Can Poyet make Seagulls fly?

It was impossible not to feel uplifted.

Gus Poyet is smiling after a positive start at Brighton

Under blue skies with a glorious late autumn sun painting the rolling hills of the South Downs every shade of green, Gus Poyet wore the broadest of smiles.

Two games played as Brighton manager - two games won.

It has been a good start for the former Chelsea, Tottenham and Uruguay midfielder as manager of a club that has known so many bad times in recent years.

We spoke at the club's training ground at the University of Sussex in Falmer, just outside the city, on the morning after the FA Cup replay win over Wycombe.

Sharing facilities with the students is far from ideal but the setting is idyllic and, if you didn't know the area, it would remind you why some local eco-campaigners were up in arms about the building of the new Brighton stadium just down the hill.

I never bought into that argument though. A two-minute drive away from the training pitches, the throbbing A27 slices right through Falmer, which is hardly a quaint hamlet.

A total of 15,000 students attend the University of Sussex on the north side, 21,000 have access to Brighton University across the road and the busy railway track that runs right by a highly popular sports centre and the new stadium.

I drove to the sports centre every day for four years. It never seemed to me a place for butterflies and wild flowers.

As a football fan, I'm biased, but it always appeared to me the perfect place to build the stadium that would save the life of a football club that has served the community for 108 years and it is the promise of that stadium that has drawn Poyet to the Albion.

He is the eighth manager in eight dizzy years where promotion has been achieved three times and relegation suffered twice as previous men like Steve Coppell and Peter Taylor found it impossible to sustain success because of the lack of a viable home ground.

The club has led a nomadic existence for 12 years since the sale of the much-loved if creaky old Goldstone Ground at the end of the 1996/97 season.

Until 1999, fans and players had to endure the 144-mile round-trip to Gillingham for home games.

Then came the decade of football at the bleak Withdean athletics stadium with its temporary scaffolding stands, running track and long-jump sandpits.

The club's slow, agonising death was certain, had permission not finally been granted for Falmer in July 2008.

A 22,374-capacity modern stadium is rising. It is a beacon of hope for the club. It was a magnet for Poyet.

He was completely convinced by the plans of chairman Tony Bloom, who is a lifelong fan of the 1983 FA Cup runners-up and is positive they can return to the top flight from which they were relegated a fortnight before that Cup final against Manchester United.

The club believes Poyet's reputation will attract better players to the south coast.

Poyet himself has been quick to see the potential of a football club in such a progressive catchment area centred on the city known as London By The Sea.

But the top flight is a long way away for a team that was thrashed 7-1 at Huddersfield in August and has lost five home games this season. Only Crewe in League Two have suffered more.

At times the defence has been awful. Poyet's first move was to introduce a higher level of organisation with his assistant and former Tottenham team-mate Mauricio Taricco.

The side is capable of scoring goals. Thirty-six-year-old Nicky Forster has scored 10 this season, taking his club tally to 45 in 108 games. Not a bad return for a £75,000 transfer outlay.

Glenn Murray, who cost £300,000 in January 2008, has 25 goals in 59 games and has netted four in his last three.

The big matches are coming thick and fast. This weekend it is Poyet's old club Leeds.

He maintains Brighton is a far better proposition than the current League One leaders were when he arrived there with Dennis Wise in October 2006.

"A winning start has helped, of course," he laughs, "but the big difference is financial."

There are no money worries at the new £93m Falmer Stadium where Bloom is paying the bills.

For Poyet it is all about showing strength of character on the pitch and on the training ground. He knows he has much to learn and is quick to acknowledge a debt to his old managers. He has had a rich variety of mentors.

Under wily Hector Nunez, he was player of the tournament as Uruguay won the 1995 Copa America.

Victor Fernandez encouraged Poyet to score goals from midfield at Real Zaragoza. Together, they won the Copa Del Rey and the European Cup Winners' Cup.

He had a close-up view when Ruud Gullit ruined early managerial success by clashing with the Chelsea board.

He watched Gianluca Vialli win trophies in his early days in the dug-out but eventually lose old friends in the dressing-room and his job as a consequence.

He saw Tottenham turn on their old hero Glenn Hoddle and he took it all in.

Poyet smiles throughout when he talks of the pitfalls that lie ahead.

After Leeds, come Norwich and Charlton in the league. It reads like a Premier League fixture list of just a few years ago.

Poyet has no illusions about the difficult month ahead but he is surfing on a wave of his customary confidence and carrying the club along with it.

Renowned as a good coach, he'll either fly as a manager or flop. It is a big gamble by Bloom, but then he is not a bad gambler. The successful property investor is renowned on the world poker circuit.

A club spokesman told me it is just a hobby. With career winnings nearing $2m, that's some hobby.

Brighton fans need the gamble to pay off. They have suffered too many busted flushes and need Poyet to be the new ace in the pack and the real deal.

I'll reserve judgement on the man, but not on the club. Brighton are heading in the right direction at last.

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Wozza said:

Jonathan Pearce is my favourite Crystal Palace fan.

I can still remember his columns in the Albion programmes in the 80s. (Or was it late 70s?)

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questier said:

Despite him being on Robot Wars, Hole in the Wall and doing dodgy channel 5 football, he seems a very articulate and intelligent bloke. He is one of the few commentators that doesn't annoy me, plus he brings out some quality stats every so often

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sten said:

I,m sure he supports Bristol city or rovers

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sten said:

I,m sure he supports Bristol city or rovers

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