Mats Wieffer of Brighton & Hove Albion challenges Jack Grealish of Evertonplaceholder image
Mats Wieffer of Brighton & Hove Albion challenges Jack Grealish of Everton
All the latest team news from the Amex Stadium as Brighton and Hove Albion host Manchester City
Brighton will be without the services of Mats Wieffer for the Premier League clash against Manchester City.
Wieffer has started the first two Premier League matches of the season against Fulham and Everton but the game against Pep Guardiola’s City arrived too soon.
Sussex World understands that he misses out today due to a "minor knee issue."
Fellow Dutchman Joel Veltman is promoted to the starting XI as a replacement as the 33-year-old makes his first Premier League appearance on the season.
Wieffer had a tough afternoon last weekend against Everton’s Jack Grealish at the Hill Dickinson Stadium.
The former Feyenoord man was just starting to establish himself as Fabian Hurzeler’s first choice right back and he will hope to be back in action after the international break.
Confirmed team news
Brighton XI: Verbruggen, Dunk, Van Hecke, Minteh, Hinshelwood, Baleba, Welbeck, Mitoma, Gomez, De Cuyper, Veltman. Subs: Steele, Gruda, Rutter, Milner, Boscagli, Kadioglu, Ayari, O'Riley, Coppola
Manchester City XI: Trafford, Reijnders, Stones, Marmoush, Rodri, Silva, Ait-Nouri, Nunes, Khusanov, Bobb, Haaland.
Subs: Ederson, Dias, Ake, Doku, Gonzalez, Gundogan, Akanji, O'Reilly, Lewis.
Why Brighton’s Greek strikers are missing
Hurzeler was delighted Stefanos Tzimas scored twice in midweek in the Carabao Cup against Oxford. But both Tzimas and Charalampos Kostoulas are yet feature in the Premier League.
"So we are all happy that Stef scores, that he makes his debut, that he shows why we signed him. On the other side, for me, it's always important to watch the games in context.
"The game was already 3-0 to us. The game was decided, the game was done. Because of that it might be easier to get into a game with a different intensity.
"Then we have a Premier League game, so it's very important that we have context to his performance. But on the other side, for sure, every goal gives him self-confidence.
"Every goal gets him closer to the team, every performance, every minute he receives gets him closer to the team. And that's also what we see daily in training.
"It's step one and there needs to be more steps for him to be ready. It might be the next step at the weekend, it might be the next step that he gets some minutes in the under-21s, so we will have to figure it out together.
"With the medical team, together with him, what is the next perfect step for him to get ready for us in Premier League.”
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