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[Football] SAMI - 10 years on



chaileyjem

#BarberIn
NSC Patron
Jun 27, 2012
14,678
Felt sorry for Sami, I liked the wingback system and felt like we played good football under him. Just couldn't get results with a Poundshop team that had about six loans and looked like it had been cobbled together last minute
Joe Bennett is still a professional footballer but probably not what Sami had in mind at the time.
 






ROSM

Well-known member
Dec 26, 2005
6,863
Just far enough away from LDC
I'm sure i've seen somehwere in a lovely graph - and still surprised to this day - that the player budget actually went down that season. and i think it was the only year in Bloom era that this was the case. Have you ever worked out why or the rationale for that ? (David Burke ? Expected signings not going through ? Bloom having wobbles ? Not trusting Hyypia ? )
It was soon after ffp was announced and barber and bloom were trying to cut their cloth accordingly given previous spending decisions. Rumour has it that's why Oscar left as he knew what was coming.

Burke and his predecessor were both appalling in different ways.
 




Insel affe

HellBilly
Feb 23, 2009
24,497
Brighton factually.....
I remember the game well, I took my dad for his one and only game at the Amex, there was a feeling of impending doom throughout the night. As others have alluded to Brighton fans fighting each other about two rows down from us, the Millwall retreat, there was a feeling of despair around the stadium. However we were not terrible, terrible, we lacked quality and depth at times we did play nice football and got into good positions which I guess made the feeling of frustration worse. I think ultimately Sami lost the dressing room and good will of the fans and board, shame really, but we moved on.
It was not on the level we had been, it helped us focus and re directed Blooms plan, so all good.
 






jcdenton08

Offended Liver Sausage
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Oct 17, 2008
15,034
I don’t think it would’ve made that much difference, but our transfer business the previous few windows had been dire, he had a poor squad to choose from during his tenure. But his tactics were unforgivable, the full backs pushed wide and wide hugging the touchlines, we conceded so many goals that way and he refused to change
 


Commander

Arrogant Prat
NSC Patron
Apr 28, 2004
13,655
London
That game was by far the worst atmosphere I've ever seen at the Amex. I remember being shocked at the players visibly giving up after going 1-0 down, and thinking that has to be it for Sami now. Someone next to me held up a sign saying 'Time to go Sami' or something, and someone else marched over and ripped it up. Stewards were getting involved and I remember a few people being kicked out.

I don't think we'd really grown into the Amex or the new BHAFC at that point. I think we still had that dickhead Richard Hebbard in charge of 'safety' which meant constant issues between the stewards and the fans in the North, and David Burke doing a dreadful job in transfers resulting in third-rate dross on the pitch. We are so lucky that we have an owner that can recognise his mistakes and bad hires and learn from them and improve, rather than doubling down to prove he was right. The club is-almost unrecognisable from those days in some ways.
 




CheeseRolls

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jan 27, 2009
6,249
Shoreham Beach
Felt sorry for Sami, I liked the wingback system and felt like we played good football under him. Just couldn't get results with a Poundshop team that had about six loans and looked like it had been cobbled together last minute
Nathan Jones took over for two games, a draw and a win, which was enough to get us out of the bottom three, before Chris Hughton took over.
David Burke was sacked without notice.

Bruno was rendered virtually useless under the Hypia system, I genuinely thought he might retire there and then. Our attacks featured four players strung midway across the opposition half all of whom believed their team mates only needed to give them ball and watch with admiration as they launched a long range thunderbolt or dribbled past five players for a tap in. There was nothing progressive about this system, I can remember.

If you look at the Tony Bloom master plan, I think he has always been prepared to take a backward step in order to move forward. Recruitment was poor under Burke, but the effort and finance required to jump to a Category A training facility, had a huge long term impact and was a massive step up from borrowing university pitches.

Often Burke like Poyet is painted as the bad guy. Ultimately we parted company with both and probably at the right time too, but I suspect that they deserve more credit than they are sometimes given.
 


Black Rod

Well-known member
Jan 19, 2013
988
I'm sure i've seen somehwere in a lovely graph - and still surprised to this day - that the player budget actually went down that season. and i think it was the only year in Bloom era that this was the case. Have you ever worked out why or the rationale for that ? (David Burke ? Expected signings not going through ? Bloom having wobbles ? Not trusting Hyypia ? )

It is forgotten that Poyet's "glass ceiling" comments after the Palace game were partly in relation to FFP. He said in the same press conference Brighton had big problems as a result, or something along those lines

Oscar presumably foresaw the same problems 12 months later, which is why he resigned. And it ended up being Hyypia who was in charge of a load of crap players signed on loan when the budget was cut
 


Guinness Boy

Tofu eating wokerati
Helpful Moderator
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Jul 23, 2003
37,670
Up and Coming Sunny Portslade
My son's first full season so he's been a STH for 10 years now! His first away was Charlton later that season under Hughton where a Rohan Ince header scraped us a 1-0 win, the players celebrated the goal right in front of us and him and his 8 year old mate heard 3000 Brighton sing 'you can stick that f**ing drum up your arse".

But for Hughton and signing Beram Kayal we'd have gone down. Burke remains the most clueless employee we've ever had under Bloom but Sami has to take some of the blame for sticking with ridiculous tactics in the face of a squad more suited to the Dog and Duck. However, there remains a part of me that remains very jealous that while I saw a great deal of awful third and fourth division he's never seen below Championship. At his age at the end of last season I was doing aways to Gillingham, Aldershot and Chester. He's done Amsterdam, Rome, Old Trafford, Spurs and many more. :rant:
 




mejonaNO12 aka riskit

Well-known member
Dec 4, 2003
22,023
England
It was such a bleak time that people were saying Rohan Ince was a good midfielder. Like being in an abusive relationship and saying "yeah I get all that, but they make a BRILLIANT Apple Crumble".

Our little group would sit there and think we were mad for not seeing what everyone else was going on about. He couldn't control the ball.

Looking at his career he played 12 games next year and then begun the fall down the divisions

Such an odd time.
 


chaileyjem

#BarberIn
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Jun 27, 2012
14,678
Yes. Of course David Burke was sacked on Xmas Eve - Hallelujah - once Tony had come back from Australia to hold the ultimately successful chats with Hughton.
Someone called Paul Winstanley emerged as his replacement. Whatever happened to him ?
 








chaileyjem

#BarberIn
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Jun 27, 2012
14,678
Adrian Colunga , who seemed exciting (Spanish !, er, thats it) is now 40 years old, barely played any more football for a variety of clubs - including incredibly a couple of appearances for Goa ! - after leaving the Albion and retired in 2017.
 


jackalbion

Well-known member
Aug 30, 2011
5,057
That game was my 18th Birthday, dropped my first ever legally bought pint on the floor of the swan, summed up the rest of my drinking career really. Took the Dutch exchange student from school who took a lot of delight at watching the Millwall fans storm the home end from WSU. The only time I remember the Amex becoming truly toxic, didn't Watto have an altercation with some in the West Stand halfway through the second half? Danny Shittu had an excellent game for the 'wall.
 


chaileyjem

#BarberIn
NSC Patron
Jun 27, 2012
14,678
I think it all started to go wrong - recruitment wise - when Stephen Ward understandably changed his mind at the last minute and chose PL football with Burnley. And weren't we close to signing Lewis Grabban from Bournemouth but he went to Norwich instead ?
 








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