Brighton have their own blueprint and I think the club ultimately have put the structure in place for that.
Graham Potter led that and they have great experienced people right at the top, like Paul Barber, the chief executive. They have an understanding of the Premier League, of the structure, everything about what they need to do to go forward.
They were very quick in the recruitment when Potter went and they brought Roberto de Zerbi in. He's a wonderful coach and I've spoken to several players about the organisation, that belief, how he gets his points across and ultimately, if you're on that staff, you understand it. For assistant Andrea Maldera, who came in for the absent De Zerbi at the weekend, it was just a step forward and I don't think it's a huge thing for him to step in.
Ultimately it's a whole team. It's not just a manager thing, it goes right down now to medical staff, doctors, directors of football, the analysis team is so important too, set-piece coaches. Maldera understands what's needed and that's why they performed well against Spurs. It's a normal environment for them to take a team, it's just we don't see it at the front line, we'll see it on the training ground every day and we'll see it in non-competitive games.
If you were looking at succession planning, there is a blueprint and Brighton already have theirs. All clubs now have three or four on the list of potential managers, just in case anything happens. We're also seeing a lot of these assistants who've done well supporting coaches get given manager roles now so that wouldn't be out of the question if De Zerbi were to leave in the future.
Plymouth have done it, Leicester took Enzo Maresca from Man City and he's doing fantastically well, there's so many that we can talk about that have stepped up from an assistant role, so I think it's become more fashionable that people go for the understudies of real top coaches.
Michael Brown was speaking to BBC Sport's Nicola Pearson
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7o67CZ5qopV%2Bjsri%2Fjp6loKSRo7Fwv9Ssqp6w