Brighton’s shrewd recruitment has set up Chelsea’s success — but they risk making the same mistake | OneFootball

One of the more famous headlines after Patrick Vieira and Emmanuel Petit combined for the third goal in Brazil’s defeat at the Stade de France in 1998 was “Arsenal win the World Cup”. Perhaps some in Sussex will be tempted to script a sequel on Sunday. “Brighton win the Club World Cup”? It would have sounded especially unlikely in the 1990s, when they were battling relegation from the Football League or exiled to play their home games in Gillingham.

It wouldn’t be strictly true now but Chelsea’s two goals in the semi-final came from Joao Pedro, who started July as a Brighton and Hove Albion player. He has made an increasingly familiar journey. The joke, if not a particularly new one, is that it would have been cheaper for Chelsea simply to buy Brighton than to carry on paying them for personnel. At £115m, Moises Caicedo cost a British record fee. At £62.5m, Marc Cucurella is another of Albion’s three biggest ever sales: all were to Chelsea.

Neither Caicedo nor Cucurella started anything like as well as Joao Pedro has at Chelsea. Each appeared overpriced. Now the Spaniard is a talisman, the Ecuadorian arguably their most important player, along with Cole Palmer. Assuming Caicedo overcomes an ankle injury, there should be a fourth Albion alumnus starting Sunday’s final: the £25m goalkeeper Robert Sanchez looks proof of Brighton’s ability to negotiate high fees when selling, given a suspicion he would not get in many a Premier League team now, including his old employers.

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Joao Pedro has fired Chelsea into the Club World Cup final (Getty Images)

So the broader picture shows the different kinds of acumen Brighton have demonstrated. Owner Tony Bloom has specialised in reading markets and has turned smaller investments into bigger returns; particularly in the case of Caicedo, a £4m buy. Brighton look football’s premier finishing school. The clubs who won the Premier and Europa Leagues, Serie A and the Carabao Cup last season all did so with a buy from Brighton in their ranks.

It can prompt the question of who will be next: Carlos Baleba, quite possibly, the Caicedo replacement who could follow a similar path; the much-admired Kaoru Mitoma seems in no rush to leave the American Express Stadium; perhaps the ultra-versatile Jack Hinshelwood will gravitate to the top as a latter-day James Milner.

And yet there are other aspects to the Albion story. They can seem accepting of their place in football’s food chain, even if Fabian Hurzeler’s willingness to sell Joao Pedro may have stemmed in part from a training-ground clash with Jan Paul van Hecke that led his manager to omit him.

But is there a ceiling to their ambitions? They are entitled to say that eighth place represented the second highest finish in their history; in that context, it is dramatic overachievement. In another, perhaps slight underachievement. Brighton had the biggest net spend in Europe last summer, even if much of an outlay amounting to almost £200m was funded by Chelsea’s largesse.

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Marc Cucurella (right) and Moises Caicedo (left) both signed for Chelsea from Brighton (Action Images via Reuters)

They have carried on buying this year, aided by their Joao Pedro windfall, with Charalampos Kostoulos, Maxim de Cuyper, Diego Coppola, Tommy Watson, Yoon Do-young and the free transfer Olivier Boscagli arriving.

Include last summer’s influx and 23 players have joined in 13 months; some cheaper, some destined for the youth ranks, the current batch of newcomers too recent to be judged. Yet a host have come for £25m or so, rising to the club record £40m paid for Georginio Rutter.

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Fabian Hurzeler has a bloated squad of young talent to manage (PA Wire)

And how many are successes? Rutter did well at times, as did Yankuba Minteh. Thus far, there are fewer reasons to suspect that Matt O’Riley, Mats Wieffer, Brajan Gruda or Ferdi Kadioglu will become their next hugely profitable departure.

But maybe that is missing the long-termism in Brighton’s thinking. Caicedo and Alexis Mac Allister were eased into life at Brighton. A second or third season could be a breakout year, proof of their succession planning. For now, Brighton’s record means that there is an assumption they know what they are doing: if Brighton have signed someone, they must be good - even if you have barely heard of them. If Brighton are not picking a player, they will, just at the right time.

Meanwhile, the relative anonymity some lower-profile imports get mean they are under less pressure from the wider world. It is worth noting, too, that no one has a perfect strike rate, that not every talented player will generate a huge sum. For now, Brighton may regret not selling Evan Ferguson when the hype and price seemed greatest. Perhaps, though, he will come good.

Yet there seem some new dynamics. One is that, by paying more, Brighton risk losing more. If some of the £25m men don’t work out, some of the transfer-market profits could be offset by losses. Another is that, when this year’s arrivals are factored in, some of last summer’s bigger buys could be on the margins.

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Brighton will hope Evan Ferguson can come good again next season (Mike Egerton/PA Wire)

And a third is that Brighton now have huge numbers of footballers. Some are very young, some will presumably be loaned out but their club website has 41 players listed on the squad page. For their business model to carry on succeeding, or the team to remain in European contention, they don’t need all to succeed. From a financial perspective, one spectacular success in trading can more than outweigh several smaller losses. They may be taking punts on potential, but recent years suggest few have been better at identifying or cultivating it. And yet the irony may be that Brighton, accused of becoming Chelsea’s feeder club, are starting to resemble them in their approach to acquiring and stockpiling young talent.