Surprise, surprise, Chelsea look set to sign another one of Albion’s best young talents!
According to Fabrizio Romano and David Ornstein, Facundo Buonanotte looks set to move to West London after the Leeds deal collapsed.
Buonanotte was due to travel to Leeds, but never boarded his flight. Chelsea have now jumped in!
Why this sale makes no sense…
Facundo Buonanotte is a magical young player, so technically talented with the ball at his feet. I remember comparisons from Carlos Tevez towards Lionel Messi as he signed as a young 17-year-old.
For me, this is the deal that really springs alarm bells with the handling of some of our young players. How can a player be good enough for Chelsea but not for Brighton? Are we not a club on the rise, the ones who would raise young players and take pride in how we nurture and watch them grow? It feels like the club is stuck in a new, strange part between having brilliant players ready for now and a gap before finding the next pool of potential.
Buonanotte is linked with clubs like Borussia Dortmund, who are notorious for identifying some of the best talents in the world of football. There must be a certain alarm bell that’d imply that he could reach that height here? The current model may make us a lot of money… recruit the players, raise them for a bit and sell them onto Chelsea, but it doesn’t really feel like ‘football’ at that point. I’m a nerd for successful businesses; I own one myself. However, if I want to understand some of the most exciting ways of making money, I’m not looking at football clubs, but most definitely elsewhere.
Football, to me, is about loving players, reaching the highest you can and watching entertaining football. My sole reason for watching Brighton isn’t to see us in Europe, it’s a wealth of family and friend culture that dates back before I was born. I didn’t choose to support this club. When I did, it certainly wasn’t because of the amount of money the club had in the bank at the time!
I’m all for Facundo Buonanotte becoming a top player, because my word, he could be. As aforementioned, this is a serious talent, but a serious talent who could be influential in this squad here. Understandably, Georginio and Matt O’Riley have been starting games, but when you’re identifying potential, Facundo is certainly in the top 2 bracket.
Brjan Gruda wants out, too?
Brajan Gruda has been linked with a move, according to Florian Plettenburg, on loan this season, due to being unhappy with his current playing time. I understand it. After his brilliant show-stealing performance against Oxford United, his quality was clear to see. Gruda was left on the bench until the 84th minute as Albion lost 2-0 away to Everton despite creating little to no non-penalty chances in the second half.
Gruda and Buonanotte are similar players, to an extent. Similar, but also very different. It’s a long season; these players could be in very different circumstances by January, both on and off the pitch. The similarities are their entertainment value and positional awareness inside the right spaces and behind the striker. However, the eye test suggests they both have different movement styles, and can occupy different pockets and create different types of chances. Buonanotte has an element of cute close control and body movement like Cole Palmer (no other Brighton player), while Gruda throws me back to watching a young version of Anthony Knockaert.
Both good, both effective, but both different.
Only a year ago, the question would have been who would be the most impactful at Brighton, but the question seems to be changing to who could make us the most amount of money… and when will they sign for Chelsea?
There is an underlying question over the number of players who have looked to move on efficiently this summer. João Pedro, Pervis Estupiñan, Facundo Buonanotte, Julio Enciso, Simon Adingra, Evan Ferguson, reportedly, Matt O’Riley and now Brajan Gruda. Why?
You can’t have them all, and that is a problem of stockpiling talent, but there certainly is a point over how they could be retained and grow at the club together in a successful way. Perhaps we have gone too far with the signings, but something feels off to me. Of course, having these top talents at the same time will make them look for greener grass at all times, especially when clubs of Chelsea’s stature are sniffing around. You can’t blame them in that regard. All the time the club accepts the offers and the CEO jokes about them being our “best customer”, there is little to complain about within that notion.
Since it looks like Buonanotte is off, I genuinely do wish him all the best. As it stands, it seems like it will be an initial loan deal, but I cannot imagine a world where, if successful, he doesn’t end up at Chelsea permanently.
