EXCLUSIVE: Outsiders like me must adapt to the English way, says Poyet
Gus Poyet is pleased Luis Suarez has apologised for not shaking Patrice Evra’s hand, but believes more should be done to educate foreign players about the English game.
Sir Alex Ferguson said the Brighton manager’s comments were ‘inappropriate’ when Poyet defended his fellow Uruguayan last November, but Poyet insisted on Monday that the matter had gone ‘too far’.
Poyet has spoken to Suarez since his eight-match ban and admitted the striker was ‘on shaky ground’ by refusing Evra’s handshake at Old Trafford last Saturday.
But the 44-year-old added: ‘It was great the way he (Suarez) reacted and apologised - and Liverpool and Manchester United as well. You have to give great credit to them (United), accepting (the apology) straight away. Everyone should draw a line under it. It’s finished. I’m glad it’s over. It was going too far.’
Poyet, who has spent nearly 15 years in English football as a player, assistant and manager since joining Chelsea in 1997, believes more should be done to assimilate foreign players into the English game.
He said: ‘The Professional Footballers’ Association should look at it. They are responsible for the players - for good and for bad. That’s the real first job of the PFA.
‘(But) it works both ways. It’s the part of a player that he needs to put himself in a new situation and adapt very quickly and, of course, the part of the club. It would be unfair to make one or the other responsible.’
Poyet says he was one of the lucky ones. When he signed for Chelsea his Real Zaragoza teammate, Nayim, a former Tottenham Hotspur player, drilled him in the ways of English football.
‘Nayim didn’t stop telling me, “Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Don’t go with your hand. Don’t try to go down in the box if it’s not a penalty. They’ll kill you. It’s not acceptable in England”. And I was thinking: “Where am I going? To another planet?”’
But Nayim was right. After Poyet damaged a cruciate ligament and spent five-and-a-half months on the sidelines early in his Premier League career he realised English football sometimes operates in a different stratosphere. ‘You see people diving and you think that you did that once,’ said Poyet. ‘But now you think, “Stop! Don’t go down”.
‘Things happen in other countries that, in England, are not acceptable, and we need to realise that. It’s not that we are better or worse, we are just different.
‘We accept things that in England you don’t. We don’t accept things that you do. I’ve been here a long time to know that. You need to be in a place like England for at least a few months; I would say years.’
Poyet views the game from a unique angle. The Uruguayan has embraced this country and his youngest son, Diego, has even captained England’s Under 16 football team.
He loves the all-encompassing role of the English club manager, a role he has performed with such success since joining Brighton in November 2009.
He interviewed the kit man himself and has enjoyed learning from the new club doctor. Monday afternoon was spent at a meeting about Brighton’s new training ground.
Yet the former midfielder still knows what it feels like as the outsider, the ‘foreigner’ to use his word, looking in. He believes foreign players have improved the skill level of the top flight but thinks it would be fairer without that imported tendency to fall to the ground a little too easily. ‘If you didn’t bring in any foreigners in the 1990s English football would be totally different,’ he said. ‘It would be a little bit more fair (but) there would be terrible tackles, so it would go both ways.
‘Plenty of foreigners, not all of them, have done a lot for English football, probably worldwide - the quality of Zola, Bergkamp, Henry, Cantona. They made us, or helped English football, to be top in the world.
‘With that comes some negatives. You need to accept it - not just blame the foreigners one way and forget about what they did that’s good.’
This Sunday Poyet takes Brighton to Liverpool in the fifth round of the FA Cup, a competition the 2000 winner describes passionately as the ‘greatest in the world’.
He realised its importance when he noticed photographers circling during his first match for Chelsea at Hull City, anticipating ‘that picture of Chelsea losing against a lower division team’. ‘I thought, “I don’t want to be in that picture!”’ he said.
And Poyet fondly remembers the long walk from the tunnel in the last final at the old Wembley and his manager, Gianluca Vialli, wearing ‘a big flower’ on his suit.
He smiles when Brighton’s FA Cup history against Liverpool is mentioned: particularly the 2-1 win in 1983 that helped the club reach the final, where they lost to Manchester United in a replay. He hopes Saturday’s game at Anfield can re-inject some of that pleasure.
‘It would be nice,’ said the Brighton manager. ‘It would be great for everyone. It would be great for our fans, for Luis Suarez - if he doesn’t score, of course. It’s up to us to try to bring people together. It’s so important, football.’
Gus Poyet is pleased Luis Suarez has apologised for not shaking Patrice Evra’s hand, but believes more should be done to educate foreign players about the English game.
Sir Alex Ferguson said the Brighton manager’s comments were ‘inappropriate’ when Poyet defended his fellow Uruguayan last November, but Poyet insisted on Monday that the matter had gone ‘too far’.
Poyet has spoken to Suarez since his eight-match ban and admitted the striker was ‘on shaky ground’ by refusing Evra’s handshake at Old Trafford last Saturday.
But the 44-year-old added: ‘It was great the way he (Suarez) reacted and apologised - and Liverpool and Manchester United as well. You have to give great credit to them (United), accepting (the apology) straight away. Everyone should draw a line under it. It’s finished. I’m glad it’s over. It was going too far.’
Poyet, who has spent nearly 15 years in English football as a player, assistant and manager since joining Chelsea in 1997, believes more should be done to assimilate foreign players into the English game.
He said: ‘The Professional Footballers’ Association should look at it. They are responsible for the players - for good and for bad. That’s the real first job of the PFA.
‘(But) it works both ways. It’s the part of a player that he needs to put himself in a new situation and adapt very quickly and, of course, the part of the club. It would be unfair to make one or the other responsible.’
Poyet says he was one of the lucky ones. When he signed for Chelsea his Real Zaragoza teammate, Nayim, a former Tottenham Hotspur player, drilled him in the ways of English football.
‘Nayim didn’t stop telling me, “Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Don’t go with your hand. Don’t try to go down in the box if it’s not a penalty. They’ll kill you. It’s not acceptable in England”. And I was thinking: “Where am I going? To another planet?”’
But Nayim was right. After Poyet damaged a cruciate ligament and spent five-and-a-half months on the sidelines early in his Premier League career he realised English football sometimes operates in a different stratosphere. ‘You see people diving and you think that you did that once,’ said Poyet. ‘But now you think, “Stop! Don’t go down”.
‘Things happen in other countries that, in England, are not acceptable, and we need to realise that. It’s not that we are better or worse, we are just different.
‘We accept things that in England you don’t. We don’t accept things that you do. I’ve been here a long time to know that. You need to be in a place like England for at least a few months; I would say years.’
Poyet views the game from a unique angle. The Uruguayan has embraced this country and his youngest son, Diego, has even captained England’s Under 16 football team.
He loves the all-encompassing role of the English club manager, a role he has performed with such success since joining Brighton in November 2009.
He interviewed the kit man himself and has enjoyed learning from the new club doctor. Monday afternoon was spent at a meeting about Brighton’s new training ground.
Yet the former midfielder still knows what it feels like as the outsider, the ‘foreigner’ to use his word, looking in. He believes foreign players have improved the skill level of the top flight but thinks it would be fairer without that imported tendency to fall to the ground a little too easily. ‘If you didn’t bring in any foreigners in the 1990s English football would be totally different,’ he said. ‘It would be a little bit more fair (but) there would be terrible tackles, so it would go both ways.
‘Plenty of foreigners, not all of them, have done a lot for English football, probably worldwide - the quality of Zola, Bergkamp, Henry, Cantona. They made us, or helped English football, to be top in the world.
‘With that comes some negatives. You need to accept it - not just blame the foreigners one way and forget about what they did that’s good.’
This Sunday Poyet takes Brighton to Liverpool in the fifth round of the FA Cup, a competition the 2000 winner describes passionately as the ‘greatest in the world’.
He realised its importance when he noticed photographers circling during his first match for Chelsea at Hull City, anticipating ‘that picture of Chelsea losing against a lower division team’. ‘I thought, “I don’t want to be in that picture!”’ he said.
And Poyet fondly remembers the long walk from the tunnel in the last final at the old Wembley and his manager, Gianluca Vialli, wearing ‘a big flower’ on his suit.
He smiles when Brighton’s FA Cup history against Liverpool is mentioned: particularly the 2-1 win in 1983 that helped the club reach the final, where they lost to Manchester United in a replay. He hopes Saturday’s game at Anfield can re-inject some of that pleasure.
‘It would be nice,’ said the Brighton manager. ‘It would be great for everyone. It would be great for our fans, for Luis Suarez - if he doesn’t score, of course. It’s up to us to try to bring people together. It’s so important, football.’
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