Before Wolves take on Brighton at Molineux on Sunday, Jack Johnson speaks to Matthew Avery to get the lowdown on Brighton’s league form, life under Fabian Hürzeler and what to expect this weekend.
Brighton sit 10th in the Premier League, with equal wins, losses, draws and an even goal difference. What have you made of your opening results so far?
Mixed bag – some good performances but also some really bad ones, and even in the good results we’ve had (Chelsea, Spurs), we haven’t been great.
Wolves finally got their season underway, earning a point at Spurs. What player in the Wolves squad do you feel threatens a Brighton win the most?
Will always be worried about Strand Larsen, along with Arokodare who looks good too. Always rated Andre as well, alongside Joao Gomes.
A club’s transfer policy can make or break their Premier League status, and Brighton are clearly doing the right things to keep the club sustainable. From a fan’s perspective, is it difficult seeing exciting and talented young players come in that will eventually be moved on for big fees?
It’s exciting, along with difficult as you say, but this is just our model and how we are regularly a top ten PL club. But if we want to seriously push on, we need to be keeping players like Minteh, Mitoma, Baleba.
There have been some tepid reports linking Hürzeler to Manchester United, should they remove Ruben Amorim from his post. How has Hürzeler’s time as head coach been from your perspective, and do you see him as an integral cog in the Brighton machine?
A rollercoaster to be honest. Highs have been high but the lows have been very low, losing to Palace twice last season along with of course, the 7-0 loss against Nottingham Forest. Very up and down, and I think a lot of people haven’t accepted him due to his naivety, and the fact that he isn’t a ‘big name manager’ as such, like Roberto De Zerbi was.
Brighton spent a lot less in the recent window as opposed to last summer, but some fresh faces still arrived. Of the new boys, who have you got your eye on the most?
Stefanos Tzimas. He scored twice on debut versus Oxford and has looked good in Premier League games too. He’s a Greek striker we signed from PAOK back in January for 20 million, he’s one to really keep an eye on this season.
What is your predicted lineup for Brighton?
Verbruggen; Dunk, Van Hecke, De Cuyper, Wieffer; Baleba, Ayari; Rutter, Minteh, Watson (no Mitoma by the sounds of things), Welbeck.
And finally, what is your predicted scoreline for Sunday’s fixture?
1-1, we always take from the good teams and give to the struggling ones!
