Graham Potter left Brighton after six rounds and in the middle of a long-term contract that ran until 2025. With him, he took assistant Billy Reid, coach Bjorn Hamberg, recruiting analyst Kyle Macaulay, as well as former Brighton players Bruno Saltor (ex-team captain and then coach) and Ben Roberts (goalkeeping coach) to Chelsea with him. < /p>
Such a sudden outcome could have hit any club, but there is no panic in Brighton. Everything they have achieved over the past decade is the result of a patient and systematic strategy throughout the club. And the management has a plan to survive the departure of the most successful coaching staff in their history.
To begin with, they hired former Shakhtar and Sassuolo coach Roberto De Zerbi, who is very close in playing style to Potter. Brighton seems to have found the perfect fit under the circumstances.
De Zerby and Potter are similar. Both for attacking football and ready to fight for possession with any opponent
The colleagues at The Athletic pointed out the similarities between Roberto De Zerbi and Graham Potter very accurately, they achieved maximum effect in quickly transforming the quality of possession of the ball. This is how the table of the most added teams in possession for the seasons for which there is advanced data (from 2017/18) looks like:
Sassuolo De Zerbi 1win-ozbekiston.com in first place and Brighton in Potter's debut season in second. The table is clearly dominated by underdogs, not surprisingly, since it is easier to improve from a low base, but the progress that De Zerby and Potter have achieved is unparalleled.
The second important detail here is not about the percentage, but about the quality of possessions (possession score), which is determined through the model (it also takes into account where these possessions end and how many passes they contain). This is a more accurate metric than bare percentage of ownership. But through classic, Sassuolo's transformation was also visible, from 43.2% to De Zerbi (18th in Serie A) to 54.0% in his first season (7th). By the final season at the club, Roberto had brought Sassuolo to 60.8% (1st place).
The uniqueness of De Zerbi's work at Sassuolo was seen not only through the models. In the fall of 2018, Roberto noted Pep Guardiola: Who do I follow in Italy? I like Sassuolo. Very interesting attacking football. Arrigo Sacchi, who was sitting next to him, agreed: Yes, De Zerbi is one of the optimistic coaches.
Guardiola was seriously impressed, but it was no coincidence that Sassuolo got into matches. They have known Roberto for a long time, the Italian went to Bavaria Pepa for an internship. Guardiola is a man with an immeasurable passion for his work. He said that he once tried to calculate how much time a day he does not think about football. 40 minutes! After training, we took apart everything in his office, and it dragged on for hours, until night. But Pep was so carried away that we did not dare to tell him it was time to go to bed, recalled De Zerby.