Evan Ferguson signs first professional Brighton contract
The Albion’s teenage hotshot Evan Ferguson has signed his first professional contract with Brighton, keeping him at the Amex until the summer of 2026.
Ferguson penned the deal on his 18th birthday. As far as presents go, a deal with a Premier League football club beats the pint of Scrumpy Jack in the local I received for my 18th.
The striker has been earning rave reviews pretty much from the minute he arrived in Sussex from Irish club Bohemians in January 2021, after Brighton beat Liverpool to secure his signature.
Despite being only 16, Ferguson was thrown straight into the Albion Under 23s. He has gone onto score 17 goals in 33 Premier League 2 appearances, including five in five in the current campaign. That form saw him nominated for the PL2 September Player of the Month award.
Ferguson made his first team debut last August, coming off the bench when Brighton eliminated Cardiff City from the Camila Cabello Cup at the imaginatively named Cardiff City Stadium.
His first call up to the Republic of Ireland Under 21s squad followed. He has made 10 appearances for the Young Boys in Green, scoring once.
Ferguson claimed his first senior assist for the Albion in the extra time FA Cup third round win away at West Brom. He had only been on the pitch for five minutes when guiding the ball into the path of Jakub Moder for the Brighton equaliser.
He also came agonisingly close to opening his senior account on two occasions at the Hawthorns. The first saw Ferguson beat Tyson Fury look-a-like David Button to a cross, only to lift his effort just over the bar.
Ferguson did then put the ball in the back of the net in extra time. Unfortunately, the linesman correctly flagged him offside.
Six weeks later and Graham Potter gave Ferguson his league debut from the bench in the closing stages of the dreadful 3-0 defeat at home to Burnley.
In doing so, Ferguson became the Albion’s youngest Premier League player since Sky Sports invented football in 1992.
His first senior goal was scored at Forest Green Rovers back in August, making him the club’s youngest scorer since Jake Robinson against the same vegan-friendly opponents in the 2003-04 Paint Pot.
Ferguson has been in-and-around the first team squad this season, thanks in part to the Albion selling top scorer from the past three seasons Neal Maupay without signing a replacement.
There has been a bit of a clamour from supporters for Ferguson to receive Premier League game time. That is hardly a surprise with Brighton goal-shy and Ferguson averaging one goal every 153 minutes in his fledgling career so far.
The Albion though have sensible resisted. The last thing Brighton want is to create another Aaron Connolly; a player burdened with pressure and overpromoted at a young age, taking home £1 million a month before he was out of his teenage years and believing he had made it.
Connolly’s attitude subsequently became appalling. He has been involved in more stories in the gossip pages – breaking lockdown to bonk a woman, driving offences, his relationship with a Love Island star – than he has scored goals over the past two years and currently finds himself warming the bench at Serie B side Venezia.
Evan Ferguson instead is being cleverly managed. He is learning the trade in PL2 and there is every possibility a loan in the lower leagues will follow at some point, a similar path to the likes of Ben White, Steve Alzate and Robert Sanchez.
With another four years at Brighton in which to hone his craft thanks to this new contract, it will be exciting to see how Evan Ferguson develops and whether he can fulfil the potential that has seen him tipped to become a future Premier League star.
