Style, set pieces and yellow cards: Assessing Fabian Hurzeler's first season in charge of Brighton

New York Times

6 days ago

During his first press conference as Brighton & Hove Albion head coach last July, Fabian Hurzeler said he wanted to 'challenge the establishment'.
The German achieved that goal in his first season in the Premier League, guiding his team to eighth — the second-best finish in the club's history — although not quite as he intended.
Advertisement
In that reference to the teams routinely at the top end of the table, Hurzeler was not to know that Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur would be so bad (four of Brighton's 16 wins came against those sides).
He challenged the establishment in another sense by finishing top (or bottom, depending on which way you look at it) of the managerial disciplinary table with four yellow cards and a red card, thereby carrying on the work of his predecessor, Roberto De Zerbi. The Italian set a Premier League record with six cards in 2022-23 — five yellows and a red.
Hurzeler's debut campaign turned out to be a surprise in many ways. It included a first point in eight top-flight attempts against Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium after beating them at home, winning at Newcastle United in the league and the FA Cup, and defeating Chelsea twice in the space of a week at the Amex Stadium in the league and the FA Cup.
And yet Brighton dropped eight of the 18 points on offer in matches against the three teams ultimately relegated by a distance (two draws with Leicester City, and one each at home to Ipswich and Southampton). Given they finished four points off a European place, and five off the Champions League, those results will sting particularly hard. The only consistent feature of Hurzeler's version of Brighton was inconsistency, demonstrated by the sequences of league results — six wins and two defeats in the first 12 games, no wins in eight, six wins in eight with a run to the quarter-finals of the FA Cup, no wins in six and then four victories out of five (the other a draw) in a strong finish.
In assessing Hurzeler's first season, The Athletic has turned back to some of the key messages in his opening press conference to see if he was able to deliver on his plans…
Hurzeler: 'He (De Zerbi) brought a different style of football, so of course I take some elements but in the end I have my own philosophy because you can't copy anyone. His teams played with a lot of courage with some very interesting elements in terms of ball possession.
'All the German coaches are role models for young coaches in Germany. The intensity Jurgen Klopp's team have is something special and I really like to have also intensity on the pitch.'
It is surprising how different Hurzeler's team looked in style compared to De Zerbi's. The blend of control with the ball and intensity without it has only been noticeable in periods of games. It has not been sustained. A clear identity has yet to be fully established under Hurzeler. It was hard to know what to expect from his team from match to match. Performances often resembled the slightly flattering 2-0 victory at Wolverhampton Wanderers in the penultimate away game of the season.
Advertisement
'In the second half, it was a completely unpredictable game,' Wolves' Portuguese head coach Vitor Pereira said afterwards. 'It was an open game and this is the kind of game I don't like. When it's physical, with transitions and transitions, we lose the ball, they counter-attack, they lose the ball, we counter-attack, they come again, we come again. It's like tennis! This is not for me.'
It ought not to be for Hurzeler either in searching for the consistency he craves. Before the game against Wolves, Hurzeler had told The Athletic: 'You have seen it in our season, positive and negative. The most important thing is to be consistent regarding performance, results, availability of the players, building connections. If you have consistency, then you can achieve something, but if you don't have it then you easily get into trouble in this league.'
It does Hurzeler great credit as a young head coach in his first season in a new country at a new level — with a challenging set of fixtures at the start, including visits to Arsenal, Chelsea and Newcastle — that Brighton were never in trouble, always maintaining a top-10 position.
They showed resilience in adversity, winning six league games after trailing and gaining 23 points from losing positions — both club highs in the Premier League. Terrible luck with injuries undermined the quest for stability and building partnerships on the pitch. Hurzeler expected more injuries, because of his demand for intensity, but he could not have anticipated them to be on such a widespread and damaging scale.
'I call myself the 'friendly authority'. Football is my passion. And I try to convince the players by using the power of my ideas.'
A lot was made of Hurzeler's age when he was appointed (31 then, 32 now), not to mention an absence of top-flight coaching experience after taking St Pauli to the second-tier title in Germany last year. But he has taken a collaborative approach with his squad.
He leans on a core group of experienced players in what is otherwise essentially a young team. Communicating with his players prompted tinkering with a high defensive line used in the early stages of the season.
Advertisement
Following the low point of a 7-0 hiding at Nottingham Forest in February, Hurzeler held individual discussions with key members of the squad, including 33-year-old Dutch defender Joel Veltman. 'Sometimes the gaffer makes his own decisions, but he wants to feel the situation in the room and that is what makes him a really good gaffer,' Veltman told The Athletic after an FA Cup victory against Chelsea in the following match, the first of six successive wins. 'He has a sense of what is going on in the dressing room'.
Hurzeler encourages the players to have an input into team meetings before matches and training sessions by writing down their ideas and bringing them into the conversation. 'That is more how I want to lead – commitment by involvement,' he said during his pre-match press conference for the 1-1 home draw against Newcastle in May.
If anything, Hurzeler's age is an advantage. He is in tune with the players' lifestyles. He enjoys boxing and playing padel. He rides an e-bike into training, he likes designer watches. He has learnt from James Milner about the Whoop, a fitness tracker worn on the wrist that helps with sleep patterns and nutrition. He could still be one of them if he had not given up a playing career to concentrate on coaching at 24.
But he has also exerted authority when the need has arisen, defining a line between being 'one of the boys' and the boss. Yankuba Minteh was dropped from the starting line-up to the bench after arriving late before a 1-0 home defeat against Everton in January. The 20-year-old Gambian winger has nevertheless thrived under Hurzeler's guidance.
Julio Enciso was shipped out on loan to Ipswich Town, essentially because Hurzeler sees the Paraguayan as an individualist more than a team player. Joao Pedro was also left out of the last two games of the season against Liverpool and Tottenham after an altercation in training with team-mate Jan Paul van Hecke.
'I need a lot of courage and, of course, humility. I need to stay humble. These two values are very important.'
Every pre-match press conference with Hurzeler is preceded by a handshake with everybody in attendance — journalists, cameramen, the club's media staff. There is no trace of aloofness or arrogance in his actions or when he speaks.
A good communicator, he passes the credit onto his players and staff when things go well, stays calm and level-headed when things go badly. Answers occasionally became briefer and blunter during a bad run of form towards the end of the season, but that was understandable straight after a disappointing result.
He has not been afraid to make bold selection decisions, for example using midfielder Mats Wieffer at right-back in the latter stages of the campaign, blooding young players and regularly introducing multiple substitutes in the second half of matches and not just in the closing minutes.
They often worked as well. Brighton had eight Premier League goals scored and seven assisted by substitutes this season, including Jack Hinshelwood's late winner at home against Liverpool. No side has ever had more goals both scored and assisted by subs in a single campaign in the competition's history.
'On top of that, there are set pieces'
Hurzeler made the reference in his first press conference when talking about his playing methods. It was not De Zerbi's style to pay much attention to set plays.
Hurzeler used goalkeeper coach Marco Knoop for defensive set plays and assistant Jonas Scheuermann for the attacking side. Even though Brighton had the fourth-best record when it came to defending set pieces, and the fifth-best when it came to scoring from them, it is still seen as an area of potential improvement by the manager. The club is recruiting a specialist set-piece coach this summer.
Advertisement
'I am the person who puts the most pressure on myself,' Hurzeler told The Athletic before a 3-2 home win against West Ham in April. 'I always demand the highest standards from myself, I always demand to give this club and the fans the most success I can give them, so I don't feel the pressure so much from outside, I feel it from the inside.
'It is something completely different when you see a team playing on TV and you see a team playing on the scouting feed and then you face them in real life. That is something where I especially have different experiences and face different challenges. I am still young and, like the team, in a learning process. I've had a lot of tough and good experiences, but one thing for me that is quite sure is that I grow as a person, that I really learn from these circumstances and I am sure they will help me for the future.'