Selling Deniz Undav: Good or bad business by Brighton?

Deniz Undav has completed a permanent move to Stuttgart with Brighton pocketing around £25 million for the striker.

Despite the long-running transfer saga coming to an end, the debate still rages over whether the Albion have made the right decision.

Should Brighton have kept the fourth-highest scorer in the Bundesliga last season? New head coach Fabian Hurzeler appeared to be of that viewpoint earlier in the summer.

Or has Tony Bloom pulled off another masterstroke in banking £18 million in profit for a bloke who played only 923 minutes of competitive football for the Albion?

Why Brighton selling Deniz Undav makes business sense

Every decision Brighton take in the transfer market is based around what is best for the Albion. If another club offers enough money for Bloom’s brain and algorithms to tell him Brighton are getting the better side of the deal, the move happens.

Before this summer, Stuttgart had never spent more than £10 million on a player. Even having finished as runners up in the Bundesliga and securing Champions League qualification, a price tag of £25 million looked beyond them.

The Albion have therefore extracted the absolute maximum from Stuttgart. In that regard, it is a fantastic piece of business from Brighton.

There is also a strong argument that this was the opportune time to cash in on Undav. His stock and therefore his value has never been higher.

Aged 28, he is at the peak of his powers. It would be a big surprise if Stuttgart were themselves to turn any sort of profit on Undav.

He would have to enjoy a seriously sensational one or two seasons for a bigger club to offer more than £25 million for a striker approaching his 30s.

Profit and sustainability are two words ignored by most of world football. At Brighton, they underpin everything. £17 million profit for a 28-year-old with five Premier League goals to his name? Too good to turn down.

Deniz Undav and his Premier League struggles

The reasons Undav only scored eight goals across 30 appearances in all competitions for Brighton have been well documented.

Initial homesickness. Personal problems. Disliking English sausages and kebabs. You cannot blame him for any of that. No country in the world does meat quite like Germany.

Undav failed to score a Premier League goal through August, September, October, November, December, January, February and March of the 2022-23 season.

Anyone who suggested during that eight month drought that Undav would be a £25 million player one year later would have been carted off to a secure psychiatric unit. And rightly so.

Yet something clicked for him from late-April onwards. Five goals in the final eight matches of the season suggested a corner had been turned.

Undav certainly looked happier and more confident. Which is why it was something of a surprise when Brighton loaned him to Stuttgart last summer. Why patiently wait so long for Undav to find form, only to ship out as soon as he does?

Maybe the club were concerned that Undav’s hot streak was a flash-in-a-pan? That he might revert to missing proper German doner kebabs and bratwurst midway through 2023-24?

And if such doubts existed then and still do now, Brighton selling Deniz Undav to Stuttgart for £25 million makes perfect sense.

Undav in the Bundesliga

The size of the fee has been hailed as a triumph. But one Newcastle United fan raised an interesting counterpoint on Threads (come and join the party by following @we_are_brighton).

“If Brighton had just signed a German international striker for £25 million who was top scorer last season for the Bundesliga runners up, you would all be saying what a great deal it was.”

They have a point. £25 million for Matts Wiefer from the Eredivisie has been hailed a fantastic piece of business by lots of Albion fans. Likewise, £33 million on Yankubu Minteh, whose career so far consists of one good season in the Netherlands.

Then there is the potential £35 million signing of Ferdi Kadioglu from Turkish side Fenerbahce. Kadioglu is already being talked about as one of the best deals of the transfer window and it is not even finalised yet.

The Eredivisie and the Turkish Super Lig are inferior standards to the Bundesliga, where Undav scored 18 and assisted 10 in 30 matches.

If Undav repeated that level of output in the Premier League wearing a Brighton shirt in 2024-25, he would be worth a lot more than £25 million.

More pertinent than cold, hard cash is the question of whether the Albion have let a natural goal scorer slip easily through their fingers?

Undav, Hurzeler… and De Zerbi

Press reports give us a pretty good idea of the opinions held by Hurzeler and his predecessor Roberto De Zerbi on the matter of Undav’s future.

De Zerbi publicly said in April that Undav would be coming back to Brighton for 2024-25, making it very clear he did not wish for the Albion to sell.

Control over transfers was arguably the biggest contributor to De Zerbi leaving the Amex at the end of last season. It is not hard to imagine Bloom, Paul Barber and De Zerbi butting heads over the future of Undav.

talkSPORT meanwhile reported soon after Hurzeler was appointed as Albion head coach that the new man had spoken to both Undav and Gross to emphasise he wanted them both to stay. Which has worked out well.

Hurzeler must have had formulated plans for Undav. But based on the way Hurzeler set up at St Pauli, it is hard to see where Undav would fit in.

In Hurzeler’s favoured 3-4-3, there is room for only one central striker. Danny Welbeck, Joao Pedro and a fit-again Evan Ferguson all look ahead of Undav in the pecking order.

Hurzeler has also used De Zerbi’s 4-2-3-1 in pre-season. Again, the same problem exists. Undav being fourth choice for one centre forward spot is part of the reason he moved on loan to Stuttgart in the first place.

Stuttgart could offer Undav the regular first team football he needs at this stage of his career which Brighton could not.

Has anything changed in that regard? Undav might have usurped Ferguson thanks to the teenager’s struggles. But even with all those Bundesliga goals, he is still not better than Welbeck or Pedro.

Or did Hurzeler believe Undav was? It would be fascinating to know what the new head coach had planned for Undav and why he was so keen to keep him.

Deniz Undav – What might have been?

If you have read this piece and still cannot make your mind up over whether Brighton selling Deniz Undav is good business, then good – because that is kind of the point.

There are so many questions surrounding him that it is impossible to know. Unless you can travel to a parallel universe where Undav remains a Brighton player in 2024-25 and compare it to what happens in our world.

Would Undav have brought his Bundesliga form to the Premier League if he stayed at the Albion? Or would he have struggled for goals or to settle again back in England?

We will find out over the next 10 months if Stuttgart have done well out of the deal. It remains entirely plausible that Undav might suffer second season syndrome and fail to hit the heights of 2023-24.

Or he could do even better, fire Stuttgart to the Bundesliga title and Champions League glory and earn a £45 million move to Bayern Munich next summer. Wonder if Bloom has a sell-on clause inserted?

The most disappointing thing about Deniz Undav leaving Brighton is all the what ifs. At least with players like DJ Jurgen Locadia and Alireza Jahanbakhsh, we had conclusive evidence built up over multiple seasons they were not good enough for the Premier League.

Not with Undav. And the more pressing question of all which remains unanswered – given time, could we have found him a kebab he liked?