Former Crystal Palace owner questions whether Brighton boss can make step up to a 'bigger club'

The Italian succeeded Graham Potter as Albion's head coach in September 2022 after impressing at Sassuolo and Shakhtar Donetsk and his stock has only risen since then.

The 44-year-old secured a sixth-place Premier League finish, helped the Seagulls qualify for Europe for the first time in the club's history, and now they are in the knockout stages of the Europa League.

But former Crystal Palace owner Jordan feels much of his success is down to owner Tony Bloom running the Sussex side expertly to the Sussex side's recruitment success. Therefore, if those key ingredients weren't in place at a top team, Jordan is not so sure De Zerbi would thrive.

He said on talkSPORT: "I don't know whether he [De Zerbi] steps up. It's one thing coming from Shakhtar Donetsk and coming into a very decently built platform that he was able to bounce off. He was strong, [Leandro] Trossard wasn't what he wanted, so out the door he went (to Arsenal in January).

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"He has a brilliant recruitment backdrop that he's inherited, that is producing players he can work with, because he's been given the raw materials to turn them into better players. The culture of the team was already there, he's enhanced it."

Jordan, who is a boyhood Palace supporter and owned the club between 2000-2010, admitted he has a bias against the Eagles' bitter rivals but did add that De Zerbi and Brighton seem to be a good fit for one another.

"Whether he [De Zerbi] can step up into a different environment where the expectation levels are different, the size and scale and feel and heritage and legacy all weigh heavily in bigger clubs than they do at Brighton or Crystal Palace or any clubs in the middle tier of the Premier League, in this instance, Brighton are doing better," he added.

"It's not suggesting Brighton are not worthy of having his services or are not a good football club because we wax lyrical, made me feel ill yesterday (Tuesday) for the 20 minutes we talked about Brighton. But I question whether De Zerbi will be able to translate into a bigger club because it is yet to be proven. There's something about him that I don't warm to and that might just be because he's the Brighton manager, that may be my pre-ordained bias."