- Oct 20, 2022
- 7,223
Fair post as a retrospective analysis but you’ve neglected to mention another kind of fan that I suspect form the silent majority of members who’ve neither been swept up in the ‘schizophrenia’, nor been pessimistic or overly optimistic, nor have slagged off our manager or individual players left right and centre, nor have blindly defended them at every turn …I'm sure its not just me that's got a little worn out by the schizophrenia on this board of late. Win a game and we're heading for the Champions League. Lose a game and we should sack the manager. Two up on Leicester and we're ole ole-ing our way to Europe. Terrible 45 minutes against Palace and the NSC collective is pensioning off Dunk, slagging off Pedro, fretting about Mitoma and calling Fab all names under the sun. We're so miserable that a thread suggesting the return of Potter isn't filled with wall-to-wall vitriol against our teeth-sucking former boss!
Perhaps - perhaps - it might just be time to cool the hyperbole a little?
I think there has been all kinds of naivety amongst Brighton fans this season. The silly kind - those who think that football is easy and our baby-faced manager and bunch of kids on the pitch should by rights be swatting aside all and sundry, who become horribly disappointed and rather angry when we don't; and the fairer kind, those of us who just really wanted to believe in fairy tales, that this wunderkind and his crew really were going to keep it up all season and march us into Europe, despite all the logic which says that just isn't possible - I'm one of those, and its a bit sad when reality punched us in the face. But that's left a gap in the 'realism' corner, which seems to have been filled by the pessimists who think we are permanently shite. Normally confined to the matchday thread, they are popping up everywhere with their special brand of misery.
We should all of us have been expecting a bumpy ride with ups and downs, and we should all of us be pleased that there have been more ups than downs so far. Its not a bad reality in the great scheme of things, despite listening to those f***ing Palace twats belting out three years worth of songs that they've been saving up for a win over us....
People like me who always saw Hürzeler as a talented young manager who could be the next step in our development but not someone who was going to lead us to overnight top 6 and a return to Europe necessarily this season. Some who who build on the football we have played in the past 4 or 5 seasons but appreciated that with a number of new signings of players with little or no experience of the Premier League, led by a manager who likewise had no experience of the EPL, that this was a long term project by the Club.
We will very likely finish as a top ten Club this season, we have players showing great promise, including some currently on loan. We have improved on our intensity and aggressiveness as an attacking team, an area we were lacking at times under Potter - we haven’t yet improved on our defensive game and still show the weaknesses in finishing we showed under De Zerbi. It is just a question of whether you are a fan who wants instant gratification and think for us “success” only means Europe/top 6 this season, or whether you are a fan who can see us continuing to develop the players we have and have a manager that can improve on those weaknesses mentioned.
I still see a young manager who is very capable of developing as a Premier League manager and accept that this season is largely about building a solid squad who can not only continue to consolidate us as a top 10 side but one that will have a good chance of qualifying for Europe within the next few seasons.
We have had highs and lows in our game (some embarrassingly low) and have yet again been impacted by injuries (especially at the back) but it is still levelling out as a fairly average season for us one way or another and part of our overall trajectory as a Club, which has always been 2 steps forward, one step back.