According to Sky Sports, Brighton & Hove Albion have completed a double raid on the Polish top-flight for highly-rated duo Jakub Moder and Michal Karbownik, with both players joining the Seagulls before the international summer deadline on October 5.
Moder has joined Graham Potter’s side on a five-year deal from Lech Poznan for £6million, while Karbownik has also been roped in from Legia Warsaw on a four-year deal for around £3million. However, both players have been loaned straight back to their former clubs in the Polish top-flight to allow them to further their development with regular first-team football. (h/t Sky Sports)
Jakub Moder initially impressed for Lech Poznan’s reserve side in the lower divisions before establishing himself as a first-team regular last season. The central midfielder registered 5 goals and 5 assists in 26 league appearances in the previous campaign as Lech Poznan finished runners-up in the Polish Ekstraklasa.
The 21-year-old has carried on from where he signed off last term, accumulating 2 goals and 3 assists in 10 appearances across all competitions while helping his side qualify for the group stages of the Europa League.
Michal Karbownik, on the other hand, burst on to the first-team picture at Legia Warsaw last season after a string of impressive displays for the club’s reserve side in 2018-19. The 19-year-old bagged 7 assists in 28 appearances as Legia won the domestic top-flight title in Poland.
The highly-rated teenager has already made 8 appearances in all competitions this season so far. Unlike Moder, though, Karbownik will not feature in the group stages of the Europa League this year after Legia Warsaw’s qualification campaign ended at the playoff stage against Qarabag.
Karbownik has largely featured as a left-back in his senior career so far but he is versatile enough to play as a full-back and as a wing-back on either side of the pitch while also boasting the necessary attributes to slot into a midfield role.
Brighton have put a lot of emphasis on enriching their ranks with top-quality young talent following their promotion to the Premier League. The Seagulls roped in Alexis MacAllister from Argentina back in January before adding highly-rated Swiss striker Andi Zeqiri and Dutch starlet Jan Paul van Hecke to their squad earlier in the summer.
To that end, the acquisition of Jakub Moder and Michal Karbownik represents a continuation of the same policy. The Polish duo will not play a part for the Seagulls in the Premier League this season but Brighton now stand a good chance of benefitting from their massive potential moving forward.
Karbownik and Moder have excelled at two of the biggest clubs in Poland – Legia Warsaw and Lech Poznan respectively – while the fact that both players recently made their senior debut for Poland lies testament to their rapid progress over the past 12 months.
The decision to loan them back to the Polish top-flight certainly makes sense, given their prospects of playing regular first-team football certainly look better in their homeland at this stage. Moreover, it will be interesting to see how Moder fares for Poznan in the group stages of the Europa League this season.
The Seagulls currently have Bernardo as their only specialist left-back option and Karbownik could stake a claim for a place in the first-team moving forward if he continues his development in the right direction.
Moder, meanwhile, perfectly fits the mould of a goalscoring central midfielder who could compete with the likes of Pascal Gross, Yves Bissouma, and MacAllister for a place in the team next season. All in all, Brighton’s deadline day swoop for the Polish duo could pay off handsomely for their long-term plans under Graham Potter.