Last weekend, the 27th season of the English Premier League got underway. During that time, at least one player from every country in the world has captured the eye within the competition, which is known around the world for attracting the finest talent from every country. Only La Liga in Spain is capable of rivaling English Premier League clubs for recruitment power - although Italy has shown signs of beginning to compete again more recently. In all that time, we’re yet to see one Iranian player make it as a breakout star in England. The best current hope to change that is Alireza Jahanbakhsh at Brighton.
It was a great start for Brighton and Hove Albion. Now in their third season in England's top division and seeking to prove that they belong at this level for the long term, they traveled to Watford and came away with an impressive 3-0 win away from home. The fans couldn’t have asked for a much better start, and nor could their new manager Graham Potter. There was one player watching on from the sidelines, though, clapping the team along with the rest of the supporters but unable to contribute, because he hadn’t even been named among the substitutes. That man, unfortunately, was Alireza Jahanbakhsh.
Where Did It All Go Wrong?
This isn't how things were supposed to go for Jahanbakhsh. When he joined the south-coast club a year earlier from Dutch side AZ Alkmaar, he was the club's record signing at £17m. Despite being a winger by trade, he’d finished the previous season as the top scorer in the Dutch league, and was earmarked as a player who could contribute to the team with goals and assists - the kind of goals and assists that would desperately be needed to help Brighton secure their Premier League status for another reason. As the story played out, Brighton stayed in the division by the skin of their teeth - but Jahanbakhsh had almost nothing to do with it. He started nineteen games in his debut season, plus a further seven appearances from the bench. During that time, he failed to score a single goal, or create a single assist.
Various theories have been put forward as to why the Jahanbakhsh who turned up in Brighton didn't appear to be the same Jahanbakhsh who impressed so many people in the Netherlands. One of them is simply a difference in class - the Dutch league is exciting to watch, but with the exception of last year's Champions League surprise package Ajax, there aren't any clubs in it which you could realistically argue are as good as the best clubs in England. The English game is faster and more physical than the Dutch league, and players get far less time on the ball than they're used to. Some critics felt like Jahanbakhsh just couldn't keep up.
Others believe that his poor performances aren't necessarily his fault. Jahanbakhsh, as anyone who watched Team Melli regularly knows, is a winger. He's at his best when he's cutting in from the right. For reasons best known to himself, Jahanbakhsh's coach last season insisted on him playing him through the center - a position that would have been unfamiliar for Jahanbakhsh, and therefore not a place he should be expected to excel. Even the style of football has been blamed - coach Chris Hughton had a defensively-minded philosophy, and Jahanbakhsh isn't a defensive player. At Alkmaar, he could roam forward freely whenever he felt like it. At Brighton last season, that wasn't an option.
If the style of football was the problem, then the issue might already have been dealt with. Hughton paid the price for Brighton's struggles in the division, and was dismissed as the season drew to a close. His replacement, Graham Potter, is more inclined to play the kind of football that Jahanbakhsh is best suited to. In theory, he should be able to show the best of himself under Potter's new system - if he's allowed on the pitch to do so. Brighton has made new signings over the course of the summer - including players in Jahanbakhsh's position. They've also broken their transfer record again. Jahanbakhsh is no longer Brighton's record signing - and he may now turn out to be surplus to requirements.
Brighton’s Fingers Burnt?
Unlike most Premier League teams this season, Brighton and Hove Albion are not sponsored by a gambling company. Instead, they're sponsored by the known-and-trusted credit card giant American Express. That reflects the club's ethos - Brighton isn't a gambling club. Twenty years ago, they almost went out of business due to financial mismanagement. This might be the era of mobile slots websites sponsoring teams, but you won't find anyone at Brighton with an appetite for playing with mobile slots odds when it comes to transfer policy. They like safe bets. The majority of clubs in the division will take a chance on a big-money striker as happily as players pump money into the 'Striker Goes Wild' mobile slots game, but Brighton isn't one of them. Mobile slots are often about high risk, high reward. Brighton prefers to play things as low risk, known reward. Jahanbakhsh wasn't supposed to be a gamble. He was supposed to have a known pedigree.
If Brighton's hierarchy starts to get the impression that Jahanbakhsh isn't going to cut it, we can expect him to be gone when the January transfer window opens up. As non-gamblers, their first instinct will be to cut their losses rather than persist with a player who doesn't look like delivering the goods - and therefore a player whose value in the transfer market dips every week he isn't on the field. If Jahanbakhsh goes, then he'll join Karim Bagheri, Andranik Teymourian, and Ashkan Dejagah as players who made it to the big time, but weren't quite able to take the next step and become one of the division's outstanding players. Team Melli are improving all the time, and the quality of young Iranian footballers is significantly better now than it was twenty years ago. Until we're able to produce a player who makes it at the top level in Europe, though, the perception of Iranian football internationally is unlikely to improve in the near future.