De Zerbi's best bits from Palace press conference

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The highlights from Roberto De Zerbi's press conference yesterday.

Bruce Talbot

2023-03-15T06:00:00Z

Roberto De Zerbi's team are seventh in the Premier League ahead of Wednesday night's game.

On Adam Lallana becoming a manager one day…

Yes, but after me, he has to wait!

I think Adam can play a lot of years because he is young in the heart, he still loves to play football. In the future, in my opinion, he can become a great manager because he understands play, he understands players. He’s an honest guy, a good guy. He has the important qualities to be a coach.

On Caicedo and Lallana dreaming of Champions League football…

We need to dream for our careers, for our job, for our work. Every day I work with the players and I know very well they are not arrogant. They always have the right attitude.

But it isn't a problem if we don't arrive at our target. I repeat, the most important thing is to fight to arrive at our target because if you don't arrive at your target it's also important for your way of playing. We will improve like this, following this way and not fixing the target low.

On trying to give minutes to some of his younger players…

Brighton head coach Roberto De Zerbi speaks about the upcoming derby against Crystal Palace, his 50th Premiere League game in charge and Evan Ferguson's development in 2023.

We have to play eight games in April, and I want Sarmiento, Enciso and Buonanotte to be ready. I want to arrive with many players who are ready to play and I must give them the possibility to play in a part of the game; whether that is five, ten, 15, or 20 minutes, if it’s possible. It is difficult for these younger players to impact in a big game, like at Elland Road, but I want to give them that possibility.

On controlling the controllables…

We can’t control the result, but we can control the quality of play, the style, the bravery, the courage, passion and the attitude on the pitch. I don’t know as a coach if you can control a result, but you can work hard to achieve a good one.

We want to play in our style with high quality, to improve. If they play like [we did against] Fulham then I will be happy because we played a fantastic game. We lost the game, but playing like we did against Fulham we will win a lot of games.