Brighton head coach, Roberto De Zerbi has played down talks of a potential departure from the Amex Stadium in the near future, amid reported interest from bigger football clubs.

De Zerbi has done brilliantly at Brighton since taking over as their manager after Graham Potter went to join Chelsea (albeit briefly) in 2022.

The 44-year-old led Brighton to a sixth-placed finish in the Premier League for the first time in the club’s history last season, and has played a particularly attractive brand of football during his time at the Amex.

Despite losing some of his best players, including Moises Caicedo, Robert Sanchez and Alexis Mac Allister to rival clubs in the last summer transfer window, De Zerbi’s Brighton are currently ninth on the league table, which would explain why the likes of Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United are all said to be interested in hiring the Italian.

There’s also rumoured interest in De Zerbi from his home country, where he previously worked as manager of Sassuolo.

Ahead of his side’s Europa League clash with AS Roma, Roberto De Zerbi spoke about a possible exit from Brighton.

“It’s not true that I don’t think about it, but usually I do what I like,” said the former Shakhtar Donetsk manager.

“I do what makes me happy and right now it is to be where I am.

“I’m lucky now to be able to compete with these teams at this level to play these games.

“It makes me happy when we win but also when we lose, I feel something special.”

He later said: “One day I will come back to Italy, I don’t know when this day will come.

“But it’s true that when I made this choice a couple of years ago to go to Shakhtar, I did it because I wanted to find a way outside Italy and, without going into too much detail, there were some things in Italy that I didn’t like so I decided to try something else.”