Roberto De Zerbi is making life ‘very difficult’ for goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen with his consistent selection changes and rotation.
That’s according to former Dutch goalkeeper Sander Westerveld, who has labelled it a “very strange situation” for the Netherlands keeper.
Verbruggen joined Brighton in a €20m move from Anderlecht in the summer after rising rapidly at the Belgian side over the last couple of years.
The belief had been that he would be the new number one for the Seagulls, particularly given Robert Sanchez was sold to Chelsea.
Instead, he has found himself as part of the rotation under Roberto De Zerbi, who regularly swaps between Verbruggen and Jason Steele.
It means Verbruggen has featured in 48% of the available minutes in the Premier League this season and 38% of the minutes in their Europa League run before they were eliminated by Roma.
Those are odd numbers for a goalkeeper and it’s seemingly affected his international chances too, with Ronald Koeman yet to fully trust him for the Netherlands.
The question of who will be their number one continues to dominate ahead of Euro 2024 and Westerveld believes the Brighton man isn’t being handed any help by his manager.
“He comes to Brighton at the age of 21 and plays straight in the Premier League,” he said.
“It’s a very strange situation there, because he plays every few games and in the other games it’s Steele. That is very difficult for a goalkeeper, because you cannot get into the rhythm.
“However, he gets a lot of confidence from the coach and plays well enough to also be the first goalkeeper for the Dutch national team. If he continues like this, he will stay that way.”
