Stato
Well-known member
- Dec 21, 2011
- 7,419
You missed: Came from 1 down to beat City and from 2 down to beat Spurs, held on against Bournemouth having played half an hour with 10 men, held on at St James Park, scored a late winner v Man Utd, got a draw away at Arsenal after being 1-0 down. It's a very competitive league and every team is going to have ups and downs. We have a very talented, but also very young squad and we have been without some leaders at crucial times, but you don't get the full picture of a team that sits in seventh if you cherry pick the negative.Our mentality is unforgivable.
2-1 V Forest at home. We aren’t ruthless enough to get the third or hold onto our lead. Yes Forest are alright but good teams with character get 3 points with 15 minutes to go or win it in the last 10 minutes V 10 men
2-0 up V Wolves at home until 88 minutes. Draw 2-2.
1-0 up V Liverpool and lose it in 3 minutes (a bit harsh I know but 2 goals in 3 minutes)
1-0 up at home to utter dogshit Southampton. 1-1 and could have lost.
2-0 up away to Leicester until 86 minutes. Bart plays a shit ball into the middle of the pitch. We don’t keep it, five players don’t pick up one of theirs and we know the rest….
Everybody in the league is our rival. Where the teams you mention haven't strengthened, others have. The incredible money spent by Chelsea over the last few seasons did not provide instant success, but it seems to have bedded in and is helping this year. On a smaller scale see also Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth.We have a wonderful opportunity this season. Our rivals (Newcastle, Villa, Spurs) not able to strengthen because of FFP, yet we can and spend £200m. City could get docked points. West Ham are shit. We have the players to get CL imo. Yet we are throwing it away.
Bournemouth, Brentford and Fulham all have higher net spends than we do over the last five years. They all have managers with experience in the division. Hurzeler is 15 games into his first EPL season. His win percentage is 44.44%. Frank's EPL record is 34.88%. Iraola's is 37.73%. Silva's is 35.48%. Fab's record could get worse, it could get better. It could stay the same. If it stays the same he will be the Brighton manager with the highest EPL win percentage. RDZ's was 37.14%.Teams with smaller budgets and squads could finish above us – Bournemouth, Brentford, Fulham. Fair play to them – they get the maximum from their players. It looks like they ahve stronger and better football managers sadly. Hurzelar doesn’t seem to have the gravitas needed and the players are all too comfortable.
We are a work in progress. A lot of new signings have joined a new coaching team and quite a few have had injury issues at the beginning of their Albion careers. As you have suggested, we have no right to win EPL matches and things are as good as they have ever been. However, it will always be a massive challenge and there will always be times when we feel frustrated by results. It's hard to cope with losing points in moments, but it was also hard when we dominated matches, but couldn't score. Let's face it. It will always be hard. The only thing we can do, whenever there are knock backs, is follow Micky Adams sage advice and keep the faith.