Fabian Hurzeler has banned talk about reaching Europe at Brighton & Hove Albion.
The German head coach believes it has been a distraction to the underlying quest for continued improvement at the club.
Brighton reached Europe for the first time under former head coach Roberto De Zerbi with a sixth-placed finish in 2022-23, which clinched a spot in the Europa League.
They are in ninth place in the table with four games left and in contention to qualify either for the Europa Conference League in Hurzeler’s first season in charge.
“We talk too much about that, and I try to avoid it now, because I think you get distracted by thoughts like this,” Hurzeler told The Athletic during his press conference for Newcastle United’s visit on Sunday.
“The thing we can influence is our performance, how we train, how we prepare, how we play on a matchday, how we can do the things we want to do on the pitch.
“Then we will see what we achieve at the end of the season. Overall, we can say we are in a good place, we are in a very good place I would say. We can achieve a lot of things, but I don’t want to talk anymore about Europe, or which place we need to be at the end of the season.
“Everyone knows the expectations, we all want to achieve the same thing. We know how we can make our supporters proud, but the only thing we can influence is the next game, the game on Sunday, and we really try to focus on that.”
Hurzeler has sent the same message to his players in the build-up to the match against Carabao Cup winners Newcastle, who are pursuing one of five qualification slots for the Champions League.
“When our situation is discussed, it is always ‘we are three points behind Europe, or we are now in the place for Europe, or now we can achieve the Champions League’”, Hurzeler said.
“So, all of the performances and results, we get a connection to Europe, and I think that is not good for our processes, what we can take away from the last game, what we can do better for the next game.
“Sometimes I have the feeling we get a little bit distracted from our development, from our process, from our focus, and therefore I want to really focus on ourselves in the last games, to focus on the things we can influence on the pitch, and then let’s see what we get out (of it) at the end of the season.”
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