This season Brighton are continuing that good form that they showed during the last Sky Bet Championship campaign, in fact they are bettering it and sit in second place and eight points clear of thrid and the last of the play-off places.
Led by the 14-goal Glenn Murray, the Seagulls are soaring in the upper levels of the table and, on current form of 2.6 points per game over their last 10 outings, look set to top 100 points for the season. However, both form and fate are fickle partners and can conspire to bring a side to its knees.
Deprived of form, results going against them, any side tends to suffer a slide. That’s not to say that this will happen at the AMEX, but teams tend to be wary of this and it becomes something that is often a guide point for their dealings in the transfer market. The winter transfer window is about to open in just under two weeks’ time and Brighton are said to be pursuing Derby star Johnny Russell according to a report in The Sun.
The Sun say that Chris Hughton’s Brighton are “lining up a £1.5m swoop” for Russell wit hboss Hughton thinking that Russell “might be tempted as he has been in and out of Steve McClaren’s side” in this season’s campaign.
26-year-old Russell, a Scotland international, has made 17 appearances for Derby this season (12 starts) and earned 1,084 minutes of game time – around 63 minutes per appearance. During that time he has scored just the one time and looks unlikely to be able to match his stellar season of 2015/16 where he made 47 appearances (including play-offs), netting 10 times and laying on eight assists for teammates.
Due to the calibre of Russell, The Sun admit that “the Rams will be hard to deal with”, then going on to say that they [Derby] are keen on Wigan’s speedy Dutchman Yanic Wildschut.
