How De Zerbi success has raised the stakes at Brighton

“Today we paid for our mistakes. From the owner, to the coaches and the players.” That was Roberto De Zerbi’s post-match assessment after Brighton’s demoralising 4-0 defeat away to Roma in the first leg of their Europa League last-16 tie.

It was a game prior to which many Brighton fans were calling the biggest, or at least one of the biggest in the club’s history.

That this heavy defeat on such a grand occasion also came shortly after the club exited the FA Cup with a meek 1-0 reversal away to Wolves – in a season of unprecedented high status that many are calling the club’s most important ever – has no doubt fanned some of the flames in the fallout which subsequently unfolded post-Rome.

In some ways however, this was just the usual post-match meltdown on social media and fan forums after a defeat. Some players as usual were once again called out for individual criticism.

Other more excitable Brighton supporters suggested rather outlandishly that De Zerbi – who is currently being linked to the vacant Bayern Munich and Barcelona jobs, along with any top English club job rumoured to be becoming vacant – may even get the sack.

As Brighton’s season has faltered in recent weeks, the fall out amongst the club’s fan base has indeed been rather dramatic. But in some ways, it should be expected.

As the old saying goes: the bigger you are, the harder you fall. And Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club has never been bigger.

Many pre-empted this bad run with heavy criticism being put the club’s way after both the summer and the winter transfer windows.

A number of the club’s social media followers stated the board had failed to “back” De Zerbi sufficiently. However, the phenomenon of complaining about a club’s business is one that regularly rears its head at least twice a year when the transfer window closes.

It used to be that not enough had been done to back Chris Hughton in keeping the Albion in the Premier League. Or before that, to back Oscar Garcia in maintaining a promotion push.

Or to back Dean Wilkins, who needed more players to keep Brighton in the League One playoff hunt whilst captain Dean Hammond was sold to Colchester United, and George O’Callaghan and Bas Savage also departed Withdean.

Unlike after some of those transfer windows in recent history, this year Brighton aren’t attempting desperately to gain promotion or avoid relegation.

Instead, they are comfortable a mid table Premier League side, already on a points total that would see them easily survive relegation in every season of their top flight tenure so far.

You would therefore think there would be a serene clam about the place, along with a certain level of excitement over another potential European qualification push. So, why so much animosity and panic instead?

That the manager has so quickly and so dramatically raised expectations and is now being seen to speak out against the club’s recruitment is probably enthusing the doubters.

But is De Zerbi at loggerheads with the board a fair depiction? Firstly, English isn’t De Zerbi’s first language, so drilling down too much insinuation and hidden meaning into what he is saying is unfair and possibly a reasoning behind why he often uses quite definitive language.

Language that is quite opposed to some of his predecessors, who chose their words carefully to ensure they weren’t seen as critical when it came to commenting publicly about the club’s transfer business. And made their criticisms behind closed doors.

A good example of this was De Zerbi’s comments after the draw with Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park. He said about Brighton’s poor first half performance: “We have to accept the policy of the club is to play with many young players and you have to give them time to progress and to make mistakes.”

“We have great potential players but they are not great players yet. Baleba is perhaps not ready to play in the Premier League yet, but he will be a great Premier League player. The policy of the club, and the secret of our club, is to develop those players who are not there yet. That is my job.”

De Zerbi then added: “We have Baleba [born in] 2004, Adingra [born in] 2002. We have a policy of allowing young players to progress, they need to play and make mistakes.”

“It’s impossible to play with the same XI with nine injuries. Now if we play with Welbeck or another born in 2003 and 2004, you can see the difference.”

Many insinuated this was a clear message to the board and more specifically owner Tony Bloom that more new signings should have been made in January, no less so than Sky Sports pundit that night Jobi McAnuff.

An assumption many will conclude was proven by De Zerbi’s post-match comments after Brighton’s defeat at the Stadio Olimpico.

Personally, I am still not as sure and feel those Palace comments could just as easily have been a case of a manager trying to protect two young players – Baleba and Adingra – who had bad performances in a big game and who were rather abruptly hauled off at half time.

De Zerbi may also have been simply trying to save face after a disappointing performance from his side in a match which he knows is very important to the club’s supporters. Many other managers use such deflection tactics.

As already stated, De Zerbi is a very different character to his immediate predecessors. He is a self-professed “honest” person who wears his heart on his sleeve.

Something that is refreshing in so many ways and has most importantly endeared him to the club’s fanbase, particularly when things have been going so well.

But as soon as the team’s form has taken a downwards turn, fingers have begun to get pointed and De Zerbi’s honesty has begun to be used against him.

We now have 24/7 access to a multitude of football media outlets that fans digest and obsess over. Modern football journalism is somewhat a cause of this culture.

Gone are the days that a selected group of highly esteemed journalists are given privileged access and can craft a resultant article for the following days newspaper. Clubs could previously trade access for journalist favour.

Modern football now sees anyone with a computer or smart phone able to call themselves a journalist or a writer… *tips hat*… which has broken down barriers of entry to a previously rather elitist and sought after profession.

But in football terms, the media has become a bit of a Wild West – and with Brighton now competing at the top end of the game, we find ourselves right at the heart of this culture.

Particularly dangerous is the posting online of short snippers of what is said in club-choreographed press conferences which are then easily taken out of context.

Those doing this selective quoting know it will gain interactions, subscribers, followers and ultimately, advertising revenue.

It is why we should be careful to take too literally what we read online, even if it is a direct quote from a manager. Words which meant one thing at the time can be totally altered in meaning.

De Zerbi’s predecessor Graham Potter was very loyal and positive to the club’s vision. I remember him basically telling everyone to get on board or get lost at the 2022 Fans forum.

And yet a matter of weeks later, he dramatically left the club himself to take a lucrative five-year deal at Chelsea and took most of his coaching staff with him. So much for that loyalty he demanded we all had to the Albion’s vision.

Hughton carried himself with a certain poise and never spoke out negatively about his employers. Even subsequent to being abruptly sacked by the club, you would be hard pushed to find evidence of him saying a bad word about Brighton to this day.

Which is despite the fact that many have since reported of his disagreements with the board on transfer policy, where his views in private often contradicted the club’s vision for greater youth involvement and a more data-driven approach to recruitment.

Some have even suggested his reluctance to promote and develop youth players were a big part of the reason he was sacked.

Let’s be honest. We can speculate all we like – you could certainly argue that I have done so a fair bit already in this article myself – but we don’t really know what is going on behind closed doors.

What we do know is that, as with most things in a successful organisation, the good people will usually leave for bigger things. And Brighton seem to be better placed than most to react to this reality and implement its succession plans accordingly.

As has been the case for a number of years now, January saw just another transfer window in line with Brighton’s policy.

For many a season, the considered view was Brighton needed to sign a big-money goal scorer to achieve its potential. But they didn’t and still managed to outperform all reasonable expectations, doing so in their own unique way.

And rather than De Zerbi, or Potter, or Hughton, it is in fact Tony Bloom – the man with the money and the vision – responsible for this unique and often converse approach and who has continued to steer the Seagulls to unprecedented heights, from near peripheral lows.

In an article for The Guardian back in 2010, Victoria Coren-Mitchell – like Bloom a keen Poker player herself – described Bloom as: “Full of creative ideas, energy and commitment.”

Coren-Mitchell went onto discuss Bloom’s poker playing style as: “If you don’t share his confidence that you can be the best player after cards, always be the raiser not the caller.”

And there is definitely some similarities here to the nature of how Brighton have gone about their business under Bloom, from transfers to the replacing of Hughton with Potter and then De Zerbi.

When some clubs would feel it safer to not take the risk, Brighton under Bloom will continue to raise the stakes and push ahead, because as Coren-Mitchell described in the aforementioned article, Bloom is a “phenomenon” and a “winner”. One Brighton and Hove Albion are lucky to have.

Maybe Valentin Barco will turn into the next South American wonderkid? Or maybe he will be the next Billy Arce? To paraphrase an earlier quote from De Zerbi, we will have to wait and see on that one.

But Barco being signed along with four other teenagers in the January window itself demonstrates further that the club are spreading their bets.

They continue to raise the stakes of building a team by developing the next big talent, rather than looking for more short-term solutions like signing established players.

As the Albion’s form has faltered, De Zerbi has been forced to comment in both his pre and post-match press conferences for most games recently on transfer policy and his squad.

For the return fixture against Palace at the Amex – the first game after the January transfer window shut – De Zerbi was asked the day before the if he was happy with the squad at his disposal and the clubs transfer business.

He shrugged and replied: “I don’t know. We will see in the next few games. It’s not my business the transfer market.”

Hardly a resoundingly positive response and one which subsequent recent results could easily lead you to argue show his concerns were justified.

That he went onto decry his squad now being “two midfielders down” only added fuel to a fire that many fans were already calling a feud between the club and the head coach.

What has not been spoken of as much is what he subsequently said of whether he was frustrated to not strengthen that area of the pitch.

“No, no. My focus is on the pitch. We will see on the pitch; we will see in the future.” Funnily enough, those doing the selective quoting on social media rarely highlighted that comment.

As has been discussed previously on WAB, the club were always unlikely to go against its transfer policy and spend big this season on established players – be it the most important season in the club’s history or not.

And even De Zerbi himself has said that is the secret ingredient to the club’s success in recent times. The question now is can they keep it going?

To make one final rehash of a De Zerbi quote… let’s wait and see.

Phil