Andrew Crofts will have a role to play in helping Roberto De Zerbi settle at Albion.

The new head coach and his staff arrive at the club’s Lancing base today.

Crofts, the former skipper and now under-21s head coach, has been in interim charge of the first team.

Albion chief executive and deputy chairman Paul Barber said De Zerbi will be given help in settling.

But the club’s top men have been hugely impressed by how much De Zerbi already knows about the players he will inherit as successor to Graham Potter.

Barber told TalkSPORT today: “Andrew Crofts has been working with the first team during this interim period, has been with the club for a long while both as a player and a coach with our under-21s.

“Andrew will work with Roberto when he comes in as well.

“He (De Zerbi) will be bringing in a small group with him. People he has worked with before, and speak English, that he trusts.

“All of them, of course, are going to be new to the Premier League, as were Graham and his staff.

“That is the period of adjustment we have got to make.

“The staff we put around him, the guys who know the Premier League rhythms and routines, the way we prepare our players for games, the training routines, they are all still here.

“So are the video analysists who prepare us for games, prepare the coaches for games. All of those people are still here.

“It is certainly never easy to replace six people in one go but, thankfully, we have got a very stable group of people around the first team who will still be here and will be here waiting for Roberto this afternoon.”