Gus Poyet has hailed Brighton’s scouting network as the best in the business – and the reason why they are genuine top-six contenders in the Premier League.
The former-Uruguay international helped lay the early foundations for the Seagulls’ eventual return to the elite during four successful years at the helm from 2009 to 2013, winning promotion into the Championship.
And although his time on the South Coast came to an infamous conclusion, when he discovered he had been sacked while working live in air as a BBC pundit, the hatchet between the parties appears long buried.
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Nowadays, Poyet, 56, has nothing but glowing admiration and praise for Brighton owner Tony Bloom and the way he operates. Particularly, when it comes to the club’s renowned recruitment process, which in the recent years has delivered a conveyor belt of young world-class talent, plucked from around the globe.
It is this unrivalled set-up, more than anything else, according to Poyet, that enables the comparative minnows, who host Newcastle this afternoon, not just to survive within the loaded Premier League but positively thrive.
The former-Seagulls boss, 57, who later managed Sunderland, AEK Athens and the Greece national team, declared: “This is because the best recruitment system in England is probably Brighton’s right now…with Tony Bloom there.
“I was a part of it for four years. You really need to be there on the inside to understand how it works so well. But, you know, they are ready for anything. They are always ready for a player leaving and the boss’s principal is that they get paid the biggest margins.”
That was certainly the case when Chelsea came calling for the Ecuador midfielder Moises Caicedo 14 months ago and were forced to cough up a thumping £100million, plus a possible £15m in add-ons.
And it was the same tough bargaining stance, albeit to a slightly-lesser extent, Liverpool faced in their £55m capture of Argentina World Cup winner Alexis Mac Allister. Many clubs in Brighton’s position might have crashed and burned, especially as they had also lost manager Graham Potter to Stamford Bridge the previous season.
However, Bloom, the billionaire online Poker king, did not blink. In came Roberto De Zerbi for a year-and-a-half, guiding the club into Europe for the first time.
Then, having severed ties with the Italian hothead in the summer, they immediately appointed virtual unknown German Fabian Hurzeler. The 31-year-old ex-St Pauli coach is the youngest ever permanent Premier League boss and has enjoyed an excellent five-game unbeaten start at the Amex.
Poyet is more than familiar with Hurzeler’s credentials – and is convinced Brighton have conjured another masterstroke with the surprise swoop. The ex-Chelsea and Tottenham playmaker explained: “I was lucky enough to meet him personally – and I absolutely love this coach at Brighton.
“When he was with St Pauli in Germany, I had a player in Greece over there, so we travelled to watch a game and had a nice conversation.
“After it finished and he’d left, I said to the people around me: ‘It’s lucky I’m 55 because, if I’m 25, I’m asking you to get me to St. Pauli. I’d love to play for him’. He’s a big plus for Brighton. And he showed against Arsenal, after they had a player sent off, he does everything to win the game.
“He didn’t think a draw is okay at Arsenal. No. He thought, ‘they’re down to ten men and we must win today’. Okay, so they couldn’t win but they went for it properly and that shows Brighton have taken another step up and are better. It’s no surprise.”
Despite his own brutal experience of the Bloom bullet, Poyet has no special advice for inexperienced Hurzeler.
“No, I don’t because, independent of your age, your personality is what gets through to players,” he continued. “The way you to talk to them. The way you convince them. They way you train – and the way you confirm the things you say on the pitch.
“And he has that personality. This is what I saw when we met, 100 per cent.”
Gus Poyet was talking courtesy of William Hill – www.sports.williamhill.com