Brighton & Hove Albion manager, Fabian Hurzeler felt that his team displayed “hunger” in their 5-0 Premier League victory at Coventry.
Charalampos Kostoulas’ first-half strike followed by goals from Malick Yalcouye, Pascal Gross, Lewis Dunk and Yasin Ayari saw Brighton breeze past the Sky Blues to go fourth, amidst a red card for Coventry’s Taiwo Awoniyi following an elbow on Maxim de Cuyper.
Hurzeler post-match however refused to consider the result as a “complete” performance as he praised Bart Verbruggen for his goalkeeping display, whilst acknowledging that the defence got lucky that Coventry couldn’t finish chances when on top.
“No, I wouldn’t say complete. I think part of the truth is that we had a good goalkeeper today. We had in certain moments a little bit of luck that Coventry didn’t score. But overall we had a good balance between controlling the game in possession, having good structure in possession, and keeping our defensive stability.
“I think the chances they had were after set pieces, were after second phases. But for that we had a great goalkeeper, and the other part too is that in the right moment we scored the goals and we had the momentum on our side. What was positive, of course, is a clean sheet.”
Hurzeler however admitted that his Seagulls showed determination to get the win but stay humble to the fact that these type of victories don’t always come along often.
“What was positive is that we had this desire to score, we had this hunger to keep going and that overall makes a good performance.
“But we also understand we have to be very humble and shouldn’t take these things for granted. Understand it’s about doing the basic things right, winning the personal duels, winning the second ball and keeping it simple in possession. Then we are a good football team.”
With Brighton now sat fourth after four matches, Hurzeler refused to get carried away by their start to season as he iterated that nobody should take their form literally and that they need to keep doing the basics properly in order to maintain their form,
“We are still early in the season. We don’t take these things for granted. We should understand that we are in the situation from doing the basic things right. We should stay very humble. I think that’s a big value for me and the team.
So we keep working hard, keep doing the basic things right. That’s the main message.
“We should also have this belief in ourselves, have this confidence in our quality that we can go to any place in the league and compete. And now we have two big games ahead of us before the international break, and we take that belief into both of them.