Brighton: Fabian Huzeler says he does not ‘fear’ losing key players to bigger clubs

The Seagulls ended their pre-season unbeaten run with a 2-1 victory over Wolfsburg on Saturday, with Maxim de Cuyper, a 24-year-old Belgian defender signed for a reported £17.5m, scoring his first goal for the club.

Baleba was absent as he continues to recover from a knee injury sustained in June, but is expected to be back for the opener against Marco Silva’s Fulham.

Brighton chairman Paul Barber said during a fan forum he hopes Baleba, who has three years left on his contract at Amex Stadium, stays “for years to come” – but could not make any promises.

Hurzeler, meanwhile, did not speak about Baleba’s situation when appearing on the Monday Night Club.

“It’s not easy, but we proved last season that we are a very competitive team,” he said about whether he feels frustrated when players are linked with rival clubs.

“Without Joao Pedro, for sure, he was an unbelievable player. But we can’t replace him with one player, but we can replace him as a team. And that’s our focus.”

Brazil forward Joao Pedro joined Chelsea for £60m on an eight-year contract this summer.

Hurzeler continued: “We as a club always find solutions and I’m sure in the future we will find solutions. That’s our model, we have to accept it.

“I think that as a club we have proved we are not only selling big players. We have had offers for other players – big offers for [Kaoru] Mitoma and other players. We proved that we are not selling every player.

“Of course there were some big players who left the club, but there are new players that are coming into the club. With the togetherness we have, with the team chemistry we have, we can compete with the big teams, and we can compete with teams who might be individually better than us.”