Transfer record smashed as Brighton sign Propper from PSV
For the second time this summer, Brighton and Hove Albion have broken their transfer record after signing Dutch international midfielder Davy Propper from PSV Eindhoven for a fee of around £10m.
That smashes the £5.2m dished out to Valencia for goalkeeper Maty Ryan a couple of months ago and with Tony Bloom saying a couple more signings may yet be on the way, you wouldn’t bet on Propper remaining the most expensive player in Brighton history for long.
The 25-year-old helped PSV win the Eredivise title in 2015/16, his first season at the Philips Stadion after joining from his hometown team Vitesse Arnhem in which he scored 10 times.
He played 134 times over the course of six seasons for Vitesse, spending the last two years with PSV for whom he has made 67 appearances scoring 16 times. His total goals count from midfield in the Dutch top flight is 43.
Propper made his international debut for the Netherlands in 2015 and has since gone onto win four caps for the Oranje.
Dutch players are notoriously hit and miss when moving to England as we’ve found to our cost on a number of occasions – think Danny Holla and Elvis Manu. Given that Propper is a full international however you would expect him to at least be aware of how the offside rule works which was seemingly beyond Elvis.
Propper’s arrival provides a timely boost to Chris Hughton’s central midfield options with Beram Kayal leaving the Amex after yesterdays defeat to Atletico Madrid on crutches, suggesting he won’t be playing anytime soon even when the club inevitably announce in the next few days he has a minor knock.
At 6ft 1in, Propper will also add some much needed height to what is quite a small squad, an especially useful tool given the quality of set piece delivery both Pascal Gross and Markus Suttner are meant to have bought to the party.
Disappointingly, Hughton did take the opportunity to describe him as “a proper good signing” which seems like a huge missed opportunity but then we can’t have everything in life and spending £10m on a player seems like a pretty bloody good thing in itself.
