Brighton sell nice bloke Alireza Jahanbakhsh to Feyenoord
It is goodbye to Prince Ali. Brighton & Hove Albion’s one-time record signing Alireza Jahanbakhsh has ended his three years at the Amex by returning to the Netherlands, moving to Eredivisie side Feyenoord for a rumoured fee of £5 million.
Jahanbakhsh arrived amidst much fanfare in the summer of 2018, costing £17 million from AZ Alkmaar. He signed a five-year deal after scoring 21 times for AZ as the Dutch league’s top scorer in 2017-18.
Unfortunately, things never really worked for Jahanbakhsh in England. He may have been a nice bloke with a fantastic attitude and a desire to do well, but he just was not good enough to make the step up to the Premier League. That was a real shame as you could see how much being a success for Brighton meant to him.
Jahanbakhsh failed to register a single goal or assist in his debut campaign in England. He played 24 times in all competitions and other than hitting the bar in a home defeat to Southampton and getting headbutted in the FA Cup Semi Final by Kyle Walker, it is hard to recall him contributing much.
Many supporters put the blame for that at the feet of Chris Hughton. The theory went that Jahanbakhsh was being stifled in Hughton’s defensive setup. Once a more attack minded boss like Graham Potter took the reigns, we were supposed to see the best of the Iranian winger.
Potter though did not rate Jahanbakhsh. Prince Ali did not start a Premier League game under the new manager in the 2019-20 season until matchday 20 against Plucky Little Bournemouth – and that was only because Potter rotated his squad in the midst of the busy Christmas and New Year schedule.
Jahanbakhsh duly seized the opportunity afforded to him, scoring his first Brighton goal with only three minutes played against the Cherries.
When the ball hit the back of the net, he sunk to his knees and burst into tears. Nobody in the history of football has been so happy to score against Bournemouth. At least it must have made their fans feel important for all of a couple of minutes.
Jahanbakhsh told the BBC afterwards: “I have been waiting for this time for a long time. Before the match I had a great feeling and I’m glad to help us win the game.”
It was impossible not to like Jahanbakhsh after that. We had been critics of him over here at WAB Towers but having seen what it meant to him to score for Brighton, even we now wanted him to become Peter Ward, Bobby Zamora and Glenn Murray reincarnate.
Better was to come a few days after the 2-0 when over Bournemouth when Jahanbakhsh scored THAT bicycle kick to secure a 1-1 draw for Brighton against Chelsea.
Those who were lucky enough to witness it will be talking about it for years, which does at least mean that Jahanbakhsh leaves Brighton for Feyenoord with some sort of legacy other than having cost a lot of money.
His bicycle kick was also enough to help him win our WAB January 2020 Player of the Month Award, helped of course by a lot of votes from his fanatical followers in Iran.
The question now was could Jahanbakhsh kick on from there? Sadly, the answer to that was no and he never scored another Premier League goal for the Albion.
A lesser man would have thrown in the towel at the end of the 2019-20 season. Jahanbakhsh had offers to return to the Netherlands with Ajax said to be interested but he remained determine to prove himself in England, opting to remain at the Albion for 2020-21 and force his way into Potter’s plans.
Potter always spoke about his professionalism and his attitude in training. Two goals and an assist from the Albion’s run to the fourth round of the Camila Cabello Cup in 2020-21 showed that he could deliver against the likes of Portsmouth and Preston North End but again he struggled to make any impact in the bread and butter of the Premier League.
Jahanbakhsh did manage a couple of exciting cameos from the bench on his way to making a surprisingly high total of 21 top flight appearances in 2020-21. They yielded a solitary assist for Solly March’s late goal in September’s 3-2 defeat to Manchester United.
The problem Jahanbakhsh had was that whenever he did well enough to convince Potter to give him a start, he then disappointed. He could make something of an impact for 20 minutes but ask him to do it over 70 to 90 minutes or when given a run of games and he struggled. It was not for the want of trying though.
Jahanbakhsh is of course not the first player to have arrived from the Eredivisie for a big fee after scoring goals for fun who failed to make the grade in the Premier League.
Vincent Janssen and Ricky van Wolfswinkel were both flops. Brighton themselves have signed their fair share of duds from the land of clogs, windmills and edam – Jurgen Locadia was Jahanbakhsh’s predecessor as club-record signing having cost £14 million and the less said about Elvis Manu, the better.
Jahanbakhsh turns 28 in August. He needs to be playing first team football. Jahanbakhsh will get that at Feyenoord – and he deserves to for the way he has conducted himself during his time with Brighton, compared to Locadia who decided to start concentrating on making shit music rather than knuckling down on the training ground when he struggled upon arriving in England.
Moving Jahanbakhsh to Feyenoord is good news for Brighton, too. There is no way of sugar coating what a financial disaster his signing has been; the £17 million fee combined with wages of circa £40,000 a week over three years for a return of two Premier League goals and one assist in 50 matches.
With Jahanbakhsh, Maty Ryan, Davy Propper and Bernardo off the wage bill, the Albion have cleared over £8 million a year. Should the club be able to find takers for Locadia and Shane Duffy, that total will rise to around £12 million.
It would not be a surprise to see Jahanbakhsh return to the Eredivisie and score 20 goals per season again. He deserves too for no other reason than being a bloody nice bloke.
