Fabian Hurzeler's January column

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Luke Nicoli

2025-01-28T11:00+00:00

Fabian Hurzeler. 📷 by Paul Hazlewood.

In his latest monthly column with the matchday programme*, Albion head coach Fabian Hurzeler covers all bases, including Christmas, his relationship with opposing managers and a VAR-less FA Cup…

*Please note, these words were in our Everton matchday programme.

As this is your first programme column of 2025, what was your first Christmas period in England like with so many games over a short period of time?

It was pretty intense and it was a new experience, both in terms of the job and also from a personal perspective. My family came over to celebrate Christmas, so it was a nice day for us all, but there was little time to relax. You play one game and two or three days later you play the next one. So you can’t really take a break and it’s also something you can’t prepare for. You just have to experience it for the first time and then you’ll hopefully be more experienced the next time it comes around.

And, of course, you have less time on the training ground with the players…

With so many games, you can’t change a lot of things or work on things you might want to put right. You can’t be happy for long if you’ve had a positive experience and you can’t be disappointed if it’s been negative as you’re immediately looking to the next game. Festive games are something I didn’t experience in Germany, but, on reflection, even if we didn’t quite get the results we wanted, I liked playing at that time of year.

What does Germany and the rest of Europe think when we’re playing so many games and they’re with the family or warm-weather training in Dubai?

Fabian Hurzeler makes his point on the touchline at Old Trafford. 📷 by James Boardman.

I can only speak from a personal point of view and I think it makes the Premier League special – everybody watches the games, whether it’s in the stadiums or at home on TV, as it comes at a time when many people are on their Christmas holidays – and that’s not just here in England but across Europe. I remember when I was living in Germany, I would always watch the Premier League games at Christmas – and now I’m privileged to have been a part of it.

Do you lean on the medical team more during this period given the workload on players?

I wouldn’t say you liaise with them more because you’re liaising with them regularly anyway. I think it’s very important to have communication like that consistently through the season and I think, in general, when you have such a big club with so many different departments, communication is key. We have lots of meetings with various members of staff which is ongoing.

You’ve had your first experience of The FA Cup recently. What was that like?

I like cup competition because it’s do or die – you go to the next round or you go out. The FA Cup is a competition where anything can happen and that makes it very exciting. I had some great experiences in Germany with the DFB-Pokal, but of course The FA Cup is more prestigious. It has a big history, a big tradition here in England. Brighton have come close to the final a couple of times in recent years and the game that I’m most aware of is the semi-final defeat against Manchester United, so it would be nice to go as far as we possibly can in the competition.

What was it like not having VAR involved in the game at Norwich?

I think VAR makes football fairer, but it also takes away the emotion from the game. If you take the Arsenal v Manchester United game for example, it was very emotional at times because decisions were made, some that could have gone either way, but once the referee had made his decision, that was it. No VAR. As a result, you saw the raw emotions and reactions of the players and that, for me, is a positive. The negative thing, as I say, is that not all the decisions are necessarily correct when there’s no VAR involved.

We now face Chelsea in the next round. What are your thoughts?

We’re at home and we have to use that to our advantage, to use our supporters as our 12th man on the pitch. At home at the Amex it’s difficult to beat us, but, of course, Chelsea is one of the biggest clubs in the world. They have been on a great run this season and they’re playing at a great level, but like I said before, The FA Cup is unpredictable. Any team can win in a one-off game and we will go all in.

We then face Chelsea again in the Premier League immediately afterwards. Can you take anything from the game that’s gone before?

We’ve had that situation already this season with Liverpool in the Carabao Cup. Of course you can re-analyse the game before, give the players small inputs, but maybe there will be two, three or four positional changes from either team, so we’ll have to see how the situation develops. Maybe it can have a small impact, but we’re not even thinking of the cup at the moment; our focus is on the Premier League and getting the results that we need.

What was your assessment of our recent league form. We had that eight-game winless run, which included six draws, before our wins at Ipswich and Manchester United…

It’s always about the fine margins and how we can affect that moving forward. It’s also about being honest with each other about the situation, about the games we play. I think it’s important to give the players honest feedback: what was good, what was wrong, what would we have to change, what would we have to improve. On top of that, it’s very important to focus on the process, to trust the process. When we had a very good phase in the season, we weren’t too euphoric, so when we didn’t have the results we might have deserved or we wanted to have recently, we also needed to be calm. It was a lesson we needed to go through, to help us grow. Ultimately, we are trying to improve the players individually and collectively, giving them the environment to thrive in, so that the results will come.

And the results finally came with those wins at Portman Road and Old Trafford…

At Ipswich, I didn’t think we played at our best but the key was a good balance of defensive and offensive strength which meant we were able to control the game and score the goals we needed. We then took that confidence to Old Trafford and, again, we controlled both sides to the game – which you need to do if you have ambitions to get a result at Manchester United. We defended well together, we were intense in the press and we stayed in our structure. If we do that, then I always feel we have the ability to score, so in all areas we played very well and deserved our victory. It was nice to return to winning ways, especially for our fans, who had been made to suffer with us in recent weeks.

It’s proving to be one of the most open Premier Leagues on record. So do you have to accept that you’ll win some, you’ll lose some?

The players and coaches are ambitious, and the club is ambitious to achieve something, so we always want to be winning. We should also be critical of ourselves. If we don’t get the results we want, we have to be honest with ourselves. I don’t want to say that we’ve had indifferent results because of all the injuries and the young team we have. These will be excuses. In the end, it’s our responsibility to make the supporters proud and to give the supporters what they deserve.

You mention the process, so do you see the players gradually getting to a place where you want them to be?

One hundred percent. I see how hard they work. I see that they have the right work ethic. I see the improvements. It’s all about building connections on the pitch, so when you do change the starting 11, it doesn’t affect the performance. To be honest, the guys are doing a great job in that respect. They’re working hard, they listen, and they try to improve.

The transfer window is currently open. Where do you fit in that process?

First and foremost I have to support my team and focus on my team. But I think in terms of the window, my most important exchange is with the people who are responsible for the recruitment at the club – with Tony, Paul, David (Weir), Mike (Cave) and with the scouts. For me, it’s a very transparent exchange and an honest exchange. We have to look at what is necessary for increasing the percentages of us being successful on the pitch, what we need moving forward, and we will always make the decisions together.

How is Daniel Niedzkowski settling in as one of your assistant head coaches?

He’s already integrated well and has had a good start here. He has a clear role in the coaching group; he brings a lot of experience and I think everyone will benefit from his knowledge. I’m very happy that he’s here and he can help us be successful.

And Bobby Zamora is now coaching the strikers. How have you found working with him?

Like he was on the pitch – a great personality with great knowledge. You see that he has a lot of experience, which the strikers can benefit from. Those small snippets of advice that he passes on to the young lads can make a huge difference: where I have to be positioned in the box, how I can use my body… all these small things. I’ve seen the footage of him playing for Brighton and he was clearly a great striker for the club and went on to play at the highest level. He’s still got it too; I’ve seen some of the goals Bobby’s scored in training and there’s still plenty of ability in those feet of his!

You haven’t been here long, but have you built up any relationships with opposing managers yet?

I think during the season it’s tough. It’s been a case of getting to know them when we compete against them and trying to get an exchange when you are together at the managers’ meetings. For sure it will be very interesting to get to know them better on a personal level because they all have great styles of play and great ideas, otherwise they wouldn’t be here in the best league in the world.

There was a tradition when you’d share a glass of wine with the opposing manager after a game. Have you experienced that at all?

Fabian Hurzeler shakes hands with his opposite number David Moyes, who was managing for the 700th time in his career. 📷 Paul Hazlewood.

I’m not aware of this tradition, but that doesn’t mean that I would never do it. At the moment it’s more getting to know all the processes after the game, before the game, getting to know the stadiums, the locker rooms, the coaches themselves, then when I’m more familiar, I might buy into this tradition!

We’ve seen you get quite heated on the touchline on occasions this season. Is that the passion you have for the game, for your team?

For sure it’s not easy to stay calm in certain moments during the game because you want to support your players and you want to see your team winning. It’s all about the honour, it’s about winning this very important game. Sometimes it gets emotional, but it doesn’t mean you’re being disrespectful to the opposing coach or opposing team, it’s just supporting your own team and trying to protect them. You then shake hands at the end of the game, you look each other in the eyes and you have an honest exchange. Then you move on to the next game, but it certainly takes a good hour or two after the game before the energy and adrenaline passes.

A notable standout from the Premier League this season has been the art of scoring from corners, with Arsenal taking a lead. Would you ever move away from your principles to get results?

I think the most important thing is that you trust your style of play, but also to have flexibility to adapt in some moments. If there’s any trend on the football stage which can be of benefit to us, then of course you will look at it. You can’t copy anyone, but you can take elements, so when we see Arsenal doing their set pieces, it’s something special at the moment. It’s about seeing what they do and how they implement it, but on the other side you also need the players to play like this. They have great corner takers, great headers of the ball, so ultimately it’s about what is best for us. Does it fit our team? Does it fit to the profile of our players? As a coach I think it’s good to have an open mindset, while keeping to your principles.

Finally, what’s your message to the fans as we pass the halfway stage of the season?

I love the support from our fans. I love how they help us during the games. I love the sensitive feeling for the situation. Of course, I know that they deserve more and we are working hard to give them the results they deserve. I can promise them that we’re working hard for that every day. We try to improve the individual players, we try to improve as a group, and we do this while being mindful of the values the club stands for. Hopefully then we can give the fans more positive experiences in the coming weeks and months.