Who should captain Brighton with Lewis Dunk suspended?

It has been a while since the role of Brighton & Hove Albion captain was up for grabs without a very obvious candidate to take on the armband.

Yet that is the position that the Seagulls find themselves in following Lewis Dunk’s interesting red card away at Crystal Palace. Dunk’s punishment for attempting to break the legs of Crystal Palace defender Gary Cahill is a three game suspensions, leaving the captaincy vacant for the Albion’s forthcoming matches with West Bromwich Albion, Tottenham Hotspur and Burnley.

Whenever the armband has been available in the past decade, there has always been a clear favourite to take it. Dunk inherited it from Bruno when El Capitan retired in the summer of 2019 with Dale Stephens being number two last season.

Before Bruno, Gordon Greer was Brighton captain and Inigo Calderon his second in command. Greer’s appointment in the summer of 2010 was arguably the last time that there was any sort of debate over who should be skipper – and his selection by Gus Poyet He Who Must Not Be Named was not without controversy.

According to Poyet You Know Who, as he debated who to make club captain in the summer of 2010, one member of staff told him that his captain either had to be the most experienced player or the longest serving player. That was how it was done at the Albion.

Poyet The Dark Lord had already ignored that particular rulebook when handing Andrew Crofts the armband when taking charge for the first time away at Southampton in November 200.

Poyet You Know Who then decided to go one step further and completely rewrite the rules, announcing Greer as the new captain of Brighton & Hove Albion before Greer had even kicked a ball in the stripes following his £250,000 move from Swindon Town.

With Stephens sold to Burnley and Shane Duffy on loan at Celtic, the two leading candidates to captain Brighton in Dunk’s absence are no longer at the club.

Graham Potter therefore finds himself with an intriguing choice as to who skippers the Albion for the next three games at least, in effect becoming Dunk’s vice-captain; perhaps even his successor should one of the big six ever give Dunk a chance.

Here are the five leading candidates to captain Brighton whilst Dunk is on the sidelines.

Adam Lallana
When Adam Lallana signed on a free transfer from Liverpool in the summer, Brighton wanted it to be known that this was a signing made with much more than what Lallana brings in 90 minutes every weekend to mind.

A three-year contract for a 32-year-old with a questionable injury record pointed to the fact that the Albion intend for Lallana to end his career at the Amex. They then want to move him into coaching, a shrewd move given that he has long been touted as a future manager.

Lallana has always been a leader. He was Southampton club captain before he was 24 and Jurgen Klopp often hailed him as an example to Liverpool’s young talents.

When Klopp played an inexperienced youth team against Everton in the FA Cup back in January, Lallana was their captain. He guided the Red’s young stars to a famous 1-0 win against what was a near-full strength Toffees side. Klopp called Lallana’s performance that evening “unbelievable”.

“These young players, when they talk about their most important things in the future, what happened in their first two years, they will mention Adam Lallana, 100 per cent,” the Liverpool manager added.

Already, we have seen Lallana look like a leader on the pitch. He comes across well in interviews and he clearly has the respect of a youthful Albion team who can learn a lot from him.

There are just two question marks against Lallana’s candidacy. The first surround his fitness issues. Will he be on the pitch for the next three games? The answer to that is probably a yes, given that he has started three Premier League matches out of five so far this season.

The second is should Potter consider giving the captaincy to a player who has played just five times for Brighton over longer-serving players? The answer to that is also yes.

Poyet He Who Must Be Named did exactly that with Greer. A League One title and three top six finishes in the Championship show that it was a decision which didn’t work out too badly.

Maty Ryan
If Potter wanted to go down the longest-serving player route, then Solly March would be the man with the armband. March would not say boo to goose however, so there appears to be more chance of Donald Trump shaving his hair off than there is of the left wing back leading the Albion.

Next in line therefore would be Maty Ryan. The Australian number one has actually been Brighton captain in the Premier League before, taking the armband in the 2-0 defeat at Plucky Little Bournemouth in December 2018 after Dunk was sent off and neither Bruno, Stephens or Duffy were on the pitch.

Ryan is very much a leader in the changing room. He has experience having captained Australia on several occasions in the past and he is one of the few players guaranteed to start the next three matches by a manager who loves to rotate his squad and spring surprises.

Should Potter name Ryan as captain, it would not be a universally popular decision among supporters. For reasons we do not really understand, Ryan seems to be inheriting the mantle of boo boys favourite from the departed Stephens.

Some fans have begun questioning whether he should be dropped for conceding three penalties, two deflections, a goal-of-the-season contender and being left brutally unprotected at Everton.

As a result, Ryan would probably be a controversial choice. As Stephens and even Greer have proven though, it doesn’t matter what fans think of a player’s suitableness to wear the armband. It is the view of his manager and teammates that count, and they all rate Ryan highly.

Adam Webster
They raise ’em well in Weatherfield. Son of Sally Webster and Kevin Webster and brother to Rosie, Sophie and the other kid that came about through Kevin’s affair, Adam Webster is the third candidate who could assume the Brighton captaincy with Dunk sitting in the stands.

He has experience of the role having captained Bristol City before his £20 million move to the Amex in the summer of 2019. Webster has overcome a shaky first six months in which he struggled to adapt to the Premier League to become another of the few guaranteed picks in Potter’s starting line up.

At 25, he would represent a younger option than either Lallana or Ryan. Long term, you could easily see Webster as a future club captain should he remain at the Amex long enough to see Dunk leave, either through that deserved big money move or be phased out as he moves into his mid-30s – something which is some way off yet, thank God.

If Potter wants to use these next three games to look to the future line of succession, then Webster would be an intriguing choice to take the armband.

Leandro Trossard
When you think of the candidates to captain Brighton in Dunk’s absence, Leandro Trossard is probably not one who comes to mind. That is hardly surprising; he does after all look like a 12-year-old who is obsessed with vampires and reads Twilight every night before bed.

Trossard though has arguably the most impressive captaincy CV of anyone at the club. Only four players have ever captained Genk to the Jupiler League title and he is one of them, having done so in the 2018-19 season at the age of only 23.

Not only that, but he managed to score 22 times along the way. Trossard was Genk’s captain, their best player and their top scorer rolled into one.

Trossard may not have the traditional attributes that the English associate with captaincy, namely shouting at players and geeing his team up.

He certainly would never follow in Danny Cullip’s shoes and scream “Pethick you fucking ugly bastard” for the whole of Withdean to hear after a miscued pass goes innocently out of play.

But the game is changing. You do not have to be a Cullip, a Charlie Oatway or a Guy Butters-type to be Brighton captain these days. And if there was ever a manager to go for a slightly left field pick as Brighton captain, then it would be Potter.