Jorgen

Amidst all the excitement, I don’t necessarily think Fabian Hürzeler is ready to manage at a club with title-winning aspirations and/or big media pressure. He has some pretty clear gaps in how he sets up his team, and a lot of what he says (and does) sometimes sounds ideological. The latter is quite relevant here, so let’s focus on that for a bit, as, though the tactical stuff is largely good (especially across tempos), it means nothing without implementation. While it’s hard to say from the outside in, I think Hürzeler has ways to go in terms of establishing himself as a dominant figure in the dressing room (and being less of a yes man, per his media work). As he climbs up the footballing ladder, the figures around him will only increase in stature, and it does seem like he’d struggle to stop a massive dressing room from imploding. He seemingly handled being forced to manage Brighton’s bomb squad quite well though, so props for that. Hürzeler’s complete reversion into a shell he had created for himself, following Brighton’s drop in form last season also shows how he’s relatively untested in pressured/uncomfortable situations. Not every club in the world would’ve given him the time Brighton did to just play the old guard and let them figure things out on the pitch (in the process shunting the youngsters away, even at the cost of Brighton’s philosophy) while Hürzeler did his thinking away from it. Of course, this coexists with his willingness to experiment and learn, much like Mikel Arteta, from different sports, coaches and backgrounds, which will take him far. But learning is a lifelong process, and one that outlives the time he’ll get to implement it. What I will say, though, is that Hürzeler’s profiling of players has been great, and he’ll be one of the best in the world in this regard. He’s done very well to take some questionable purchases on Brighton’s end and mask their weaknesses such that they can become regulars at Premier League level, and that should scale *extremely* well. It’s also worth saying that, in his two years at Brighton, he’s effectively done enough to secure European qualification in both, if not for Palace winning the FA Cup and taking that out of his hands (he also won the 2. Bundesliga with St. Pauli, so he clearly does alright in the league). Beyond all the additives, his basic philosophical understanding of football — i.e., prioritising physicality and aerial ability, running hard and pressing hard — is great, and IF he’s able to always keep hold of these as priorities ahead of the nuanced stuff, he’ll always have a high floor as a manager. It’s obviously quite watered down to say that he’s young, so he won’t succeed as a manager, because that’s just untrue given he IS succeeding. But there’s no need for Hürzeler to rush to the top of the footballing ladder just yet. A few years at Brighton (though I won’t be too surprised to see it be just one), before going back to Germany and a side like Dortmund, who are stuck in a phase of nothingness, would be great. He’d get to build himself up at a relatively high-pressure side that isn’t what it once was, whilst still being given leeway to take risks, which is something he needs.