Brighton defender assesses 'passionate' Roberto De Zerbi's tactics and coaching style

The central defender made the comments following Albion’s 1-0 loss to Tottenham on Saturday (October 8), in De Zerbi’s first home game in charge of the south coast club and second overall since taking over from Graham Potter.

Despite not winning either of his first two games, Webster believes Albion have played well under De Zerbi’s leadership.

Webster said: “He’s got his own ideas which he is getting across to us, it’s going to take time for us to pick it up. We’ve only had this whole week to work on things, but you can see it already coming out today, there were some nice patterns, but we were just lacking that killer pass.”

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In De Zerbi’s first game as manager, Brighton drew 3-3 with Liverpool in a thrilling and entertaining game, with Leandro Trossard becoming only the third opposition player in Premier League history to score a hat-trick at Anfield.

The Italian has made it clear he expects his Albion side to have more possession of the ball then they did under Potter’s stewardship, placing a greater emphasis on playing out from the back and demanding a higher intensity of pressing in the attacking areas of the pitch.

These ideas could be seen at Anfield and then at the Amex Stadium this weekend, where Albion were unlucky to not to come away from the game with a positive result, with a single Harry Kane goal enough for Antonio Conte’s side to take all three points home.

Webster said of De Zerbi’s tactics: “He wants us to dominate play from the back, it’s how we can react off the pressure to make space and get the 10s and the midfielders on the ball. We have to take risks and as long as we are in the right positions, it will come.

“He [De Zerbi] has been really good so far, he’s passionate, which is good, you want that and he gets his message across. The relationship he has got so far with all of us is brilliant. It’s really good to have.”

De Zerbi will search for his first win as manager this Friday night (October 14) when his Brighton side travel to Brentford.