All of De Zerbi's previous clubs have played beautiful football and for him this is the natural step - to now sign for a truly big club and challenge for the major trophies.
How come people have so short memory and only judge him for his 2nd season at Brighton. How about his 1st one?
What am I missing, though? His first season at Brighton was so good and he improved so many players. Finished 6th, only a few points behind Klopp and qualified for Europa League. All this while playing fantastic football.
2nd season Colwill came back to Chelsea, Caicedo and Mac Allister were sold, March, Enciso and Mitoma were out for most of the season and Ferguson and Estupinan were in and out of the squad because of injuries, too. That's 8 starters. And they put no effort in replacing the departed ones with quality ones. Brighton's marquee signing was a player from Championship and apart from that a bunch of 18 and 19 year olds.
What did you expect in his 2nd season with such a squad and mid week matches? For the first time in Brighton's recent history, their board went backwards and set the club for failure. Of course De Zerbi fell out with Bloom. This was a club new to mid week matches, running on a packed schedule and a squad that cannot be compared to the one in De Zerbi's first season.
I mean we were hanging around 10-12th places for the most part of the season with a way better group of players and no mid week matches. I personally think it is stupid to judge De Zerbi on his 2nd season at Brighton w/o looking at the bigger picture.
Give him the same squad for his 2nd season, too, and he'd have challenged for top four 100%.
