The Brighton Number Nine Question: Who Leads the Line After Welbeck?
The Brighton number nine role has been vacant for barely a fortnight, and already it is causing a rather lovely kind of chaos. There was a moment against Roma when the ball dropped to Georginio Rutter fully 30 yards out, drifting in off the right, and every Albion supporter in the Amex braced for another chance to go begging. Instead Rutter opened up his left foot and bent it high past Mate Svilar – the first goal at the Amex of the post-Danny Welbeck era, and scored, tellingly, by a man who keeps insisting he is not a nine at all.
That is the puzzle Fabian Hurzeler must solve before the Seagulls open their season with a play-off first leg in Norway. Danny Welbeck has gone to Chelsea, taking two seasons’ worth of goals with him, and the obvious heir is stuck in rehab. So who leads the line? The honest answer is that it might not be an old-fashioned centre-forward at all – and after watching Rutter torment Roma, we are not convinced that is a problem.
What the Brighton number nine role looks like now
Rutter is not a natural striker and, to his credit, he says so himself. Against Roma he led the line from what looked more like a No.10 berth, forever cutting inside from the right, and he later underlapped from a deeper position on the left to tee up the third goal. There were a couple of classic centre-forward situations – a near-post opening worked by Pascal Gross among them – where he looked less at home. But then came the curler, and the argument shifted. The modern nine holds the ball up and gambles at the far post, yes, but it also drops, drifts and creates. On that evidence, Rutter fits the job description better than his own protests suggest.
The wait for Evan Ferguson
The script Brighton wrote for themselves had Welbeck succeeded by Evan Ferguson, the orthodox number nine the squad has been waiting on for years. It has not gone to plan just yet. Ferguson is working his way back from ankle surgery and, as The Argus reports, he has been out of action while looking leaner and fitter for the effort. When he is sharp again he changes this conversation entirely, giving Hurzeler a genuine focal point. Until then, though, his return is a hope rather than a plan, and the Albion cannot build an opening night around a striker who is not yet fit.
The orthodox options waiting in the wings
It is not as if the cupboard is bare. Stefanos Tzimas carries the No.9 shirt and Charalampos Kostoulas is another out-and-out forward on the books, both of them young enough that a slow introduction would be no surprise. That is precisely why Rutter’s versatility is such a gift right now: he buys the newcomers time to settle without leaving the team toothless. A false nine by necessity can quickly become a false nine by design, and few managers enjoy that kind of flexibility more than Hurzeler.
So the truth, for now, is that the Brighton number nine is a role rather than a name. Ferguson will get his chance, Tzimas and Kostoulas will get theirs, and the shirt will eventually settle on a pair of shoulders. But if the opening weeks look anything like that curl past Svilar – and given everything Georginio Rutter has given us lately, we would happily bet on it – then a season that begins in the cold of Norway might just be warmer than we feared. We would take that goal every single week.
