Brighton Bulletin
The announcement of Brighton’s record profit of just over £122m for 2022/23 rather overshadowed a dull goalless draw at Brentford last night.
To achieve such a profit whilst maintaining a Top Ten position and tracing a FA Cup semi final and this season competing in the Europa League is no mean achievement.
The source of the profit is in a word Chelsea, who paid out £22 million in compensation for Graham Potter and his coaching team as well as £62 million for Cucurella, bought from Getafe for £15million.
This does not include the £105 million paid for Mouaes Caicedo and £25 million for Roberto Sanchez by Chelsea ‘s co-owner Todd Boehly in his coastal spending spree.
However behind the figures there are areas of concern.
The squad is ageing but not aged. Five of the first team regulars are over 30 (Danny Welbeck, Lewis Dunk, Jodl Veltman and Pascal Groß) – as are Adam Lallana and James Milner.
Solly March, who has been out injured all season, is 29, as is Adam Webster.
There are some fine youngsters (Simon Adingra, Jack Hinshelwood, Buenonotte, Gilmour, Pedro Enciso and Estupian) and star Kouru Mitoma is only 25.
One hesitates to include teen Evan Ferguson as he had not scored for over 20 games.
Secondly, Roberto de Zerbi has not committed to the club and surely has one eye on the forthcoming managerial merry-go-round at Liverpool, Barcelona & Juventus – and possibly Manchester United, Chelsea, Napoli and AC Milan.
Equally, one can be sure that owner chairman Tony Bloom and Paul Barber have a replacement in their sights.
Thirdly, the recruitment policy of polishing up gems from unlikely areas might be undermined by clubs seeking higher prices as Watford did for Joao Pedro and Lille for Baleba.
Money will be spent on a fan zone -and few will begrudge Tony Bloom reducing his debt to
the club from £463m to £376n
So next season will be challenging.
There is at last some good news at the county ground after a summer of departures. Jofra Archer was bowling at his most fiersome in the tour of India and has pronounced himself fit for the T20 World Cup in June.
