Seagulls summer round up

I cannot wait for the football season to begin, because however hard I tried, games with no atmosphere and no fans, or a smattering of supporters dotted around, felt like a series of meaningless friendlies, resulting in a season that I really couldn’t get too excited about. 

However, despite the disappointment of football not coming home this summer, seeing stadiums across Europe filled with happy, emotionally charged people supporting their respective nations rekindled the flame of excitement within me. 

With the Premier League season due to get underway on 14 August (fingers crossed), and with a trip to Burnley, Brighton & Hove Albion will be looking to dramatically improve on last season’s goals converted to chances created ratio. Good news then that former England striker Danny Welbeck signed a new one-year contract with the Seagulls. The 30-year-old forward scored six goals in 24 Premier League appearances last season, but every Brighton fan you speak to will tell you the Club desperately needs to secure the services of a proven goal scorer, someone who can turn those draws into wins to elevate Albion further up the table and away from the all too familiar end of season battle to avoid relegation.

Graham Potter’s position at times looked under threat last season, though a lot of the noise behind that seemed primarily to be from disgruntled fans worrying about their Club’s precarious position around the bottom three. However, the style of football being displayed was a marked improvement on seasons past and during the summer it was even rumoured that Tottenham had Potter on their short list to replace Jose Mourinho before they appointed Nuno Espirito Santo.

Whilst writing with the reported sale of Ben White to Arsenal for £50 million, Tony Bloom and Dan Ashworth can potentially set their sights on finding that elusive leading striker who could then be backed up by Maupay, Connolly, Andone, Zeqiri, and Percy Tau, all of whom the jury’s still out on whether they are good enough for this level.

With the departures of Davy Propper, Mat Ryan and Alireza Jahanbakhsh, Bernardo and Jose Izquierdo, the Seagulls are reportedly interested in Barcelona and Denmark forward, Martin Braithwaite together with Celtic’s 23-year-old French forward Odsonne Edouard, who is in the final year of his contract and appears to be the subject of speculation during every transfer window!    

Incoming signings so far include Zambia’s 23-year-old midfielder Enock Mwepu from Red Bull Salzburg on a four-year deal, having scored 11 goals in 81 league appearances where he won four titles in four seasons with the Austrian club. In addition, presumably to replace the aforementioned Ryan, the Seagulls have also completed the signing of 21-year-old 6ft 8in goalkeeper Kjell Scherpen from Ajax.

However, surely the signing of the season could be retaining the services of the highly sought after 24-year-old midfielder Yves Bissouma who has reportedly and regularly been of interest to Arsenal, Chelsea, and Liverpool. Touch wood then that he remains a Seagull between now and mid-August, otherwise I am going to look a complete buffoon!