Goodbye, sweet prince – Glenn Murray signs for Nottingham Forest

Goodbye, sweet prince. It was the news every Brighton fan knew was coming but which nobody wanted to hear – Glenn Murray has left the Seagulls to sign a permanent contract with Nottingham Forest, marking the end of an era in Albion history.

In two separate spells spread over 12 years, Murray scored more goals than any Brighton striker has managed since World War II. His haul of 111 is only bettered by Tommy Cook who bagged 123 throughout the 1920s and 1930s.

Murray fired the Albion to promotions from League One and the Championship. He scored 36% of the Albion’s goals in their first two seasons in the Premier League – no club has ever been so reliant on one man to score for them since top flight football was invented by Sky Sports in 1992.

He played at two different home grounds and under six different Albion managers. And all along the way, he has earned the right to be named alongside Peter Ward and Bobby Zamora as the very best strikers ever to play for Brighton. Not bad going for a bloke who also fired Crystal Palace to promotion.

Can Glenn Murray now help Nottingham Forest do the same? Probably not this season. The Tricky Trees are more concerned with events at the other end of the Championship table, sitting three points above the relegation zone but with Rotherham United immediately below them having two games in hand.

What Murray will bring to the City Ground though is goals. Age should not be a problem; he has never been a player who relied on pace. With Chris Hughton knowing better than anyone how to get the best out of Murray and Anthony Knockaert supplying the ammunition, Murray just needs to get himself into the right place at the right time to score.

He has always done that. Ever since Brighton paid what was at the time a staggeringly large £300,000 fee to Rochdale for Murray’s services, he has known where the goal is.

Two goals on his home debut against Crewe Alexandra was a good start, but it would be rewriting history a bit to suggest that Murray was universally popular in his first few years at Withdean, or that anybody could have predicted back then that he would go onto pass a century of Brighton goals.

There were constant rumours that Murray and his wife were not happy in Brighton and wanted to return to the north. Hernia issues meant he was on the treatment table for long periods of times and some Albion fans could not forgive him because he did not clap the away end after a 0-0 draw at Brentford in August 2009.

His nickname of the ‘League One Berbatov’ was as much a reflection of his perceived lack of effort as it was his skillset as a target man. And then Gus Poyet He Who Must Not Be Named arrived as Albion manager and everything changed.

Poyet You Know Who built a team in which Murray and Ashley Barnes could thrive. Murray’s injury troubles became a thing of the past and he scored 22 times as Brighton romped to the 2010-11 League One title.

Despite his goal laden campaign, Poyet You Know Who did not feel that Murray was worth the modest pay rise the player was after. Craig Mackail-Smith was signed for £2.5 million as a replacement and Murray allowed to leave on a free.

With no desire to move away from Sussex where Murray and his family were now settled, he decided to sign for Crystal Palace. As Poyet The Dark Lord, Mackail-Smith and Brighton huffed and puffed to try and get out of the Championship, Murray scored 30 times to lead Palace to promotion.

To make matters worse, he always seemed to score against Brighton too. In both Palace and Reading colours, Murray returned to haunt the Albion, although he never celebrated despite the abuse being hauled at him by supporters who could never forgive that move to Selhurst Park.

When Hughton brought Murray home from Plucky Little Bournemouth in 2016, there were still fans who were not willing to forgive and forget. They said that he was not good enough for the Championship anymore and was far too old at 33; statements which Murray proved were complete nonsense.

He scored 23 times in the 2016-17 promotion season. Once in the top flight, 14 goals followed in 2017-18 to spark a Glenn Murray for England campaign ahead of the 2018 World Cup.

Murray then notched 15 times in 2018-19, including his landmark 100th goal against Wolverhampton Wanderers, which he celebrated by bringing back ‘The Glenn’ celebration from his first spell at the club. The gesture has become a popular form of a traditional greeting in pubs and clubs around Brighton since 2010.

That 2018-19 season saw Murray convert 25.6% of the shots he took at a better ratio than Mo Salah, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Sergio Aguero. Only Anthony Martial and Sadio Mane were more clinical than Murray in Hughton’s final season at the helm.

Graham Potter was never convinced by Murray’s goal record or his clinical finishing ability, sadly. Murray only made seven Premier League starts in 2019-20 and there were numerous occasions when it was blindingly obvious that Potter did not fancy him as a player.

The most notable of those came at Plucky Little Bournemouth in January’s 3-1 defeat. Potter threw on Leandro Trossard and Solly March but kept Murray on the bench as an unused substitute with the new wingers tossing crosses into the box for the hobbit-sized strike duo of Aaron Connolly and Neal Maupay to try and win in the air.

Murray was recalled for the next game away at West Ham United and netted a vital equaliser in the 3-3 draw at the London Stadium. His appearances remained sporadic even though he did all that was asked of him on the rare occasions he was used, including setting up Maupay’s opener away at Southampton.

There was little point in Murray spending his last years rusting away on the Brighton bench. He sought first team football but a summer loan move to Watford turned into a complete disaster with Murray hardly playing. In recent weeks, he had been made to train alone by the Hornets.

By that point, there was a growing clamour for Potter to recall Murray. Leaving the club’s second-highest ever goal scorer to rot in Hertfordshire did not sit well with many Brighton fans, especially as his experience and finishing ability could have been put to better use on the training ground at Lancing.

Who better to teach Maupay, Connolly and Alireza Jahanbakhsh how not to miss from two yards out than a man who has made a career out of scoring such opportunities? Murray as an attack coach, we could but dream.

Instead, Glenn Murray now links up again with Hughton at Nottingham Forest. After 285 games, Murray’s Brighton career is over. If the club have any sense, they will invite Murray back to the Amex as soon as the stadium is open at full capacity to get the send off he deserves – as one of the best Albion players ever.

Goodbye, sweet prince.