With the significant improvement shown by Brighton and Hove Albion during Graham Potter’s time in charge at the Amex Stadium, some in the Seagulls fan base were rightly concerned about what would happen when he was poached by the bright lights of Chelsea.
Well, whilst it went a little bit pair shaped for our former gaffer at Stamford Bridge, we kicked on even further following the appointment of 44 year old former Italian attacking midfielder Roberto De Zerbi, and our own real concerns right now are that he too may be soon poached and a trusted online source for the top bookies would certainly be factoring that into our odds for the year ahead.
In his first year at the club in the 2022/23 season, he led us to seventh place in the Premier League table, and that of course meant a maiden European entry for the first time in our history, and we now had to deal with the challenges of the Europa League.
The 2023/24 campaign is also going equally well for us to boot. As the domestic game hit pause on the fixture calendar for the March international break to take place, we were sat in eighth place in the top flight table and a potential European entry is still on the cards if we both improve our own recent form, and other results go more in our favour as the campaign comes to a close.
In terms of our European adventure, there is very little to fault the team for. Quite easily the vast majority of fans would have been very pleased on that front with De Zerbi’s approach to a completely new experience, and the performances that the players put in.
We basically sailed through our Group B stage battles, topping the table with 13 points and leaving the likes of Marseille, Ajax and AEK Athens behind us with four wins and a draw from our six matches.
Having reached the Round of 16 knockout stage, we were drawn against Italian Serie A side AS Roma, and although the aggregate score goes down in history as 4-1, there was more to the two game double header, but we had just given ourselves too much to do. It was an impressive first entry though, and fans will be hoping for more involvement in the future.
As we edge towards the end of the campaign now, fans are paying closer attention to transfer rumour mill stories as we look towards the make up of the squad net season, and one of the latest claims is that we are keeping a close eye on Samuel Iling-Junior.
The 20 year old, former Chelsea Academy graduate who can play in a number of positions, now plys his trade for Juventus and although he is yet to really make a starting breakthrough at the club, he is closing in on the 50 appearance milestone as he is regularly used as a substitute.
It is said that Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United and Everton are all keeping tabs on him, but given what we have achieved with youngsters in more recent seasons, you would imagine we would fancy our chances here given we can offer a clear pathway to far improved game time.
Iling-Junior is out of contract come the summer of 2025, and it seems a new deal will not be signed over game time issues, so Juve will likely be open to doing a deal to avoid seeing him leave on a free. Fans will have to wait to see if we have any real interest in the England Under 21 international, but he does sound like our kind of signing.
