caused most of the aforementioned meltdowns across the Brighton fanbase at the end of the summer 2021 transfer window.
At 6’2 and capable of playing anywhere across the front line, he appears to have all the attributes to thrive in the Premier League as well as offering a different threat from Maupay and Connolly.
The lack of variety available to Potter in his front line means that the Albion often have no plan B, something that was evidenced in the insipid performance against Everton. Farming out two target-men style forwards in Sima and Zeqiri reduces Brighton’s options even further.
Dan Ashworth spoke upon Sima’s arrival of the need for him to play regular first team football. He has enjoyed a meteoric rise over the past two years from the French fifth and Czech third tier. 2020-21 at Slavia was his first full season of regular senior football.
He scored 16 goals from 33 appearances in all competitions as Slavia won the Czech title, highlighting his potential. As West Ham United have proven with Vladimír Coufal and Tomáš Souček, clubs can reap the rewards of shopping for bargains in the Czech Republic.
You can see the logic behind sending him to Stoke to see how he gets on in the Championship. If he scores a hatful of goals, then the Albion will have a ready-made solution to the striker issue for the 2022-23 season.
It still leaves questions about what happens if Maupay, Connolly and Welbeck are all out at the same time in the current campaign, however…
Kaoru Mitoma – Kawasaki Frontale, £2.5 million
AKA the Japanese Percy Tau. Brighton paid £2.5 million for Japanese winger Kaoru Mitoma, only to loan him straight to Tony Bloom’s Belgian club Union Saint Gilloise because he does not qualify for a British work permit.
Just like Tau, Mitoma looks set for a long odyssey around Europe before we ever get to see him in a Brighton shirt. At 24-years-old, he is one of the most highly rated prospects in Japanese football.
The Tau transfer though teaches us that means nothing and it would not be a surprise if the club have bought him as mere commodity to send out to other clubs before selling for a profit in three years time.
Brighton and Hove Albion players out, summer 2021:
Ben White – Arsenal, £50 million
Who thought they would see the day when Brighton sold a player for £50 million? Ben White moving to Arsenal was a deal that suited all parties; the Albion received more for one player than they had for every other outgoing sale combined in their 120 year history.
Arsenal got a defender with the potential to go onto be one of the best in the world and White moved to a bigger club where he could showcase his talents and put himself in contention for winning trophies and England recognition. That is what we thought anyway, until it turned out that the Gunners are crap.
Oh, and the Albion kept Lewis Dunk and Adam Webster who were arguably better than White last season.
Percy Tau – Al Ahly, £1.6 million
The Lion of Juda will surely go down as one of the most bizarre transfers in Brighton history and it was hard not to feel sorry for him as he departed the Albion in the summer 2021 transfer window.
Tau had waited two-and-a-half years to get to the Premier League, enduring three different loan spells with three Belgian clubs whilst he waited a work permit.
When he did eventually make it to Brighton, he was given less than 120 minutes of league football to prove himself. In the short time he made it onto the pitch, he asked plenty of questions of Manchester City’s defence and claimed an assist with a brilliant through ball for Welbeck’s goal against West Ham.
And then he was sold for a rumoured fee of £1.6 million to Egyptian club Al Ahly. All that waiting, all that effort to get him here and then Potter barely gave him an opportunity.
Tau might not have been good enough for the Premier League, but would it not have been nice to find out by actually playing him? Especially as Aaron Connolly could be unveiled as the head of the Taliban and Potter would say he deserves another chance.
Alireza Jahanbakhsh – Feyenoord, free transfer
Is the reason that Brighton will are so reluctant to open their cheque book for a new forward in the summer 2021 transfer window because of the Alireza Jahanbakhsh experience?
Signed for £17 million from AZ Alkmaar in 2018, Jahanbakhsh was released on a free to return to the Netherlands with Feyenoord after managing a grand total of two Premier League goals in three seasons.
Throw in £7 million in wages and he has to rank as one of the worst transfers in Brighton history, even if he did score THAT overhead kick against Chelsea.
Which is a shame really as he seemed like a thoroughly nice chap with a brilliant attitude. Unfortunately, that only takes you so far and he was simply not good enough for the Premier League, ability wise.
He did not work out as a winger. He did not work out as a wing back. He did not work out as a striker. He did not work out as a number 10. He did not work out under Potter. He did not work out under Chris Hughton.
Jahanbakhsh was not the first player to score goals for fun in the Netherlands before struggling in England. He will not be the last either and the fact that he is already banging them in for Feyenoord tells you everything you need to know about the difference in standard between the Eredivisie and the Premier League.
Handsome Davy Propper – PSV Eindhoven, free transfer
For reasons that we do not fully understand, Potter disliked Handsome Davy Propper in the second half of last season. The Dutch international was fit and available for the most part and yet he made only one substitute appearance in the final four months of the campaign, coming off the bench to help the Albion see out a 2-1 win at Southampton in March.
A player as good as Propper is too good to be sat watching the Albion from the stands when he is meant to be in the prime of his career.
Brighton realised this and did the decent thing, allowing him to walk away on a free to return to PSV Eindhoven, the club that the Seagulls had paid £9 million for his services back in the summer of 2017.
Propper more than repaid that transfer fee, helping to establish Brighton as a Premier League club in his 121 appearances. He did it looking absolutely fantastic, too.
Bernardo, Red Bull Salzburg – free transfer
Another high earner surplus to requirements cleared off the wage bill, Bernardo turned his loan at Red Bull Salzburg into a permanent transfer for a fee of absolutely nothing.
He had been one of the few players to emerge from the 2018-19 season with any credit and as an attack-minded full back, appeared to have all the attributes needed to thrive under Potter.
Potter though never took to him. A knee injury early in the 2019-20 season did not help, but even when he recovered he barely featured.
That impacted on his form which became inconsistent to say the least; in one game, he would like the Bernardo of old who had showed so much promise under Hughton.
In the next, he was on a par with a Sunday League left back playing off the back of 12 pints of Stella and 60 Marlboro Lights.
Maty Ryan – Real Sociedad, free transfer
The fall from grace of Maty Ryan was swift and brutal. Brighton number one up until December 2020, he was demoted to fourth choice by Potter almost overnight and then told to find a new club, a saga that has culminated with a summer 2021 transfer to Real Sociedad.
Lots of Albion fans mocked Ryan about his new destination, seemingly unable to get over the fact he said in an interview that as an Arsenal fan, joining the Gunners on loan for the second half of 2020-21 was a dream move.
Quite why Brighton supporters felt Sociedad was a step down is anyone’s guess. Ryan gets to live in a great city in the sun and play as a number one for a team who secured Europa League qualification last season.
The Albion meanwhile cleared another £40,000 per week off the wage bill for a player whom Potter deemed to be worse than Steele. Good business again for all parties.
Jose Izquierdo – Club Brugge, free transfer
After managing only one Premier League appearance in two seasons because of injury, Brighton cut their loses on Jose Izquierdo in the summer 2021 transfer window and released the Colombian winger on a free transfer.
Who knows what might have been had he not got injured at the 2018 World Cup and attempted to play through the pain? Or if Brighton had sent him for an operation when he returned from Russia rather than trying to nurse him through via rest?
Or if the Albion had not been so desperate to avoid relegation that they played him throughout the 2018-19 season even though it was abundantly clear that he was not fit? Nobody came out of it very well.
Izquierdo has at least found a new club, returning to Club Brugge where he enjoyed success before the Albion paid £13 million for him in the summer of 2017.
Viktor Gyokeres – Coventry City, £1 million
Another striker who you may well be wondering if he could have thrived if given the countless opportunities Connolly has received.
Viktor Gyokeres scored a fair few goals for the development squad after signing from IF Brommapojkarna £900,000 for in September 2017 but only ever managed one at senior level, notching in a 4-0 win over Portsmouth in the League Cup last season.
Incredibly, he earned more international caps for Sweden than he did Premier League appearances during his time at the Amex. Gyokeres went out on loan to St Pauli, Swansea City and Coventry City and it is the latter who he has joined permanently for a fee of £1 million, representing a £100,000 profit on the 23-year-old.
Jan Mlakar – Hajduk Split, undisclosed
Jan Mlakar, remember him? Brighton purchased him for £2.5 million from Slovenian side Maribor in January 2019 but he failed to make one appearance for the Albion, instead having loan spells with Queens Park Rangers and Wigan Athletic in 2019-20 and then back at Maribor last season.
His form with Maribor saw him force his way into the Slovenia international set up, earning two caps in June and scoring once. It was also enough to convince Croatian outfit Hajduk Split to pay an undisclosed fee to take him on a permanent deal.
Romaric Yapi – Vitesse Arnhem, undisclosed
Possibly the most disappointing Brighton outgoing of the summer 2021 transfer window, not because full back Romaric Yapi was any good but because it means we will never get to hear the North Stand singing “If you’re Yapi and you know it clap your hands” again.
That wonderful moment took place when Yapi made his one and only senior appearance for the Albion against Aston Villa in the League Cup in September 2019.
Signed amid quite a bit of hype from Paris Saint Germain a month earlier, he departs for Dutch side Vitesse Arnhem in search of regular first team football.
Brighton & Hove Albion summer 2021 transfer window scorecard
Positives:
- Against all the odds, Yves Bissouma is still a Brighton player. How many people thought that would be possible following his stunning 2020-21 season?
- Brighton banked £50 million for Ben White, a player whom they will not massively miss thanks to their strength in depth in defence
- £10 million has been cleared off the wage bill with Brighton moving on high earners who Graham Potter did not rate
- Width has been added by signing Marc Cucurella. Enock Mwepu looks like he could provide goals and assists from central midfield which have been lacking over the past few seasons
Negatives:
- Brighton have failed to sign a new striker and just to exacerbate the situation, four forwards have left the club on loan or permanent deals
- The Albion would still appear to lack a plan B for when things are not working
- If Cucurella and Solly March are considered wing backs, then Tariq Lamptey remains the only natural full back in the first team squad
