Promise David 'has goals in his body and goals in his mind'

The Canadian has joined Albion on loan and Fabian Hurzeler has high hopes for a striker with a different profile to Albion's other forwards.

Nick Szczepanik

2026-08-22T06:00+01:00

Promise David could make his Amex debut on Sunday against Aston Villa. 📸 by James Boardman.

Fabian Hurzeler says that Promise David has “goals in his body and goals in his mind,” and believes that the 6ft 5in Canada striker offers something different from last season’s top scorer Danny Welbeck.

David, 25, is on loan from Union St Gilloise of Belgium, where he hit 33 goals in 71 appearances.

The Seagulls have an obligation to buy if certain targets are reached and Hurzeler said, “He’s a great and very positive character, that's the first impression.

“Second of all, he is a goalscorer. He has goals in his body, he has goals in his mind.

“He proved in the past that he is capable of scoring a lot of goals. That's something we definitely wanted to have.”

That, he emphasised, is not to say that other members of the squad are missing that urge to hit the net.

“I wouldn't say that we don't have it in our squad. I think Babis [Charalampos Kostoulas] has a similar mindset. We need to try to get Georginio Rutter there as well.

Prior to facing Aston Villa this weekend, Fabian Hurzeler has spoken to the media.

“On top of that, we proved last season that we can manage it by having several scorers.

“I think we were the team with the most players who scored goals [19], so that shows that we have this flexibility in our squad and the quality that everyone can score goals.

“Everyone has this desire to score a goal and I think this will be the case this season again.”

Danny Welbeck’s departure for Chelsea has left a gap that the head coach hopes David can fill, with his goals at least.

Welbeck scored 13 league goals last season and, at 35, was also a voice of experience in the dressing room.

So Hurzeler hopes that fans will not make too many comparisons with the younger David.

He added, “With Promise David we’ve got a completely different profile, so you can't say that we replaced one-to-one.

“We have added a different character, a new character – a character with a new energy, with a new positivity with a different kind of approach.

“But that's exactly what we wanted to have so now it's about giving him the time to adapt and hopefully he can play a part [against Aston Villa] on Sunday.”