Sussex

Goalkeeper coaches Marco Knoop and Jack Stern will leave Brighton this summer as head coach Fabian Hurzeler shakes up his backroom team.

The club have also confirmed the Seagulls boss will appoint a replacement goalkeeping coach and recruit a new set-piece specialist, with Knoop also responsible for defensive set-pieces in his one season at the Amex.

Stern joined the club in 2022 and had signed a new deal last summer.

"On behalf of everyone at the club, I take this opportunity to thank Marco and Jack for their efforts here," said Hurzeler.

"Marco is returning to Germany and goes with our thanks and best wishes. He made a lot of sacrifices to join me in England, and I will always be grateful to him for that.

"Jack and Marco have helped us to achieve a successful season in my first campaign at Brighton and I wish both well for the future."

Technical director David Weir added: "It's never an easy decision when people leave the club and I echo Fabian's sentiments.

"Jack has been part of a very successful period for club, working under Graham Potter, Roberto de Zerbi and Fabian.

"We thank both for their service, professionalism and hard work and wish them well for the future."

Scott McCarthy
Fan writer

Image source, Getty Images

The past two summers have been one of considerable change at the Amex.

In 2024, Brighton signed nine players for £193m and appointed a new head coach. Yet 12 months earlier it was outgoings that dominated the Albion news cycle.

The midfield pairing which had taken Brighton into the Europa League were sold, Moises Caicedo and Alexis Mac Allister bringing in a cool £150m combined.

Everyone knows the Albion have a model. Buy young players. Develop them into stars. Sell if a buying club offers more than Brighton value said player at.

The model means any of Kaoru Mitoma, Joao Pedro, Carlos Baleba, Bart Verbruggen and Jan Paul van Hecke could depart this summer, depending on who or what you believe.

But there is a growing feeling among some Seagulls supporters that the model might need to change slightly. And much of it comes from decision-makers at the club publicly describing 2024-25 as a transitional season.

The implication is that a young squad and young manager will be better in 2025-26 for the experience gained in the campaign just finished.

But if Brighton were then to sell off the family silver this summer, the risk is that 2025-26 becomes a transitional season again.

Young and inexperienced replacements take over from Verbruggen in goal, Van Hecke in defence, Baleba in midfield and Mitoma out wide.

Meanwhile, Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea or whoever else benefit from the work the Albion put into developing those players in that transitional 2024-25 campaign.

Mitoma seems most likely to go. He is 28 years old and deserves to achieve his long-stated dream of playing Champions League football. Pedro's off-field issues may also ease the way for his exit.

Two big-money sales is arguably the maximum the Albion should consider.

What cannot happen is selling in one summer the entire spine of a team who have shown they have the potential to challenge for the top five. No matter how good the money might look on a balance sheet.

Otherwise, when does the transitional season end?

Find more from Scott McCarthy at We Are Brighton, external

Brighton are keeping tabs on the progress of Sheffield United midfielder Ollie Arblaster, 21, as he continues his recovery from an anterior cruciate ligament injury. (Teamtalk), external

Want more transfer stories? Read Tuesday's full gossip column

Follow the gossip column on BBC Sport

BBC Sport pundit Nedum Onuoha has given us his insight and opinion every fortnight on your Premier League club throughout this season.

But this week, he's in the hotseat for your questions.

Maybe ask him who should be on your club's radar this summer, or where a rumoured target or new signing might fit into the team.

Perhaps see what he thinks about how successful a new recruit might be, who it is vital to keep, or what is needed to make next season a success.

Send in your questions here and we'll put a selection to him

Steve Sutcliffe
BBC Sport journalist

Image source, Getty Images

Bournemouth have the lowest matchday revenue in the Premier League, with a 11,379 capacity at the Vitality Stadium.

Yet they have recruited shrewdly and the big-money sales of Dominic Solanke and Dean Huijsen during 2024-25 means they could easily part with £100m to bring in new signings.

Brentford are among the best run businesses in the league and their approach of "spotting players that other clubs have not considered, such as Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa, is likely to pay further dividends as they are attracting attention from clubs with big budgets", said football finance expert Kieran Maguire.

"The Bees have no PSR concerns and could spend up to £200m, but are unlikely to break the bank for the sake of it as this is not the way that owner Matthew Benham conducts affairs at the club."

Meanwhile, another club on the south coast, Brighton, are also in rude health heading into the next transfer window.

The Seagulls have earned £200m in profit over the previous two seasons and could repeat last summer's heavy spend of more than £200m if necessary.

However, chief executive Paul Barber has already indicated they will more likely return to their tried and tested model of bringing in relatively unheard of players from unfamiliar markets.

Brighton's biggest challenge is more likely to be keeping hold of the likes of Joao Pedro, Carlos Baleba and Kaoru Mitoma, who are all attracting admiring glances from clubs with bigger budgets.

Read more about the early transfer window and what each Premier League club can spend this summer

As the dust settles on the 2024-25 Premier League season, we have been taking a look at some of the alternative ways the the table could have finished...

Many of us will have been there in school.

It was not always about being the best, but about being better. Not trying to beat the others' scores or times, but about beating your own.

In sport too, it is why personal bests exist. It is a way of measuring your own improvement against what has gone before - we can't all be Usain Bolt and Florence Griffith-Joyner.

So if the Premier League season was all about how you compared to the campaign before, who would have come out on top?

Well, there is one clear winner.

With 29 points more than they had in 2023-24, Nottingham Forest would have been lifting that trophy.

They may not have finished the season quite as they hoped having spent so much time in the Champions League spots, but having narrowly avoided relegation a year ago, this shows the sheer scale of the improvement this term.

Their nearest challenger on this basis would have been Brentford.

With 56 points, they were three points short of their best ever Premier League tally, but having flirted with relegation last time out, it made for a more enjoyable season this time around.

Brighton, Bournemouth and Fulham may have just missed out on European adventures in the real league, but they are also teams who can be happy with the improvements they are showing as now well-established top-flight sides.

And despite the chaotic nature of Chelsea since the new ownership came in, they too can look to steady progress.

At the other end of the scale (or table), it is a very different picture.

Many question whether the traditional 'big six' teams is still relevant, given how others have broken that mould in recent years.

But if the season was based on improvement, four of those six would have been at the bottom.

Tottenham dropped-off in the league nearly as much as Forest improved. Manchester City had a high bar to reach, but a torrid spell proved costly. Manchester United have set multiple unwanted club records, while Arsenal struggled to maintain a real challenge for the title.

They say beware the wounded tiger, and it is hard to see all these sides having the same difficulties next season, but they will not have it all their own way with those teams that are on the up.

*All data from Opta and only teams who were in the league in 2023-24