Is a Swiss 2nd division striker the answer to Brighton’s forward problems?

If you believe what you read on Twitter, then an announcement is imminent regarding Brighton & Hove Albion signing FC Lausanne-Sport striker Andi Zeqiri for a fee of £3.5 million.

Yes, you read that right. The Seagulls might finally be about to add a striker to their ranks. And yes, unless you have delved into the Swiss league system on Football Manager, then chances are you will not have heard of player or club.

So, let us introduce you to Zeqiri. He is 21-years-old, 6’1 and capable of playing either through the middle or on the left of a front three.

He would bring the target man attributes that the Albion need to add some variety to their attacking options whilst also offering the sort of positional versatility that Graham Potter likes his players to have.

Zeqiri made his debut as a 17-year-old for Lausanne at the beginning of the 2015-16 season. He spent 2016-17 on loan with Juventus’ youth section, scoring eight times in 25 matches in the Italian Under 19 League. The Old Lady (best nickname in world football) declined to take up the option to buy.

Aside from that year in Italy, Zeqiri has spent his entire career thus far with Laussane, netting 35 goals in 104 appearances. The vast majority of those have come in the Swiss second division over the course of the past two campaigns, including 17 from 33 games last season to help his hometown club win promotion to the top flight.

Now, we are no experts on Swiss football but the general assumption has to be that the second tier isn’t very good. After all, the last player we signed from Switzerland was Nzuzi Toko who had played 143 times for Grasshoppers in the top division by his 24th birthday.

Toko was a half-decent player at the highest level in Switzerland and yet he was released without making a single league appearance for Brighton after only eight months at the club. And we were fighting relegation to League One at the time.

Then there is the last Swiss striker to pull on the blue and white. Okay, a lot has changed since 2004 when Maheta Molango rocked up at Withdean, scored 12 seconds into his debut away at Reading and then did bugger all for the next three years.

Admittedly, Zeqiri would have to go some way to end up being as bad as those two. But the point stands that a player coming in from the Swiss second tier hardly seems likely to be an oven ready Premier League striker who can compete with Neal Maupay and Aaron Connolly.

Even though Andi Zeqiri has attracted the attentions of Parma, Wolfsburg, Nice and Marseille this summer, he screams of a signing for the development squad.

Andy Naylor seems to believe that Zeqiri’s place will be with the Under 23s initially, followed by a loan move somewhere in January.

That would be the same path trodden by Jan Mlakar, who the Albion paid £2.5 million for in 2019. Mlakar has since done very little in spells at Queens Park Rangers and Wigan Athletic before returning to his former club Maribor for the current season.

The parallels between Zeqiri and Mlakar do not stop there. They are both of similar builds and playing styles and just like Zeqiri, Mlakar failed to make the grade in Italy earlier in his career when he spent a season at Fiorentina.

What has muddied the waters slightly about where Zeqiri fits into the Albion’s plans has been the tweeting of a Kosovan football journalist and a video recorded with the player’s father.

Zeqiri was born in Switzerland to Kosovan parents who fled their country during the war at the turn of the century. He is expected to make his international debut for Kosovo this October and as such is big news in the football-mad country.

Arlind Sadiku was the journalist who first broke the story about the Albion having an offer accepted for Zeqiri and his subsequent medical. He seems well connected.

Interestingly, Sadiku posted on Saturday that Andi Zeqiri will be joining Brighton as a first team player, saying: “As far as I have information, Graham Potter wants him for Premier League.”

Then late on Monday night, a quote from Zeqiri’s dad surfaced on Twitter in which he says his son will go straight into the first team at the Amex.

Which has sent a lot of Albion fans mad with excitement. It seems a curious reaction to the signing of a player from the Swiss second tier, but perhaps we are all so desperate for a striker – any striker – that Graham Potter could unveil Gino D’Acampo as a new £10 million centre forward and Gino would be greeted with a level of enthusiasm akin to him being Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo rolled into one.

This seems like a good point to remind everyone that if Brighton complete a deal to sign Andi Zeqiri, they will be signing a young striker who has barely scored goals in the Swiss Super League.

The jump in quality to the Premier League will be huge and it will probably take him some time to adapt – if he is able to adapt at all. That is why Naylor’s understanding that half-a-season with the development squad followed by a spell out on loan is the plan makes most sense.

Some players do come from nowhere. Steve Alzate didn’t exactly set the world on fire on loan with Swindon Town in League Two and yet a year later, he was in Potter’s first team squad.

Aaron Connolly did the same in a way, although his goal scoring feats in Premier League 2 marked him out as an individual who could make the grade when given a chance.

Most of Brighton’s signings like Zeqiri though end up following the development squad and loan route. Mlakar, Tudor Baluta, and Leo Ostigard have all done so.

The likes of Ales Mateju, Anders Dreyer and Mathias Normann all arrived for relatively big fees and were sold on at a profit without ever making a league appearance for the Albion.

The Albion need a striker to provide a different option to what Maupay and Connolly offer, not to mention provide cover should injury or suspension befall one or both.

But before everyone gets themselves giddy about Andi Zeqiri, ask yourself if a centre forward from the Swiss second division is likely to be the answer to the the problems Brighton have with their attack?

We might be wrong, but the evidence suggests that Zeqiri looks like another prospect for the future rather than a player for the here and now.