During this international break, The Athletic is publishing a series of profiles on highly rated managers from across Europe.
Porto’s Francesco Farioli started us off before we moved to Spain with Rayo Vallecano’s Inigo Perez. We examined promotion-chasing Kim Hellberg at Middlesbrough, then jumped over to Serie A to look at how Cesc Fabregas was performing with Como and to dig into 30-year-old Carlos Cuesta at Parma.
In the Bundesliga, we’ve focused on Hoffenheim’s Christian Ilzer and Bayern Munich assistant Rene Maric. Now it’s time to talk about a young German who is already familiar to Premier League fans…
Without risk, Brighton would not be the established Premier League club they are today.
Driven by the data-led decision-making of chairman Tony Bloom, an ability to spot trends and identify talent before anyone else has helped the south coast club scale the English football pyramid in record time, routinely pushing boundaries and chasing new heights.
But even by their standards, appointing Fabian Hurzeler, then 31, as head coach two seasons ago was fraught with danger.
Prior to his big Premier League chance, Hurzeler had only had one professional management role on his resume: leading German side St. Pauli to promotion in his second year in charge. Before that, he spent four years at fifth-tier club FC Pipinsried, a role he took on after abandoning his playing career early to focus on coaching.
With that in mind, Hurzeler deserves credit for how he has faced up to the challenge, despite plenty of bumps along the way.
The excitement surrounding this young tactician has faded slightly since his unconventional arrival piqued the interest of Premier League fans. But even after a poor run of form invited scrutiny on his position, Brighton sit just three points off Brentford in seventh, a spot that could be enough to seal Europa League football next season.
There are years — even decades — ahead of Hurzeler as a top-level manager. This is what we have learned from his Premier League stint so far.
Fabian Hurzeler is in his second season as Brighton head coach (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
Much like his St. Pauli side, Hurzeler’s Brighton place a clear emphasis on low build-up, using short passes between their goalkeeper and centre-backs to entice the opposition forward, with the aim of playing into the space they leave behind.
In that respect, he made sense as Roberto De Zerbi’s successor at Brighton. But much of his early work as a Premier League coach has actually been centred on scaling back the extent to which his players look to bait the press.
The graphic below details Premier League teams’ average number of passes per possession sequence, alongside the speed at which teams move the ball towards goal.
While De Zerbi’s Brighton rivalled even Manchester City for their patient possession play, Hurzeler is more prepared to tailor his approach to the opposition, reinstating a more pragmatic in-possession style, similar to that of Graham Potter in years gone by.
That said, Hurzeler has been happy to test the technical ability across his Brighton defence, with Bart Verbruggen and Jan Paul van Hecke key to their progression plans. No Premier League goalkeeper has completed more short passes than the former this season, while Van Hecke leads the way for line-breaking passes out of defence.
Brighton’s usual approach from goal kicks and deep build-up is a 3-2 shape, with Verbruggen between his split centre-backs, full-backs high and wide and two midfielders on hand for quick combinations, or ‘bounce’ passes, through the pressure.
The idea is usually to get the ball out to a wide centre-back — preferably Van Hecke — in space who can quickly move possession forward, as below against Tottenham.
In frame one below, we see the common setup, and how it has pulled four Tottenham players up the pitch. Verbruggen waits for Richarlison to close him down, who pressures the goalkeeper with a curved run to simultaneously block out the pass to Van Hecke.
As Richarlison approaches in frame two, Yasin Ayari suddenly jumps from his position in midfield, catching his markers off-guard. He receives the short pass from his goalkeeper and sweeps it out to Van Hecke, who now has time and space to pick out a long pass down the line or into midfield, taking multiple Tottenham players out of the game.
When that ‘bounce’ pass via midfield isn’t on, one of Brighton’s centre-backs will take it upon themselves to move inside.
Below, against Everton, they struggle to move the ball through an aggressive high press. Their initial setup is the same in frame one and, although they manage to work the ball through to Ayari, the Swede is forced to go back to Verbruggen under heavy pressure from Tim Iroegbunam.
Brighton reset and Verbruggen’s studs on the ball in the frame three trigger another curved run from the opposition striker, blocking off the pass to Lewis Dunk.
But now it is Van Hecke who makes the darting movement rather than staying out wide, allowing him to play a simple first-time pass into space and encouraging Dunk to move forward with the ball.
Though a small detail, it’s the kind of fluidity that Hurzeler encourages in his team’s build-up, and an innovative way to ensure that the ball ends up with one of his talented ball progressors with time to pick out an incisive pass.
After the chess match of the build-up, Hurzeler generally encourages his players to go more direct.
In this example against Brentford, we can see the playmaking ability of Verbruggen come to the fore as he receives a backwards pass from Van Hecke.
Under pressure from Igor Thiago, he lets the ball run across his body and looks certain to roll the ball into Dunk and into Brentford’s trap. But Verbruggen is composed and shifts his body weight at the last moment to punch the ball through the lines, and into Diego Gomez, who quickly spins and launches a pass out to Maxim De Cuyper out wide.
While there are clear similarities with the De Zerbi era, particularly when his goalkeeper puts his studs on the ball and beckons his team-mates closer, Hurzeler’s side seem to play with a bit more forward thrust once that first line of pressure is broken through.
Most encouraging, however, is the variety of solutions his Brighton team tends to find against various degrees of opposition pressure. Hurzeler is clearly extremely detail-oriented in his preparation and is maybe due a goal from his team via a clinical, sweeping attack after playing through the press to reward his commitment to risky football in the defensive third.
Without the ball, it is a similar story. Brighton are adventurous and organised in their press, but have been unable to consistently transform those defensive turnovers into goals.
In a recent win over Liverpool, they were aggressive in applying pressure up the pitch as they locked on man-for-man after a short goal kick in frame one.
As the ball makes its way back to Giorgi Mamardashvili, we can see how proactive Brighton are in passing their markers over: Danny Welbeck presses from the front while Gomez, Pascal Gross and Jack Hinshelwood all move over to help trap the opposition towards the byline.
Finally, Yankuba Minteh joins the press and anticipates the pass out to the full-back, sprinting over quickly to force the long pass down the line, from which Brighton recover the ball.
It is common to see Brighton commit up to six players to the press, with alert central midfielders who are happy to step up and snap into tackles, and full-backs who jump forward to support their winger after they push on.
In recent weeks, Hurzeler has even moved Gomez to a wide midfield role; a powerful runner and tenacious tackler beefs up that high press.
Such commitment to defending up the pitch means only Arsenal have made more recoveries in the attacking third per 90 minutes this season.
Despite those numbers, Brighton have scored just three goals after high regains this season; only Sunderland, Fulham and Wolves have scored fewer. They have come from an expected goals (xG) figure of 5.2, suggesting that they have been wasteful when the chances have presented themselves after a successful high press.
Here against Burnley, for example, their aggression is once again on show as they go man-for-man, as first Georginio Rutter, then Brajan Gruda, and lastly Joel Veltman, hurry their opponents into passes after stepping up.
In frame three, full-back Lucas Pires passes the ball inside, encouraging both Gomez and Charalampos Kostoulas to close down the ball and nick possession in a promising area. But the attempted finish from Kostoulas is lacking, easily saved by goalkeeper Martin Dubravka.
It may have been the kind of goal that helps to change perceptions — a swashbuckling, high-pressing team charging forward and scoring within seconds of swarming the ball. But with middling statistics and inconsistent results, Hurzeler has not been able to escape criticism that his side have not progressed under his tutelage.
Look beyond poor finishing and individual decision-making, and the processes are clearly there. Build-up play is slick and varied, while the press is organised and intense. It bodes well for a manager with an entire career ahead of him to hone those ideas much further.