Brighton announce squad numbers for 2018-19 season

Brighton and Hove Albion have announced their squad numbers ahead of the 2018-19 Premier League campaign with some notable changes.

Perhaps the most notable is that after three seasons with the number 10 shirt, Tomer Hemed will now wear 25. New signing Florin Andone takes over Hemed’s old number.

That can be taken one of two ways. Most likely is that Hemed doesn’t feature highly in Chris Hughton’s plans for this season and so his number has been given to Andone who does. Alternatively, Hemed has been given the honour of taking over the shirt worn by arguably the Albion’s greatest ever striker, Bobby Zamora. It has of course been worn by less great strikers such as Steve Claridge and Mark McCammon.

Uwe Hunemeier’s return to Padeborn has freed up the number 4 shirt which Shane Duffy will now wear after switching from 22. The club have refused to confirm if this is because four is the number of times he slept with Katie Price during their ill-fated fling earlier in the summmer.

Jurgen Locadia is also on the move, taking over the number 9 shirt vacated by Sam Baldock. Nine was of course the number of gilt-edged opportunities Locadia spurned when he was last seen on the pitch in the 2-1 pre-season friendly defeat at AFC Wimbledon.

Of the other new signings, the Albion’s record buy Alireza Jahanbakhsh will wear 16, taking over from the great Casper Ankergren. £15m man Yves Bissouma has been handed number 8, Leon Balogun will wear 14 which is a number sported by defensive greats such as Robbie Pethick and Guy Butters and Bernardo gets number 30.

David Button and Jason Steele, Brighton’s two new goalkeepers, will wear 27 and 23 respectively.

Only 24 numbers have been issued with the Premier League allowing a maximum of a 25 man senior squad to be named. That suggests the 25th place will either be taken by a new signing or Oliver Norwood may yet be handed a number as he remains absent from the list.