The WEIRD Tactic of Premier League’s Youngest Manager!

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Premier League’s Youngest Manager Is Transforming Brighton… And It’s scary

Fabian Hürzeler is a 31-year-old coach of Brighton & Hove Albion and the youngest coach in the history of the English Premier League, who started strong with two wins in the first two fixtures! His side crushed Everton, as well as Manchester United - trust us, this is no coincidence!

We'll show you the brilliant tactical moves that Hürzeler uses to overcome his opponents, explain what kind of project Brighton are building for him, and of course, reveal which top managers Fabian is inspired by! So, let's get into it!

To begin with, we'll take a closer look at Brighton's recent 2-1 victory over Manchester United. How did the Seagulls manage to stop Erik ten Hag's men? Hürzeler's team entered the match in a 4-2-3-1 formation with Brighton using a thorough man-to-man press in the defensive phase.

The most important roles were those of the two central midfielders - Billy Gilmour and the ageless veteran James Milner. Their main task was to keep the center compact and prevent United from executing line-breaking passes.

Milner constantly marked Kobbie Mainoo, and Gilmour kept an eye on Bruno Fernandes, who played the role of a “ten” in the Red Devils' lineup. Due to the fact that Billy managed to completely neutralize the latter, Mason Mount was also isolated on the other half of the pitch.

Besides, Brighton did not allow them to concentrate on attacking wings, as fullbacks Joël Veltman and Jack Hinshelwood put up a good fight against Marcus Rashford and Amad Diallo. In other words, Man United had a little more ball possession, but Brighton were fine with that.

The Seagulls themselves handled the ball much more competently than their opponents. Hürzeler's squad did a great job at provoking the Mancunians to high press. By luring the Manchester team closer to their box, Brighton messed up the Devils' midfield structure, creating a lot of space in the centre of the pitch.

Among other things, Hürzeler impressed us with his plan to capitalize on Casemiro's mistakes. In defence, Seagulls striker Joao Pedro was constantly monitoring the defensive midfielder, so the Brazilian was unable to properly accelerate attacks from the deep, making long passes forward to Fernandes and Mount.

But once Brighton were going for the attack, Pedro also gave Casemiro no rest, terrorizing him in the insider position. Pedro actively ran in the semi-flank, not to mention the area behind the forward, forcing Casemiro to follow him. The distractions of the United midfielder were leaving Kobbie Mainoo without proper support in the middle.

Here's one example of Pedro's superb display in the second half: Casemiro was getting too high for the sake of pressing and thus leaving free spaces. Brighton responded to that by quickly emerging from the defense through vertical passes and finding Pedro behind Casemiro.

The Seagulls ace then rolled the ball to the wing and helped create a numerical advantage. These movements confused United's footballers and forced Ten Hag to bring the defense higher, though Brighton almost took advantage of that by delivering crosses to forward Danny Welbeck.

By the way, Welbeck had such a huge impact on Brighton's play up front, we can hardly underestimate it. In both halves, he constantly tired centre-backs, Lisandro Martinez and Harry Maguire, with his darting runs and openings.

In fact, this led to him finding a gap between Martinez and Maguire in the Machester giants' box in the 32nd minute of the clash and opening the scoring! Great understanding from Danny of where to be in that particular situation!

It should be noted that throughout the tie, Hürzeler's squad consistently demonstrated their ability to add speed and create chances. For example, in the first half of the match, Brighton made only 3 shots on target with an xG of 0.66, whereas in the second half, the Seagulls shot there 11 times, raising the xG rate to 1.68 as opposed to 0.89 recorded by the Mancs!

What is perhaps most important here is that Brighton clearly proved to have a greater desire to win once the scoreboard was tied at 1-1. After the referees added another 7 minutes to the regular time, only the seagulls were the ones attacking, with Fabian Hürzeler making a great substitution!

The young Brighton coach brought on winger Simon Adingra in the 90th minute and in the 95th minute, the Ivorian provided an assist for Joao Pedro's header, contributing to an emotional 2-1 victory for the Albion in the last moments of the meeting! Hürzeler passed his first serious test in the Premier League with flying colors!

Fun fact: back when Fabian was still a player, not a coach, he operated as a central midfielder for Bayern Munich's reserve team, and his coach in those days was the guy he beat in that duel - right, right, we're talking about Erik ten Hag!