Matthew Hayden

Right Back - Brighton U20
22 Aug 2027
Sunday
Process

Marked for Matthew Hayden

3 Edition

The Brighton Post

17 Aug 2026
From our football correspondent Steady

Transfer targets

Brighton rebuffed over Florian Wirtz

Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Liverpool have kept their man, and Brighton go back to a list with one name crossed off it.

Market

Arsenal come back empty-handed

The bid was some way short and Brighton did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.

Market

Brighton buy the years ahead of Veljko Milosavljević

He is 19, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.

Squad

A move Heinz Mörschel would have made for nothing

There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Heinz Mörschel is living that version at Brighton, and it tends to show in the first month.

Boardroom

5 academy players handed senior numbers at Brighton

The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.

Market

One of our own: Simon Reid joins the Brighton first team

Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Simon Reid is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.

Market

Brighton promote Jacob Hill from within

The academy exists for exactly this morning. Jacob Hill has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.

Squad

Matt O'Riley signs on for more

“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Matt O'Riley and Brighton agree another 5 years.

Squad

Brighton count the cost of losing Matthew Hayden

26 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.

In brief

  • Squad Words at Brighton training over how hard people work
  • The dugout No hiding place for Zadok Yohanna
  • Boardroom No investment in the facilities at Brighton