The best bits from De Zerbi's Bournemouth press conference

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Head coach looks ahead to the trip to the Vitality Stadium on Tuesday night.

Bruce Talbot

2023-04-04T05:00:00Z

Roberto De Zerbi is looking forward to the run-in as Albion push for European football.

The highlights from Roberto De Zerbi’s media conference ahead of Tuesday night's trip to AFC Bournemouth.

On the departures of Graham Potter and Brendan Rodgers…

"I am sorry and its bad news for the coaches. But we give too much importance to the coaches, because the players are always the most important people and I don’t like it when the coaches are sacked because the responsibility is not only theirs – it’s the players, the club. In Italy we are used to changing coaches every season. The Premier League is different, but I think it’s changing.

"It’s difficult when you don’t know the situation in another dressing room, so I don’t like speaking about the other teams and coaches. I am sorry because these are sad situations."

On the threat posed by Bournemouth…

"We have to be alert, because it will be a difficult game. In their stadium they have beaten Liverpool and Fulham recently so to win we have to give our best and if we play at 90% of our best, we can’t win. It’s another crucial game. If we want to reach our target we have to improve in the areas we lost two points against Brentford on Saturday. The target is Europe next year. Which competition, we will see. We want to play in the middle of the week next season – three games per week, Europe."

On selection options…

"Evan Ferguson is available. Tariq Lamptey is not available, and we’ll see in the next week his progress."

On Julio Enciso’s progress…

"In this game, Julio could start – he’s ready. He played very well [against Brentford] and was important in the last part [of the match]. He has to think of the team and not for himself because he always tries to score or tries to make an individual game. But that’s normal, he has personality, he has courage and I like him. Facundo Buonanotte is the same as Julio, but Facundo joined us only in January."

On enjoying the run-in with so much to play for…

"I am excited for for the last two months of the season. But we have to think in the right way, think only of the quality of play and to give our best. We should not be focused only on the result but also on enjoying playing, reaching our target and making history for the club.

"We are not ready to think only of the results, we are not [like] other big teams. We are Brighton. We have to play with the right mentality, but we have to enjoy and play with the ball, with courage. With our style, we play to win and not to lose. The mentality is different, the attitude is different, the thoughts are different. We can't lose our DNA. If we think too much about the result we will lose our DNA, we have to reach the result through our style and DNA."