Albion Analytics: How impressive have Hurzeler's first 50 games been?

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Head coach has had an impressive first half-century in charge.

Liam Tharme

Albion Analytics

2025-09-17T06:00+01:00

Fabian Hurzeler joined Albion after guiding St. Pauli to the 2. Bundesliga title. 📷 by Paul Hazlewood.

Fabian Hurzeler reached a landmark half century of games as Albion head coach when Brighton travelled to Bournemouth.

A little over a year ago there were headlines aplenty at the Texas-born German’s youth, becoming the youngest permanent head coach in Premier League history — and the first to be born after the competition’s inception in 1992.

However Hurzeler quickly silenced any doubters, with an unbeaten seven-game run across all competitions to start his tenure. Brighton won six times and lost just once in his first ten matches.

He made adaptability a habit, starting the 2024/25 season with a high defensive line, and while Albion ended the campaign having caught opponents offside the third-most times (88), they found continued success with a more balanced approach in later gameweeks.

Arguably his greatest success has been Brighton’s big-game performances. Since the start of last season, they have won nine of 15 meetings with ‘Big Six’ sides, only losing three times. Newcastle United (10) are the only club with more victories against such opposition, while an incredible — and league-high — six of Brighton’s nine such wins have been from losing positions.

Hurzeler’s first 50 matches were particularly impressive compared to his predecessors. With 23 wins, 15 draws and only 12 defeats, he has lost fewer than what Chris Hughton (14), Graham Potter (21) and Roberto De Zerbi (15) did as Brighton's head coach, while De Zerbi (24) is the only coach to win more than Hurzeler.

This was reflected last season in the 32-year-old guiding Brighton to their second-best ever Premier League season, after the 2022/23 campaign under De Zerbi. In 2024/25, a campaign featuring a club-record number of points in the second-half of the season, Hurzeler’s side finished eighth on 61 points, and only lost nine times — only the top two were beaten less (Liverpool and Arsenal, both four defeats).

“We know how we want to work here, we know the Brighton way, and we always try to get the best out of the players and try to be successful,” Hurzeler told The Athletic over the summer. “I think we’ve shown it last season. Of course, we want to make improvements now.”

Fabian Hurzeler has won 23 of his 50 games in charge. 📷 by James Boardman.

An underpinning of the success last season was how Hurzeler used his bench. He made the most substitutes in the division (184), the most by any team in a Premier League season, and reaped the rewards.

There were 27 goal involvements (15 goals, 12 assists) by Brighton substitutes last term, the highest in the league. On seven occasions one substitute assisted another, which was a Premier League record.

“It’s important to have a big squad and subs who will have an impact,” he said last November, when Brighton’s matchwinner in a comeback home victory over Manchester City was Matt O’Riley. He had come off the bench, as had Joao Pedro, who set up the goal.

Pedro, sold to Chelsea this summer, is one of three players — along with Kaoru Mitoma and Danny Welbeck — to score ten-plus goals under Hurzeler thus far, evidence of how his preferred 4-2-3-1 system is set up to provide chances and opportunity for attackers with different profiles.

“Sometimes in football it’s not about tactics, it’s about understanding the profiles from the players,” Hurzeler said this season after another Brighton 2-1 comeback win at home to City. This time, James Milner and Brajan Gruda were super subs on the scoresheet. “It’s about understanding what you need, and in this moment we needed energy, intensity, and the belief to change the game.”

Only three times since the start of last season have Brighton lost consecutive games (in all competitions), while they have had six instances of winning back-to-back matches, and three of those were three-in-a-row, plus a six-game winning run last February and March. It is a more than positive start for Hurzeler.