How Brighton lost 30 key staff members – and got even better

Brighton & Hove Albion finished ninth in the Premier League under head coach Graham Potter in the 2021-22 season.

The highest position in the club’s history followed four seasons of ending up in the bottom six. It was a big leap forward for Brighton. They had been out of the top flight of English football for 34 years until returning in 2017-18.

The continued improvement since that significant sign of progress under Potter has been astonishing, considering widespread changes made to the coaching staff, the playing squad and key operational personnel as employees became attractive to bigger clubs. In all, 30 employees have left but Brighton have simply, and seamlessly, moved on to leave the rest of football wondering, “How do they do it?”

The dismantling of the setup started during last summer’s transfer window — and has not stopped. Seventeen players have left for a combined total of approximately £350million ($433m), while Potter was followed to Chelsea by his staff last September for a further £21.5million payout in compensation.

It would have left most clubs reeling. Brighton have just got better thanks to Roberto De Zerbi and their recruitment staff, as proved in their comfortable win away to Manchester United where the gulf in class was apparent on and off the pitch.

Almost as soon as they reached the new high in May 2022, two of the players who helped get them there departed.

Spanish left-back Marc Cucurella, Brighton’s player of the season in his first year at the Amex Stadium after a £15million move from Getafe, went to Chelsea for a fee that, with additional clauses, could eventually earn Brighton a £48million profit.

Defensive midfielder Yves Bissouma, after four increasingly influential seasons, was sold to Tottenham Hotspur for £25million.

The window concluded with another notable exit. French striker Neal Maupay, their top scorer in the previous three seasons, joined Everton for £15million.

The disruption did not end with the playing squad — Dan Ashworth, the club’s first technical director, left for Newcastle United. He had spent the previous three months on gardening leave as Brighton sought suitable compensation in line with the terms of his contract.

Losing Ashworth felt like a blow. In his previous post, as the English FA’s director of elite development, he had a leading role in a player development plan that coincided with success for the senior and youth teams. England reached the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup in Russia under Gareth Southgate a year after the under-20s won their World Cup in South Korea.

Ashworth’s wide-ranging brief at Brighton included the development of a pathway for players from the academy to the first team — his primary area of expertise — and player recruitment.

The scale of churn was only just beginning. Six matches into last season, after a bright start, Potter was headhunted by Chelsea. He quit for Stamford Bridge with five of his staff — assistant Billy Reid, coaches Bjorn Hamberg and Bruno Saltor, goalkeeping coach Ben Roberts and recruitment analyst Kyle Macaulay.

The anxiety among the fanbase was palpable, the rug pulled from under Brighton’s feet just as they appeared to be getting better.

Potter and his staff departed for Chelsea last September (Alex Pantling/Getty Images)

Those fears were exacerbated when only two points were taken from the first five matches under Potter’s replacement, De Zerbi. Many supporters had never heard of the Italian, who had spent the bulk of his playing career as a No 10 in the lower divisions in Italy and had advanced as a coach outside of the mainstream at Sassuolo in Serie A and Shakhtar Donetsk in Ukraine.

But Brighton’s owner-chairman Tony Bloom and chief executive Paul Barber, who is responsible for the day-to-day running of the club, had a good idea of what they were getting. They always have a shortlist of who the next coach might be. There will be one for De Zerbi’s successor too.

Other candidates had been tracked, including Kjetil Knutsen at Bodo/Glimt in Norway and Bo Svensson at Mainz in Germany, but De Zerbi was always the No 1 choice.

De Zerbi blew away Bloom, Barber and technical director David Weir in their first meeting with his knowledge of Brighton’s players and his plan to evolve the playing style he would be inheriting from Potter.

It was not easy for De Zerbi in the early stages. With the transfer window closed, he faced a setback when Enock Mwepu was forced to retire. The midfielder had been an athletic addition to Potter’s midfield options the previous season when he signed from Austrian side Red Bull Salzburg but, at the age of 24, a hereditary heart condition was detected while he was on international duty with Zambia.

The draining pattern of exits — which by any logical measure ought to have blown a hole in Brighton’s upward journey — continued unabated.

In November, Chelsea took another member of staff, head of recruitment Paul Winstanley leaving to become co-sporting director at Stamford Bridge.

Then, during the January transfer window, Leandro Trossard was sold to Arsenal in a deal worth £27million. The versatile forward had scored five goals in De Zerbi’s first six games, including a hat-trick in an opening 3-3 draw at Liverpool, before returning in a downbeat mood from a disappointing World Cup with Belgium in Qatar that had a negative impact on their relationship.

But despite the mass exodus, all the upheavals, Brighton are in rude health.

De Zerbi has built on Potter’s philosophy of passing out from the back, shaped by his experiences.

He has taken the team to another level, combining a sophisticated and high-risk style of passing out from the goalkeeper with tactical acumen, vigorous pressing, adventure and attacking fluency.

Brighton absorbed all of the setbacks to finish sixth in the Premier League last season, qualifying for Europe for the first time in their 122-year history.

Underpinning their growth is the secretive global player recruitment data of owner-chairman Bloom, a lifelong fan who has used his higher education in mathematics and expertise in the sports betting industry to help mould a squad that is the envy of many.

Bloom has his own software that filters the world market. The algorithm is even kept from those inside the club. Brighton are a client of Bloom’s company, Starlizard, buying in the data that supports the recruitment programme.

Bloom’s recruitment of De Zerbi has been inspired (Gareth Fuller/PA Images via Getty Images)

Scouts are sent a list of names to watch and compile reports on players who have passed the data-led ‘tick list’, based on factors such as age and match minutes.

A traffic light system is used for reports. Green means a great fit, amber is for players close to fitting the criteria, and red is for monitoring.

It has led to a succession of low-cost purchases from across the world — Europe, Asia and, increasingly, South America for young talents including Moises Caicedo, Julio Enciso, Alexis Mac Allister and Facundo Buonanotte — who have flourished in the Premier League, sending their values through the roof.

Japan left-winger Kaoru Mitoma is a perfect example.

Signed from Kawasaki Frontale in the J1 League in his home country for £3million in August 2021, Brighton introduced him to European football via a season on loan at Union Saint-Gilloise in Belgium’s top flight.

Bloom has been co-owner of Union with Alex Muzio, a long-time friend, since 2016. Although the clubs run independently of each other, Brussells-based Union has been useful for Brighton to transition players.

Ivory Coast international Simon Adingra, now competing in De Zerbi’s squad with Mitoma, followed the same route via a loan last season at Union after he was signed from Danish club Nordsjaelland.

Since returning from Union, Mitoma has scored eight goals and provided eight assists in his 38 Premier League appearances and is one of the most feared wingers in Europe. Brighton will want at least £80million when clubs come calling for him.

Mitoma is another example of Brighton’s smart recruitment (Clive Mason/Getty Images)

Bloom has reduced his stake in Union to 25 per cent, with club president Muzio increasing his to 75 per cent, to comply with UEFA ownership regulations as both clubs are competing in this season’s Europa League.

UEFA has also imposed a ban on transfers or loans between the clubs until September 2024, temporarily cutting off the trading route between Brighton and Brussels.

It is a minimal inconvenience to the way Brighton build their squad, which includes a three-layered player development strategy.

The overriding aim is to create a pipeline of players from the academy into the first team. If they do not make it, they can still be sold for a profit.

As well as nurturing their talent progressing through the age groups, the second part of the plan was to bring in players from elsewhere who were identified as having a lot of potential, such as 18-year-old Evan Ferguson, now starring in the first team after arriving in 2021 from Bohemians in the Republic of Ireland.

Their development can be accelerated via high-quality coaching or a programme of loaning players out. Yasin Ayari, a 19-year-old Sweden international signed in January, is spending the season on loan with Coventry City in the second-tier Championship.

The third element of the package was buying young players not yet ready for the first team, but who can quickly be loaned out at a good level.

Unrivalled succession planning across all departments of the club is a key element of the Brighton model, whether it is players, coaches or non-playing staff.

The transition from Ashworth to Weir as technical director has been seamless, with the former Everton, Rangers and Scotland central defender stepping up from his former role as loans manager.

It has been a similar story with Winstanley’s player recruitment successor Sam Jewell, another internal promotion after the 33-year-old impressed as under-21s recruitment manager and emerging talent scouting manager.

Brighton’s outward trading in this summer’s transfer window produced a profit of more than £100million, with the squad still enhanced by seven signings.

Caicedo and Mac Allister, midfield accomplices last season, were sold to Chelsea and Liverpool for combined totals that could reach £170million. Together, they cost around £12million.

Goalkeeper Robert Sanchez, who joined the academy from Levante in his native Spain as a 15-year-old a decade ago, became the latest in the long line of movers to Chelsea for £25million.

Although Bloom has the final say on the fee Brighton will accept for a player leaving and the price they are willing to pay for a potential signing, he delegates responsibilities.

For outgoing transfers, Barber’s focus is on the bidding club or clubs, while technical director David Weir is the point of contact for the player and their representatives. It is split that way to remove emotions as a factor. Weir is not involved in negotiations, so he does not have knowledge of the kind of detail the agent might be keen to know about.

Barber can focus on the deal Brighton want without the agent or player bending his ear for information.

Incoming transfers are driven by Jewell, supported by Weir. The way of working, consistent in every transfer window, continues to serve Brighton well.

On Thursday evening at the Amex, they launch their Europa League campaign against AEK Athens, from the historic city named after Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom. Wisdom is in bountiful supply at English football’s emerging force — and there’s no telling when or how the journey will end.

(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Sam Richardson for The Athletic)