Pascal Gross signs new Brighton contract to 2025
The importance of Pascal Gross to Brighton & Hove Albion has been underlined by the Seagulls number 13 signing a new contract keeping him at the Amex until 2025.
It was a deserved reward for Der Kaiser, who has gone from strength to strength since Roberto De Zerbi arrived as Brighton boss in September.
De Zerbi has gone as far as to describe Gross as one of the best players he has ever worked with. The Albion head coach said back in March: “To explain the importance of Pascal, I can tell you he is one of the best players I have had in my career.”
“He is a fantastic player. He can play everywhere on the pitch. He is fantastic in terms of attitude and passion. He is very clever to understand difficult situations and I am lucky to have him in my team.”
“He is a leader like Lewis Dunk, like Adam Lallana, like Danny Welbeck. They are different types of leader but they are always positive guys.”
“The secret of Brighton is not the coach or style of play, the secret of Brighton is the part of the squad like Pascal, like Dunk, like Welbeck.”
High praise indeed which and little wonder Gross has become one of the first names on De Zerbi’s team sheet. Der Kaiser has contributed seven goals and eight assists so far in the current campaign.
He needs to score just once more to make 2022-23 his most prolific season in an Albion shirt, whilst three more assists will eclipse his previous best of eight from the 2020-21 campaign.
What makes these attacking returns all the more impressive is that Gross has undergone something of a reinvention under De Zerbi.
Whereas Gross previously thrived as a number 10 under Graham Potter and Chris Hughton, he has been deployed as either one of the two holding midfielder players in De Zerbi’s 4-2-3-1 or at right back.
More than a few eyebrows were raised when Gross first started at right back for the first time against Chelsea at the Amex.
Potter being humiliated 4-1 and Gross popping up with the final Brighton goal in the rout made believers of the doubters after just 90 minutes of Gross in his new role.
De Zerbi clearly loves his versatility and it is that attribute along with his creativity which make him such an important asset to Brighton.
This importance often goes under the radar. Gross does not attract the attention of his younger teammates like Moises Caicedo and Alexis Mac Allister, but if he ever departed it would be more keenly felt than almost any other player at the Albion.
You only have to look at what happened to Brighton when Gross was out of favour before. The start of the 2020-21 saw him written off by a surprisingly large number of Albion supporters, that stupid period of pAscAl gRoSs iS a sET pIeCe mErCHanT.
Even more surprising was that Potter agreed. Gross did not start a Premier League match until November, meaning he made only five starts in the opening 18 games of the campaign. Brighton won just twice, setting a club record for worst ever start to a top flight season in the process.
The Seagulls’ third win of 2020-21 finally arrived in January when Gross made his sixth start, a 1-0 success at 1996 Coca Cola Cup runners up The Leeds United.
Gross played every game from that point on. Brighton went from setting a piece of unwanted history which left them in the middle of a relegation battle to winning seven and drawing six of their final 20 matches, eventually finishing 13 points above the bottom three.
Der Kaiser has never been willingly dropped for a significant amount of time since. Pascal Gross recently passed 200 appearances for Brighton and his new contract should allow him to breach the 250 mark by the time it expires in the summer of 2025, providing he stays injury free.
Those 205 matches for the Albion have yielded a total of 24 goals and 37 assists. He has more Premier League goal involvements than any other player in Brighton history and if he can maintain his current strike rate over the next two years, may well become the man who overtakes Michael Robinson’s long-standing club record of 37 top flight goals.
The question then becomes how long will Gross go on for at the Albion? He has never relied on pace, which is arguably the only reason he plays for Brighton.
Had he some speed to go with his vision, intelligence and that beautiful bamboozling Gross turn, then he would be a Manchester City, Real Madrid or Bayern Munich player.
Gross could quite feasibly play until he is into his late 30s. Whether that is with the Albion remains to be seen. When his Brighton contract was due to expire last summer, Pascal Gross said before signing a new deal: “I’ve been here for five years, that’s a long time when you come from abroad.”
The Amex responded to those comments with a roaring rendition of “Pascal Gross, we want you to stay” when West Ham United were convincingly beaten 4-0 in the final game of the campaign. Gross of course responded with a goal and assist against the Hammers.
And Gross did eventually stay, committing himself to Brighton for two more years until 2024. This latest contract extends that by another season.
Hopefully, there will be several more to come because Der Kaiser is aging like a fine wine. Just ask De Zerbi about the best players he has ever worked with.
