Brighton are ‘prepared’ for Roberto De Zerbi’s departure, according to club CEO Paul Barber, who spoke to talkSPORT.
However, the Seagulls chairman has insisted that the south coast club will fight to keep the Italian coach for much longer, despite competition from other clubs in England and his homeland.
De Zerbi’s work at the Amex Stadium has led to him being linked with a number of jobs in the last six months, including Serie A clubs AC Milan and Napoli, as well as Premier League rivals Tottenham.
He has even been mentioned as a potential manager for Real Madrid and a replacement for Pep Guardiola at Manchester City.
Many thought Graham Potter’s departure to Chelsea in September 2022 would be the end of the overachieving club, but De Zerbi has taken Brighton to new heights since replacing the Englishman in the dugout, with the club enjoying their first European campaign in history this season.
De Zerbi became available when his contract as manager of Shakhtar Donetsk was terminated due to the Ukraine conflict, but while he was largely unknown at the top level of coaching when he was appointed, he was certainly not unknown by Brighton.
Barber reveals that De Zerbi was at the top of their list of potential future managers long before Potter’s departure – with planning for eventual exits ‘critical’ to the club’s model, which has served them well so far.
And the chief admitted that, while they hope De Zerbi will not be leaving anytime soon, they have a similar list in place right now as they prepare for the worst, admitting that it is no secret that some of the world’s top clubs are interested in the manager.
“Good players and good staff will always be looked at by competitors, and we’re prepared for that, we’re realistic about it, and we try to plan for those eventualities,” Barber said at the 2023 Soccerex event in Miami to talkSPORT football correspondent Ben Jacobs.
“It was a difficult period when we unfortunately lost Graham Potter to Chelsea because you don’t want to lose your head coach one month into the season.” We always have a short list of coaches we would consider moving to if we had to, and Roberto was at the top of that list.
“Things have gone really well so far; we’re enjoying what Roberto is doing for us and what this team is delivering.” Roberto has done an outstanding job, and I don’t believe anyone in world football hasn’t noticed the way he and we play.
“The biggest conundrum with our model is that the better we do, the more vulnerable we become, because people see what we’re doing, how we’re doing it, and who’s doing it for us, and they want them.” We’ve seen it many times before, whether it’s Alexis MacAllister to Liverpool, Moises Caicedo and Graham Potter to Chelsea, Yves Bissouma to Tottenham, and staff we’ve lost along the way, Dan Ashworth to Newcastle.
“But I take that as a big complement to the progress we’re making and it’s incumbent on me to make sure we’ve got succession plans in place to manage and overcome those bumps in the road, because at the end of the day every football club will lose players and staff at some point, we just have to make sure we’re ready and prepared for it when it happens to us.”
When asked if Brighton has a replacement lined up in case a big club comes calling for De Zerbi, Barber replied, “Absolutely.”
“That’s part of looking at the top 20 or 25 positions in our club all the time and identifying who’s vulnerable to being taken by someone else or who may simply want a change in lifestyle and making sure we know who would come in to replace them if that happened.” That could be an internal or external appointment, but the most important thing is that we know who it would be.
“There’s nothing worse than being faced with a change and then having a gap because you didn’t do your homework to consider who would replace that person.” Preparation is essential.”
That’s not to say Brighton will just give up and let him go without a fight.
“No, definitely not,” Barber clarified.
“We protect ourselves as far as we can contractually and financially, and also we try to create an environment where our best people want to stay with us, and that’s served us well over many years now, but we’re also realistic when they want to move on.”
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