5 Managers Brighton Could Replace Fabian Hurzeler With

Hurzeler Under Pressure - Five Managers Brighton Could Bring in His Place

With a lot of manager changes of late another one might be round the corner. Fabian Hurzeler remains under increased amount of pressure following the poor run of form his Brighton side are on, just one league win in 13 games simply isn’t good enough for a side that want to challenge for European football and a consistent level.

Following Brighton’s 1-0 loss to fierce rival Crystal Palace the AMEX Stadium saw an incredible amount of boos ring round the stadium as the referee blew the full time whistle, that along with chants from the home crowd of “you’re getting sacked in the morning and “you don’t know what you’re doing” as caused the media to question Hurzeler’s position as manager of Brighton, not just fans.

Being a Brighton fan I made my stance clear at the Palace game where I joined in with all the booing and chanting against Hurzeler. In this poor run of form myself and other Brighton fans are getting sick of hearing and seeing the exact same thing from Fabian. There seems to be no tactical changes from game to game and the same issues always seem to reappear, these include poor substitutions, poor team selection, playing players out of position etc.

He always preaches togetherness in his pre/post-match interviews but after a loss or a bad performance he’s the first one down the tunnel after the full time whistle, he’s reluctant to go over to the fans to apologise or clap them despite the fans being the one to pay their hard earned money to watch the team week in week out.

Facing the boos pic.twitter.com/SXNxBTOwql

— Brett Mendoza💙 (@BrettMendoza_) February 8, 2026

So following all of this we’ve created a shortlist of five managers that could replace Fabian Hurzeler when he eventually departs the club, whether that’s during this season or in the summer.

Roberto De Zerbi

Kicking things off with a bang we have Fabian Hurzeler’s predecessor. Following his recent departure from Marseille it’s kicked up a lot of talk amongst Brighton fans whether if they’d want De Zerbi back in charge.

Without a doubt De Zerbi is Brighton’s most successful and most loved modern day manager, taking them all the way to the Europa League and finishing with a club record 62 points.

However from a personal point of view, despite him being my favourite Brighton manager and although a return would certainly create a lot of excitement amongst the fan base I think the bridge between Brighton and De Zerbi has been burnt, with the way things ended between the board and the Italian I just don’t think something like that can be replaced and especially with De Zerbi’s ethics as a manager.

Brighton in the Roberto De Zerbi era:

89 games (all comps) — W38, D20, L31
Scored 155, conceded 132
Wins away to Arsenal x2, Man United, Ajax, Chelsea
Set club single-season records for PL points, goals and league position
Undefeated in 4 games vs Palace (W2, D2)

🇮🇹 #BHAFC pic.twitter.com/wbKFYGTAlt

— Albion Analytics (@AlbionAnalytics) May 19, 2024

Andrew Crofts

With a lot more of a rouge shout I’ve gone with Andrew Crofts as one of the five. This move would be very similar to what Brentford have done with Kieth Andrews and look how well that is working out.

Andrew Crofts played a total of 125 games for Brighton and is loved by fans, he started his coaching career as the head coach of Brighton’s U21’s, then the U23’s. Following Graham Potters departure he was set to take charge as caretaker manager against Bournemouth in the 22/23 season until Queen Elizabeth passed away causing all games across the country to be postponed. He remained within the Brighton coaching staff, as technical coach before becoming assistant manager under Hurzeler.

From a personal stand point I don’t think things can get much worse at the moment for Brighton so what I’d like the club to do is sack Hurzeler and give the interim role to Crofts until the end of the season and see how that pans out, exactly what Manchester United are doing with Michael Carrick and Tottenham will be doing with Igor Tudor.

Kjetil Knutsen

Perhaps my favourite option to take over from Hurzeler. The Norwegian has been in charge at Bodo/Glimt since 2017 and seems to get better and better every season. Across his 359 games in charge he’s amassed 213 wins, 73 draws and 73 losses. A win percentage of 59% which is simply incredible. He’s won the league with them in 2020, 2021, 2023 and most recently in 2024.

And it’s not just in the Norwegian League where he’s had success, after beating the likes of Manchester City and Atletico Madrid, he’s taken Bodo/Glimt to their first ever knockout stages in the Champions League as they snuck in in 23rd.

He was someone Brighton were linked to following Potter’s departure, with Brighton ending up going with De Zerbi that time around, however I would absolutely if they have a look at potentially bringing Knutsen to the South Coast, albeit it would be very difficult to pull off.

Kjetil Knutsen and Roberto De Zerbi are among the names under consideration to be the new Brighton manager when the club begins the appointment process next week.

[@SamWallaceTel via @TeleFootball] 🥇#BHAFC pic.twitter.com/XFa75GQ6va

— Brighton Bubble (@BrightonBubble) September 10, 2022

Thomas Frank

The now jobless Thomas Frank I feel would be a brilliant fit for a club like Brighton. Following his time at Brentford and Tottenham it’s clear he isn’t suited for that big step up and does a lot better managing smaller sides where that expectation isn’t as high as a club like Tottenham. Having a board behind with the likes of Tony Bloom will allow that little extra breathing room, they’d be a lot more patient with him compared to Tottenham’s board, like we are seeing with Hurzeler who’d of been sacked long ago if he were at another club.

Thomas Frank took Brentford from strength to strength as he got them promoted to the Premier League and now are a regular side in the division. In the 22/23 season he got them their record points tally in the Premier League, being 59 alas this is looking like it might be broken by Keith Andrews this season.

Kieran McKenna

After De Zerbi left in the summer of 2024 McKenna was actually the man Brighton pursued first and tried their hardest to get, that season he got Ipswich Town promoted to the Premier League and Brighton were sniffing round.

🚨🚨| BREAKING: Brighton are likely to tempt manager Kieran McKenna to leave Ipswich Town and join them.

[@ed_aarons] pic.twitter.com/dbktiQi4H9

— CentreGoals. (@centregoals) May 18, 2024

However at the same time Chelsea were without a manager and looked to be winning the Kieran McKenna fight but they eventually pivoted to Enzo Maresca which led Brighton to have a free run at McKenna but with Chelsea pulling out it led to Kieran staying at Ipswich as it was clear he’d rather stay at Ipswich if Chelsea wasn’t on the table.

With such strong previous links there’s definitely a chance Brighton look at getting McKenna in again, especially as he has a great chance to get Ipswich promoted back to the Premier League.