Jaouen Hadjam needed only 309 seconds of his Premier League debut to score Brighton’s second goal in their 2-0 win over Sunderland on Saturday. In doing so, he became the tenth Brighton player to score in the Premier League already this season. Hadjam is a 23-year-old Algeria international signed from Young Boys in the summer.
His impact is just the latest example of Brighton's talent identification. But the presence of yet another Seagulls player on the scoresheet says even more about this squad. No other club has had so many different scorers.
Against Coventry recently, there were five of them in just one game. Speaking to head coach Fabian Hurzeler after that emphatic victory, he explained that it was a consequence of their approach as a team. "It is not about having one good goalscorer.
It is about having this flexibility of having many goalscorers, having a lot of players who have this desire to score. If you have this desire to score, you can score from different positions and in different situations." Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player Hurzeler continued: "But it is always with the mindset of, 'How do I attack the box?' We sacrificed a lot of runs to be at one point in the right moment and in the right place, so it is all about sacrificing lots of things and to keep doing these runs into the box." That mindset has helped Brighton to become the Premier League's top scorers so far. They have had 27 big chances to score already this season.
That is six more than any other side in the Premier League and, incredibly, three times the number of Liverpool. Just as incredibly, it is Brighton who appear to have the greater depth. Like the head of the hydra, every time one is removed, two grow back in its place.
Carlos Baleba was sold to Manchester United but there is already excitement about young Chema Andres. The Spanish midfielder who signed from Stuttgart in the summer came into the side for the 3-0 win over Arsenal in place of Malick Yalcouye. Hurzeler explained it in tactical terms, wanting to get more height in the team to deal with the threat of the Gunners.
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