Brighton January 2020 Transfer Window Round Up

February 2, 2020February 2, 2020 WeAreBrighton.com 0 Comments

Tony Bloom has never been a fan of doing business in the January transfer window – and 2020 was no exception as Brighton signed just one new player for the battle ahead to avoid relegation from the Premier League.

One player went out permanently and one on loan, while there were a handful of departures from the Under 23 squad.

The Brighton women’s team meanwhile had a very busy January 2020 transfer window, much to the chagrin of large sections of the Albion fan base who lost their minds every time the headline “Brighton sign French international striker” popped up on Facebook and Twitter, only for it to be Olivia Giroud rather than Olivier Giroud.

The social media team have been in fine form all round this month. Easily their best moment was tweeting a delivery of seven pizzas along with the caption “Still work to be done here, so we couldn’t go hungry” with an hour of the window left to go.

Turned out that work was packing two players off on loan to Wigan Athletic and announcing that we’d successfully negotiated to pay £700,000 to bring in our own player from Boca Juniors. Sensational trolling at the end of what was an otherwise mediocre window.

😉 Still work to be done here, so we couldn’t go hungry… 🍕 🍕 #TransferDeadlineDay #BHAFC 🔵⚪️ pic.twitter.com/FSKNoFASeC

— Brighton & Hove Albion ⚽️ (@OfficialBHAFC) January 31, 2020

Brighton and Hove Albion players in, January 2020:

Aaron Mooy – Huddersfield Town, £5 million
The best bit of January business that Brighton have done since signing Anthony Knockaert in 2016 is turning Aaron Mooy into a permanent Seagull. Many of us were left scratching our heads at just why Graham Potter had brought Mooy in from Huddersfield Town on the summer transfer window’s deadline day but there’s no doubting that decision five months down the line.

Mooy has been superb in his time as a Brighton player, being genuinely unplayable against the likes of Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal and Bournemouth. The rumoured fee of £5 million is an absolute steal in today’s inflated transfer market, where a proven Premier League player of Mooy’s ilk would normally fetch at least three times that.

Given the standard of his performances so far, bigger Premier League clubs would no doubt have been interested in signing Mooy in the summer. For once, Brighton have got their business done early. A shrewd move if ever there was one.

Tariq Lamptey – Chelsea, £4 million
The only new player that Brighton signed in the January 2020 transfer window was Tariq Lamptey, a 19-year-old right back from Chelsea. Lamptey arrives from Stamford Bridge rated as one of the best young players in the country. Frank Lampard gave him his Blues debut against Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium in December and Lamptey earned rave reviews as Chelsea came from 1-0 down to beat the Gunners 2-1.

First team opportunities looked limited with Chelsea however as he was behind Cesar Azpilicueta and another prodigious young talent in Reece James in the pecking order. As a result, Lamptey was searching for a move to a club where he had a greater chance of senior football and with his contract set to expire in the summer, it looked like he was all set to sign a pre-contract agreement with Lille which would have seen him move to Ligue 1 in June.

Brighton had other ideas though and muscled in to hijack the deal late in the day. It’s a win-win for everyone involved really; Chelsea get £4 million for a player who would otherwise have left on a free in the summer. Brighton pick up a talented player at a fraction of his potential future value and Lamptey doesn’t have to move to Lille, a pretty grim place if the man throwing up a slush puppy in a shopping centre which the WeAreBrighton.com team witnessed on a 2014 visit to the city is anything to go by.

What happens with Lamptey now will be interesting. Martin Montoya has been Brighton’s only specialist right back since Bruno retired in the summer, so could Lamptey find himself thrown straight into the senior squad? Given that he’s been involved in Lampard’s matchday 18 on several occasions, it seems strange that a player deemed good enough for the Chelsea bench would sign for the Albion and then go into the development side.

Lamptey has been described as being more of a wing back than a full back, which would certainly suit the way that Potter wants Brighton to play. He’d be comfortable in either of Potter’s favoured formations, be it 3-5-2 or 4-2-2-2 where the lack of wingers places extra responsibility on the full backs to get up and down.

There’s no doubting though that he looks to be an exciting prospect. We’ve of course been here before with exciting prospects with the most comparable signing to that of Lamptey being Taylor Richards, who by all accounts has something of an attitude about him which is hindering his progress since signing from Manchester City for £2.5 million in the summer.

Lamptey looks different to Richards though. And if Lampard believes that Lamptey has the ability and the attitude to succeed, then that’s a pretty good character statement. One to watch with interest over the coming months and years.

Alexis Mac Allister – Boca Juniors, £700,000
The other signing that Brighton tried to bill as a January 2020 transfer was Alexis Mac Allister, but given that we actually paid £7 million for him last year he doesn’t really count. The reason that Mac Allister is only just arriving is because of a complicated work permit fiasco, which led to the farcical situation of the Albion having to bid to sign their own player.

Mac Allister spent the second half of the 2018-19 season with Argentinos Juniors, the club whom Brighton had just paid £7 million to for his services. He then moved to Boca Juniors in the summer and, with seemingly no hope of a British Work Permit being granted anytime soon, the Albion negated to put in a recall clause. Doing so would have allowed them to lay out the conditions that would allow them to break off his season at Boca should a change in circumstances allow him to come to England early.

Needless to say, that change in circumstances happened in early January 2020 – Mac Allister was granted a surprise work permit and Brighton could bring him to the Premier League in the transfer window. Boca had however paid £2 million for a season of Mac Allister and weren’t about to let him go without some form of compensation. Cue the ludicrous scenes of us spending a week bidding for our own player.

A fee of £700,000 was eventually agreed – £500,000 up front and an additional £200,000 if we stay up. Mac Allister will now link up with his new teammates once he has completed international duty with Argentina Under 23s, who are currently attempting to qualify for this summer’s Olympics in Tokyo.

Already, there is a lot of pressure being heaped on Mac Allister’s young shoulders. As a number 10 with a YouTube highlight reel of some blockbuster goals from outside the box, he is being hailed as an inspired signing who can turn Brighton’s season around.

The reality however is that he is a young man coming to a nation and footballing culture which he has never experienced in his life. Many South Americans come to Europe and take time to adapt, especially in England where the pace and frantic nature of the Premier League is unlike any other.

Bringing Mac Allister over six months ahead of schedule is a real bonus, but we shouldn’t go expecting too much from him straight away. Brighton’s Premier League survival will hinge on established players delivering – which makes the Albion’s only January additions being two young and untested players a little concerning.

Brighton and Hove Albion players out, January 2020:

Gaetan Bong – Nottingham Forest, Undisclosed
Another vital piece of the Brighton side which won promotion to the Premier League has departed the Amex with left back Gaetan Bong leaving for Nottingham Forest. The Tricky Trees have paid an undisclosed fee for the 31-year-old, securing the services of a dependable and professional defender who should be a real asset in their bid to win promotion to the Premier League.

Bong played over 100 times for the Albion, battling back from two serious injuries and proving a lot of doubters wrong time and time again. By the end, he wasn’t up to Premier League standard, especially with Potter playing formations which expose the full backs so drastically. Dan Burn, Bernardo and even Solly March had overtaken him in Potter’s thinking. But that shouldn’t take away from five years service in which he never gave less than 100%.

Bong’s final act in an Albion shirt was to be sarcastically cheered from the field when substituted in the 1-0 FA Cup Third Round defeat to Sheffield Wednesday. Andy Naylor reported that you could see the sadness in Bong’s eyes at that reception, but thankfully that hasn’t diminished Brighton’s supporters in his opinion. He posted a heartfelt goodbye on Instagram and we’ll certainly miss him, even if this parting of the ways had become sadly inevitable.

Leon Balogun – Wigan Athletic, loan
Four weeks ago, nobody would have batted an eyelid at Leon Balogun departing. The Nigerian international was behind Lewis Dunk, Adam Webster, Shane Duffy and Dan Burn in the centre back pecking order. Since then, Burn has fractured his collarbone and is out until the middle of March and Duffy has had an operation to remove a blood clot from his leg.

Balogun suddenly found himself as third choice. Should injury or suspension befall Dunk or Webster – and Dunk is only two yellows away from a two game ban – suddenly, Balogun’s in the starting line up. If Potter wants to revert to a back three again at any point, Balogun’s close to the starting line up.

All of which makes the decision to pack him off to Wigan Athletic seem an incredibly risky one. While Balogun has rarely looked like a Premier League standard player during his one-and-a-half years at the Amex, he could still step in to do a job. Now we’re left with only two fit senior centre backs until Duffy or Burn return.

With Balogun out of contract come the summer, his move to the DW Stadium means that we’ve probably seen him play for Brighton for the last time. He’s been joined at Wigan by Slovenian striker Jan Mlakar, who has swapped a loan deal at Queens Park Rangers (one start, seven substitute appearances, zero goals) for what will hopefully be a more fruitful spell with the Latics. Mlakar certainly hasn’t looked like a £2.5 million signing, the fee which we paid for him last January.

Tudor Baluta – ADO Den Haag, loan
Mlakar wasn’t the only young player signed by Brighton in January 2019’s transfer window to have been sent out on loan in the 2020 version – Tudor Baluta has gone as well. The Romanian international cost £2.5 million from Viitorul Constanța a year ago and finished the 2018-19 season with the Romanian outfit, before starring for Romania Under 21s in their run to the semi finals of the European Championship’s in the summer.

Hopes were high that Baluta would be pushing for a first team spot once he arrived at the Amex. He’s made the matchday squad on a couple of occasions and started in the Albion’s League Cup games against Bristol Rovers and Aston Villa, but the midfielder hasn’t quite had the impact that we were hoping.

Baluta’s situation is complicated by the fact that he’s a semi-regular in Romania’s senior squad. They could yet find themselves qualifying for Euro 2020 through the play offs and clearly, if Baluta wants to be in contention to go to that tournament then he needs first team football.

That’s been the driving force behind his move to ADO Den Haag of the Eredivisie. Baluta is still highly thought of by Potter and his staff and presuming he ends up playing week-in, week-out then it’s a good move for all parties. Even if it does involve Baluta working under the management of Alan Pardew.

Brighton and Hove Albion January 2020 transfer window scorecard

Positives:

Alexis Mac Allister is finally a Brighton player. Could he be the exciting, dynamic number 10 we’ve been crying out for?
Aaron Mooy has been tied down to a permanent deal – and a bargain one at that for a fee of £5 million
In Tariq Lamptey, Brighton have picked up a highly rated prospect from one of the best academy systems in England

Negatives:

The Albion clearly need to be more clinical and yet we haven’t done anything to address that. If we can’t score more goals, can we stay up?
With Leon Balogun sent out on loan and Shane Duffy and Dan Burn out, we’re only an injury or suspension away from having a full-blown centre back crisis
Lamptey and Mac Allister can be seen as signings for the future – will they be able to help us in the here and now, which is securing Premier League survival?