Roberto De Zerbi has challenged his Albion midfielders to step up next season.

The head coach expects to invest in the transfer market and has already dropped a major hint that Mahmoud Dahoud could arrive as a free agent.

But he says there are others who can shine if, as expected, at least one of this season’s stars moves on.

Alexis Mac Allister appeared to say farewell to fans at Villa Park on Sunday and Moises Caicedo could also depart.

The Seagulls boss said: “We can still improve. We can bring in other good players and we can improve in the same way.

“We need to improve the squad from the transfer market.

“But I think Bill Gilmour is improving and is another player in respect to last year, for example, or in January.

“Pascal Gross is playing midfielder and his performances were fantastic.

“Then we will see in the transfer market because next year we will play four competitions and the Premier League will be even tougher for us, for sure.”

Yasin Ayari was given 45 minutes at Villa while Jakub Moder has missed the entire season due to injury.

De Zerbi said: “The result we achieved this year was incredible and I think Tony (Bloom, chairman), me, Paul Barber (deputy chairman and chief executive) and David Weir (technical director), we have the aim to improve this result.

“I will go home to Italy and I will work with Tony and the club to improve the squad to prepare the new season.

“This season was fantastic. We have to try to improve on this season.”