Every word from Fabian Hurzeler ahead of Bournemouth at home

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Albion could go sixth in the Premier League with a win.

2026-01-17T09:00+00:00

Fabian Hurzeler watches training. 📸 by Paul Hazlewood.

Fabian Hurzeler spoke about the appointment of Mike Anthony, the impact of Pascal Gross and transfer talk around Evan Ferguson in his press conference ahead of Bournemouth's visit to the Amex on Monday.

Carlos Baleba is back from AFCON. Is he fit and ready to go?

Yes, he's back, in good shape and in a good mood. He's ready to play.

Any other injury news?

Nothing new. Yankuba Minteh will be back. Mats Wieffer is still out. We had some players who were sick this week, but we still have three more days for them to recover and I hope they will be an option for the game.

What will Mike Anthony bring to the team?

We are pleased to announce that Mike Anthony will join the club next month as head of player development and high performance. 🤝 pic.twitter.com/zWW9WnQwat
— Brighton & Hove Albion (@OfficialBHAFC) January 12, 2026

I made a lot of visits [to other sports teams] trying to get an understanding of how other cultures work. How, for example, the culture in rugby is, and I had a really nice impression. I saw some things where I thought we can bring them into our culture, where I thought they can really help us in improve our connection, improve how we collaborate together, improve how we work together here.

And then we had some ongoing discussions. I had discussions with Mike [Cave], Jason [Ayto] and Paul [Barber] about these topics. We all made the decision together that a person like him really can help us. He's a person that is very innovative, who brings new values, new dynamics into the group and the club. We try to learn from other kind of sports.

We try to stick to our principles and values. But I think it's always important to get an understanding of what other high performance cultures are capable of doing, how they do it, and I think that Mike Anthony can bring this culture from New Zealand – it's a high performance culture and it's definitely something that we can benefit from.

Some managers like to be the boss and they don't want other voices getting in the way. They want their message to get across. But have you always been a manager that likes to have lots of people contributing and the more opinions the better?

So it's not about having more opinions. One big thing is always that less is more, but it's not about getting new opinions in. It's about new innovations, new dynamics, getting an understanding of how other high-performance cultures are successful because sometimes you're living in a bubble here in this football world, and sometimes the answers are not always in this football bubble.

Sometimes the answers are in other sports. It's very important to get an understanding for that. In general, Brighton is always thought of as a special club, a very innovative club. It starts with the recruitment, how we see and try to play football, how we try to develop young players and you always need to be open to new things, you need to embrace other cultures.

We try to bring in more knowledge and experience, more manpower to improve the club, to make sure we can reach our expectations. Mike (Anthony) is not here to give me advice as to who should play and how we should play. He’s here more to help the whole club and environment to improve and to make sure we can reach our expectations.

I suppose high performance is the same regardless of which sport it is. Are you much of a rugby fan? Do you know much about rugby?

Before my visits, honestly, I didn't know a lot. But then before I went there I really tried to understand the rules. I tried to get an understanding for the game because I think it's so important that when you're there, that you have an understanding of how things work, what the demands and challenges are, and I really got more of an understanding.

I talked to some players, I talked to some head coaches and it was really interesting. I saw a lot of similarities. So you think that rugby is completely different to football, but it is not. In rugby there's more start-stop than you have in football but, in general, regarding the group dynamics, the environment and the meetings, that's definitely something a football club can learn from rugby and that's why we made the decision.

I'm aware you've been asked a hundred questions about Danny Welbeck. The one question I wanted to ask you about him is he showing any signs of aging? Are there any things that you can't do with him that you do with the younger members of the group? Do you have to manage him differently or is he like the proverbial fine wine, just getting better and better?

Danny Welbeck has nine goals in all competitions this campaign. 📸 by James Boardman.

He's getting better and better. But of course, we have to modify things for him. We have to manage him. We have to give big praise to our medical department, to everyone who's involved in managing him. He’s played an incredible amount of minutes that he has never played before. Of course, also credit to Danny because he behaves in a very professional way. He's preparing well for the training sessions. He does everything for good regeneration, to make sure he's ready for the next session, for the next game. He's a professional and we can do a lot of things with him so he's not doing training that a young guy would do.

It must be great to have him as an example for the younger players, just to say, ‘look guys, this is the model professional, this is how you conduct yourself.'

Definitely. That's always what I try to emphasise, that you need these kinds of role models in your team who leads by example, because then you can really hold the young players to account. There are a lot of young players who want to have careers like Danny Welbeck, Lewis Dunk and James Milner. These experienced players can share with the young players what they need to do to have those kind of careers. It's very important to have role models who really drive the culture and lift the standards with their daily behaviour. It's a very important mix you need to have in the team.

There have been stories linking Evan Ferguson with a loan move to Celtic for the second half of the season. As I understand it that's not an option, he's going to stay in Rome for the rest of the season. What do you want to see from him in the second half of the season at Roma?

We saw improvement from Evan, especially in the recent games – the minutes he has played he has been scoring goals and had an impact on the game. There were some small injuries that mean it was not always easy for him to get into a rhythm, but I think he has to keep pushing, keep improving and developing. At Roma he has a very good coach. He can improve and develop a lot. Then he has to make sure that when he comes back he's ready to immediately have an impact on the team. We all agree that he has the potential to help us as a club but for now it's about him showing it in the second part of the season.

Will he definitely be staying at Roma until the end of the season?

At the moment that's the situation and of course we all know the window is open so anything can happen, but at the moment that's the case.

How does the return of Pascal gross impact Carlos Baleba now he's back in training and available?

Carlos Baleba is in contention to face Bournemouth. 📸 by Paul Hazlewood.

Pascal Gross is a player who makes the players around him better. I hope that Carlos will benefit from that. And another thing is that there's more competition. That's also a thing that Carlos needs to understand, that we have more midfielders now, we have players back after injury. We have Pascal, Diego [Gomez] and Carlos and I think that only benefits us regarding the intensity in training sessions. What Carlos definitely has to prove is that he can be calm in possession, that he can have good positioning, stick to our principles in possession, and understand that he can really learn from these kind of players. This will definitely help Carlos in his own individual development and also for us as team generally to have more competition with Pascal here.

If Kaoru Mitoma plays on Monday, it'll be his 100th Premier League appearance. How much of an achievement is that for him as a player, but also for Japanese players who come to play in the Premier League?

I experienced how popular Kaoru Mitoma is when we had the pre-season in Tokyo, and it’s not only in Japan. He has done a lot for his country and I think a lot of Japanese people follow him because he's a great player and he's a role model for the young players there. We are very pleased that he's playing for us. It’s not been easy for him – in the first part of the season he had an injury that took him out for a long time, but now he's getting more back into his shape. He seems to be ready and hopefully he will have a better second part of the season.

Iraola said teams have to come to Brighton and play a special game if they want to beat your side. What do you think makes him say that?

Andoni Iraola's team are 15th in the Premier League ahead of the weekend's fixtures. 📸 by Paul Hazlewood.

You have to ask him why he was saying that! But what we expect is a very intense team, a group that are capable of beating every team in the league. Of course, they haven’t had have an easy run, but in all the games they could easily have won. We know that they will demand a lot from us regarding physicality. We have to be mentally and physically on our highest level to beat them.

We have to be very good in our positioning and we have to be very good in possession if we want to try to outplay them because they're good in individual duels and defending forward with the last line - that's always a challenge against them. We expect a very physical game. We expect to have to be on our highest-level regarding positioning, passing, first touches, and how we are connected on the pitch.

How influential has Joel Veltman been and how timely was his return in terms of what he's given to the side with recent results?

Albion have drawn and won in Joel Veltman's last two Premier League starts. 📸 by Paul Hazlewood.

He’s a very mature player. He's proving it every minute he's playing for us that he knows how to win Premier League games. He gives something special to the team, something very calm, something very mature, something that we don't have so much in our squad. He has a very good balance in his game and the balance that definitely helps us at the moment to win and to be competitive. We are quite pleased with how he's performing. He didn't have an easy first part of the season and didn't play so many games, but he's an absolute team player and every coach would love to have him because he's always there for his team. He always puts his ego to one side for the success of the club. That's something that doesn't happen so often in in the football world. That's something what we, and I, really appreciate.

In terms of those results, you played Arsenal and Manchester City in the Premier League. You've now got four games, maybe even five, against teams around you in the table. How crucial is this period going to be in terms of achieving your targets, especially bearing in mind the way that the Premier League table is this season?

We are now in a place where we should really go game by game because the next game is the most important one. We don't look too far ahead because in the Premier League this season everything is possible. We have to play like every game is the last game. We have to see every game as a final and we have to go into Monday like this.

It will be a big challenge, but it will be a big opportunity for us. This Premier League season is very competitive. It’s unpredictable. It's very equal and small margins make the difference. We try to focus on the small margins in every game. We can't look ahead to three, four or five weeks. We have to make sure that we are focussing on this game, that we are prepared individually and as a group to be the best we can be, because we need to be at our highest level in every game individually and as a group to win these kinds of games. This season you can't not go on a run and be successful. We experienced that in the first part of the season that if we don't do the small margins right we are not capable of winning against anyone. But we already proved that if you are doing the small margins right, we are capable of beating everyone.