Maxim De Cuyper was set to start out of position as a left winger when Brighton and Hove Albion hosted Aston Villa on Sunday, with Fabian Hurzeler making one change from his final pre-season line-up. Lewis Dunk came in for Ferdi Kadioglu, but it was De Cuyper’s name that stood out because the move shifted him away from a natural defensive role and into a more advanced one.
The match was due to kick off at 2pm BST on the south coast, and Brighton’s team sheet underlined how Hurzeler was reshaping his side for the opening Premier League test. Verbruggen, Wieffer, Vuskovic, Boscagli, Ayari, Gross, Gomez, Hinshelwood, De Cuyper and Rutter all started, with Steele, Struijk, Promise, Osman, Kostoulas, Costinha, Svoboda, Yalcouye and Yohanna among the substitutes. That put De Cuyper in the spotlight as the player most likely to be asked to cover the left side higher up the pitch.
There was a simple reason for the adjustment. Kadioglu was out with a minor injury, and Brighton had to decide whether to keep the back line intact or shift the balance elsewhere. Hurzeler chose the latter, using Dunk to fill the gap in the lineup and leaving De Cuyper to absorb the knock-on effect, even if that meant asking him to play in a less familiar role.
Brighton’s selection also sat against the absence of Emiliano Martinez and Ollie Watkins from the Aston Villa squad, both missing because of ongoing transfer uncertainty. That removed two familiar names from the opposition and added another layer of unpredictability to a match already shaped by Brighton’s own selection puzzle. For De Cuyper, the immediate question was not whether he would play, but how often Brighton would keep him high and wide before the game settled into its rhythm.
