Contrary to how it might look, Fabian Huerzeler has apparently NOT been telling Carlos Baleba to shoot more often this season.

The powerful young Albion midfielder has certainly not been afraid to go for goal after being unleashed of late.

Across an admittedly small sample size, Baleba is averaging 2.7 goal attempts per game in the Premier League so far this season (as per whoscored.com).

That is the most by any Seagulls player (Danny Welbeck averages two per match) and well up on his figure of 0.8 goal attempts per game last season.

Recently, we have seen the Baleba cannonball which flattened Arsenal defender Gabriel before he thumped the rebound into the crowd.

There was a well-placed, well-struck effort early on against Ipswich which forced Arijanet Muric into his first save of a busy afternoon.

And then there was the one which brought him his first senior goal, to open the scoring against Wolves in midweek.

It is so easy to liken Baleba to predecessor Yves Bissouma, who also came from Lille with African origins, who also took a season to start making impact, who also loved a shot.

And who also opened his account in a cup tie – away to Bournemouth.

Baleba has seized an opportunity since Mats Wieffer, James Milner and Billy Gilmour dropped out of the picture for different reasons.

But he remains very much a work in progress.

Huerzeler made that clear in his press conference yesterday.

The head coach said: “I think he is a great player and he is developing fast, improving fast.

“He is adapting to the ideas very quick. He understands it.

“But, like I always say, he has so much potential. When we really go into details there are so many things where he can improve.

“Our job is to help him, give him this environment where he can improve and I have great staff, great experts who helped him every day.

“My assistant coaches, my analysts that work with him individually, Andrew Crofts, also Max Lesser, my analyst, work with him almost every day, talk to him every day, and that’s very important for young players, that they always get feedback - and fast feedback - after their performance.

“It’s very important to find a balance when giving a player positive feedback, but also saying to him, ‘You have to improve this and that’.

“I think that’s very important to not stagnate in your development, you have to always try to improve.”

So have they been encouraging Baleba to go for goal from that 20-25 yard range?

It was a question I meant to ask after the Ipswich game but was even more appropriate after the midweek cup tie.

So I asked it then instead Huerzeler paused for thought, then laughed and replied: “I wouldn’t say that I said to him, ‘Shoot more!’.

“It’s more about positioning, how you press, how you do rest defence and then automatically if you have good positioning, you will get these situations where you have maybe a little more space, where you can shoot.

“Of course it was a really nice goal from him.”

That theme of good start but lots to work on applies to Albion as a whole.

Huerzeler said: “I see the development. I see the improvement.

“Of course it doesn’t happen overnight, we have to be clear about that. It’s a process.

“There are some habits, what they had in the past and to change a habit takes time.

“That’s the natural way. But you can only do it by giving them feedback all the time, by working with them.

“That’s the key to what we try to do. And, on top of that, the most important is that the individual player wants to improve.

“What I recognise here is that every player has this mindset.

“They come to the training ground, they do everything they need for their body and for their mindset to improve themselves and to help the team.

“That’s always the basic thing. If you don’t have this you can sit in front of them and tell them, do that or that, but if they are not convinced and don’t want to, or they don’t have this inner motivation to improve themselves, you have no chance.”