De Zerbi wants Albion to seize the initiative

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Head Coach on European challenge as we prepare to face Fulham.

Bruce Talbot

2023-02-18T06:00:00Z

Roberto De Zerbi says Albion are ready to fight to play in Europe next season.

Roberto De Zerbi believes his players can seize the initiative and push for a place in Europe.

Albion are unbeaten in 2023 heading into today’s sixth versus seventh clash with Fulham at a sold-out Amex and the head coach says he can give the squad the belief to keep ‘playing with courage.’

“In the dressing room I decide our target and I hope the players believe in me when I speak,” he said. “I don't know if we are ready or not to play in Europe, but we are ready to fight to arrive in Europe.

“If you have a group of players like Brighton it’s not too difficult. When I speak about fighting to arrive in Europe I’m not showing arrogance but because I believe in my players.

“Every day I see their attitude and quality and I know very well their level. I’m able to analyse the games well and in the last period we have been playing fantastic football, creating a lot of chances and defending very well.

“I can help my players to believe in themself and to continue to play with courage. We have to be focused only on the performance and not on the result. It is dangerous of us to only think of the result. We must think about the right way to arrive at the result and to show our quality.

“We have very good players who are young but with a lot of quality. I like to work with pressure but I don't want the players to play with too much pressure. We have to play in our style and make our fans happy, but not only from the result, but how we can fight and how we play football.”

Fulham have never lost to Albion in five Premier League games and De Serbi expects a testing afternoon.

“It is a difficult game because they are a good team, with very good players and coach. We have to be ready to play a great game. We are very close to Fulham in the table and we would like to put a distance between [us and] them.”