Brighton brings in MMA fighters to help set-piece duels

“I don’t always want to be known as a club that is nice. In some moments you have to be quite resilient in personal conflicts.

“There are different ways to be resilient, to use a block, different strategies to win one-on-one duels – especially at set-pieces.

“An MMA fighter always has a one-on-one duel. They always have to find a way to beat their opponent. We try to take ideas from other sports and that was an idea we used. If that’s in the mind of a player, it’s always a positive thing.”

Only four teams in the Premier League have scored fewer goals than Brighton’s 13 from set-pieces this season.

“As a club we’re not known to be that dominant at set-pieces,” Herzeler added.

“We’ve never been known to just recruit for set-pieces so we’ve got to find ways to be innovative. We’ve got to find ways that we can’t be beaten so easily against taller teams.

“That’s what we deal with against Newcastle. We might not be as physical but in one-on-one duels in set-pieces you can defend and attack and that’s why we try to use techniques from MMA as well.”

Hurzeler himself first British boxer Harlem trained with Eubank.