'A lot of business' – Tony Bloom reveals another shrewd plan for next three transfer windows after £200m spend

Chairman Tony Bloom admits Brighton’s record breaking summer transfer window will not become the norm.

The Seagulls invested more than £200m on new recruits and were the highest net spenders across the major European leagues.

Albion’s transfer record was smashed as they paid £40m to Leeds United for Georginio Rutter and Yankuba Minteh arrived from Newcastle United for around £35m. Mats Wieffer, Mat O’Riley, Brajan Gruda and Ferdi Kadıoğlu all signed for around £25m each.

The recruitment drive significantly increased the size of Brighton’s squad and pushed a number of Albion’s talented youngsters out on loan. Valentin Barco, Facundo Buonanotte, Jeremy Sarmiento,

Ibrahim Osman, Malick Yalcouyé, Carl Rushworth and Amario Cozier-Duberry are now all gaining experience elsewhere.

It has provided impressive new head coach Fabian Hurzeler with plenty of attacking options and crucially for Brighton, they are now well covered should any key players move on in the coming windows.

Bloom, speaking to the Brighton podcast on the Albion website, said: “We have done a lot of business this transfer window and I'm not expecting that much in the next two or three windows, even if one or two of our keys players go. Because we have such strength coming through."

Bloom added: “We have spent a lot of money and I don't foresee that being the case in future in the next transfer windows, particularly with the amount of young players within the squad and also the ones we have brought and they have gone out on loan.

"They are really top top young players and on top of that we have some great prospects in our academy, some of them have now gone out on loan so we are in really good shape.”

Bloom admits paying big fees for players is a change from their recent more prudent approach but recent sales of Moises Caicedo, Marc Cucurella, Alexis Mac Allister, Ben White, Yves Bissouma, Rob Sanchez and Leo Trossard placed them on a sound financial footing. The Seagulls also took advantage of some club’s struggles to meet PSR targets – such as signing the excellent Minteh from Newcastle. Bloom said: “Ideally we don't have to spend big money on transfer fees for players right now. But circumstances have been that this season it has all come together and we have brought a lot of expensive players, who went into the first team squad straight away. You have to be opportunistic and look at the circumstances at the time.”