Brighton boss Fabian Hürzeler has said he doesn’t “feel fear” about losing his key players this transfer window.
Sources have told ESPN that midfielder Carlos Baleba has attracted interest from Manchester United and Manchester City while Brighton have set an asking price of €120 million ($139.4m) for the Cameroon international who joined the club from Lille in 2023.
He was a key player in Brighton’s eighth-placed Premier League finish last season that saw the club narrowly miss out on European football.
Asked on the BBC’s Monday Night Club podcast if he is worried about losing his best players, Hürzeler said: “No chance. I don’t feel fear.
“I’m not afraid of anything because the only thing we can do is be the best version we can be every day, like work as hard as we can.
“All the other things we can’t influence, so we really have to focus on us. For sure, we can’t spend the money like the big teams but one of our biggest values is togetherness.
“And if you stay together, if we try to push our limits and increase the boundaries, then I’m sure we can compete with the big teams.”
Hürzeler’s side have been relatively busy in the transfer window this summer bringing in Charalampos Kostoulas, Maxim De Cuyper, Italy international Diego Coppola and Tom Watson from Sunderland.
Star man Baleba missed Brighton’s final preseason friendly with a knee injury — a 2-1 victory win over VfL Wolfsburg — but is in line to play in their Premier League opener against Fulham on Aug. 16.
“We as a club always find solutions and I’m sure in the future we will find solutions. That’s our model, we have to accept it,” Hürzeler said.
Brighton have let players go for big transfer fees in the last few seasons with the likes of Moisés Caicedo, João Pedro and Marc Cucurella each leaving the club for more than €50m to Chelsea.
“I think that as a club we have proved we are not only selling big players. We have had offers for other players — big offers for [Kaoru] Mitoma and other players. We proved that we are not selling every player.
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“Of course there were some big players who left the club, but there are new players that are coming into the club.
“With the togetherness we have, with the team chemistry we have, we can compete with the big teams, and we can compete with teams who might be individually better than us.”
Information from ESPN’s Julien Laurens has contributed to this report.
