[Football] At the moment, Graham Potter is too good for Brighton. He needs better players.

[Bry Nylon]

So a decent chance falling to Dan Burn is the same as the exact same chance falling to Mo Salah?

Ball falls to Mo Salah in our penalty box? xG = 0.75

Same ball falls to BDB in our penalty box? xG = 1.0


I've finally got the hang of it!

 

[SeagullDubai]

Would it be too simplistic to suggest Leeds attack at pace before the defence can get back into shape and we take up to 20 passes to get to the edge of the box? Guess what the defence is back in place, that makes scoring much more difficult.

Potter has to take some of the blame for not varying how we attack imo, easy to blame the strikers but....

FWIW I think Potter will go on to bigger and better than Brighton and we’ll look back on his tenure with affection in time, even if he does take us down. I imagine he’d be poached by a struggling big club if we do go down though. If we stay up I hope we can keep him for another couple of seasons. IMO, yes he is better than the players at his disposal.

He will be the premier leagues “little Sam”.


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[rippleman]

And it is a call for us as fans too: consensus on NSC is that GP's style is good watching and that it will in the end lead us to promised land. But it is high stakes: relegation is a possibility when we should be challenging for top 8; a reversion to CH style might be safer. In fact, given the paucity of goals in last few games it seems to be working out slightly like that.

GP's style is an excellent watch when it is played at pace. When we move the ball quickly it's exciting stuff for sure.

It's when we play the lower placed teams and the players and the ball move at a pace that would embarrass an encumbered tortoise - as we did the other night - when I wonder if GP has lost the plot.

We have had some great results against far better sides this year but in every one, the players and the passing have been so much quicker.

Yes, we can blame the lack of a £100m striker but Trossard, Welbeck, Zequiri, Lallana all joined on Potter's watch (and he got Tau in too for the first team squad). That isn't looking like good judgment to me.

I dread to think the wages we are spaffing out on Welbeck and Lallana but whatever it is, it is way too much based on their contributions. Wellbeck's best days are well behind him and Lallana has had a note from his mum excusing him from PE for many years. There is always a danger that good players well past their prime will pitch up for an easy final payday. Have they? It's beginning to look like it.

None of us who have been managers have ever had exactly the team we have wanted. It doesn't work that way. You have to coach and cajole the resources you have available in order to deliver. I'm not sure I'm seeing that with Potter.

 

[DJ NOBO]

Aside for one season where he scored quite a few he's known as pretty goal shy... same goes for Welbeck really.

Personally I think Lallana has been ok overall, perhaps not the injection of class expected, but he remains a class passing player. Statistically speaking he is in the top 10% of midfielders when it comes to creating chances per 90 minutes - with normal goal scoring in the team this means he should produce goal assists every third game which would have put him just behind De Bruyne, Grealish and Fernandes. So there's still qualities to his game, but unfortunately he himself is not someone who is going to score a bunch of goals. He rarely scored while playing higher up the pitch for a better team and is unlikely to improve on that playing in a deeper role for Brighton.

There’s a lot of talk of Lallana inspiring the under23s and being a leader in the dressing room.
That’s lovely but his incredulous reaction to blazing that chance over on Monday was the mark of a player who thinks he’s better than he is.
There’s still time for him to get on track. He is obviously a talented boy.
For now, he maybe best-advised to concentrate on his own game.

 

[Swansman]

There’s a lot of talk of Lallana inspiring the under23s and being a leader in the dressing room.
That’s lovely but his incredulous reaction to blazing that chance over on Monday was the mark of a player who thinks he’s better than he is.
There’s still time for him to get on track. He is obviously a talented boy.
For now, he maybe best-advised to concentrate on his own game.

I took his reaction as a "hah oh gawd that was bad" more than anything else, cant be upset about it. Its like when you are throwing something in a trash can from two meters and still miss and have to smile about how silly it was.

 

[vagabond]

1. Manchester City. Phil Foden: £0m
2. Manchester United. Marcus Rashford: £0m
3. Leicester City. Jamie Vardy: £1m
4. West Ham. Michail Antonio: £7m

This is actually a great point here. Precisely what Tony is trying to do. Get a conveyor belt of talent and signing super high potential young players in the hope we can uncover some gems.

Lamptey, Ben White, Sanchez, Connolly, Alzate show there is young talent to be found. And we can build on top of this with shrewd potential high value signings, MacAllister, Webster, Trossard, Maupay.

Now we all probably see names above who are not quite good enough, but we’re improving and you can really see what the club are trying to do.

 

[vagabond]

Foden and Rashford are academy products much in the same way Connolly is for us, I am not including them in the same bracket as the punts we've taken on signing cheaper options and hoping they come good. Vardy and Antonio are both punts which came off, much as Maupay sort of has, but all of those have benefitted from having already played in English football, a pool we seem incredibly reluctant to fish in.

Not anymore, see Lamptey and Webster. Granted not strikers, but it does suggest we are open to finding UK based untapped talent.

 

[Weststander]

I get all that, but we can all see that we haven't got someone who can finish the chances of regularly enough. So for me Graham Potter has to work around this. This year so far he seems to of found a way of restricting the oppositions chances whilst letting us carry on creating them, the result is we score about the same (not solving that problem) but concede less. That impresses me a lot more than creating chances whilst not having someone to finish them. It turned me from a Potter out to Potter in for now. Although I am very wary we are now 3 games without a win against Fulham, Villa, Palace, and I am not convinced we will beat West Brom overall this year I have seen enough to give him a bit of breathing space.

I’ve been GP in all the way through.

I agree, with a paucity of goals scored, he’s adapted and in the last 7 games or so, we’ve become fairly hard to score against.

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

Would it be too simplistic to suggest Leeds attack at pace before the defence can get back into shape and we take up to 20 passes to get to the edge of the box? Guess what the defence is back in place, that makes scoring much more difficult.

Potter has to take some of the blame for not varying how we attack imo, easy to blame the strikers but....

FWIW I think Potter will go on to bigger and better than Brighton and we’ll look back on his tenure with affection in time, even if he does take us down. I imagine he’d be poached by a struggling big club if we do go down though. If we stay up I hope we can keep him for another couple of seasons. IMO, yes he is better than the players at his disposal.

We are not quick enough to get the ball forward and exploit, this is a decision making issue.

As an example when was the last time we had a genuine one on one vs an opposition keeper?

I can only think of two Welbeck scoring his first goal for the club and Connolly once recently that he missed.

We are not quick enough and this is the issue


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[Behind Enemy Lines]

"You have to coach and cajole the resources you have available in order to deliver. I'm not sure I'm seeing that with Potter.

"

When I see Adam Webster, Yves Bissouma, Pascal Gross and Solly March and the way they have all improved and in some cases, been transformed, I know I am seeing that with Potter.

 

[attila]

I just think it’s how it is. We haven't really done strikers for years.
We could sign a non-league clogger of a centre half or midfielder and turn them into the next Lewis Dunk or Alexis Mac Allister but if we signed Lionel Messi he’d turn into Mark Farrington.

4-6-0 from now on

 

[usernamed]

Its not perfect, but useful. I think the Liverpool data analyst explains it well here:

https://streamable.com/ay4qq

It provides managers and players with a lot of information on the most efficient areas of scoring and the generally best choices for a lot of situations. But when it comes to individual situations I dont think its saying a whole lot because of the multitude of factors playing into every single situation.

I can see why it exists, and for those inclined toward data analysis, I can see the attraction.

However, for me, it’s part of a gradual slide toward what I call “F1 Syndrome” - where aggressive, adrenaline fuelled on-track action slowly became replaced by geeks with laptops getting unnecessarily excited about the minutiae of aerodynamic regulations and big companies with corporate sponsors meaning identikit drivers giving identikit press conferences. Modern F1 is a peculiarly joyless affair, it’s a sport for Excel spreadsheet lovers.

I’m afraid I see xG (along with VAR) as more evidence of football moving away from having its traditional primal excitement, towards a F1-style sanitised “serious analysis” future. It comes with allowing too much money to pool in the same place. We’re now in a place where clubs have money and are looking for an edge. They can afford to employ data analysis teams, and once one team does, others will follow. I can do nothing to stop what’s happening, but I am all for pub discussion of the team’s performance, and really would prefer not to hear terms such as “data modelling” outside of work.


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[Pavilionaire]

I don't think Potter can do more in terms of tactics, rotation, while our defenders and midfielders have improved immeasurably under his tutelage.

However, if he has a weakness it would appear to be the recruitment of attacking players and then getting them to deliver. Maybe there needs to be a change in the coaching department, with a new forwards coach brought in?

 

[albionalex]

Have you actually bothered to read the article? It's very good and clearly well researched.

Yeah, the article is irrelevant, the headline is click bait.

 

[Bry Nylon]

I'll freely admit that my biggest problem with xG is that when I think of the people generating the stats, I automatically think of people like this:



It feels like they are generated by people who have never set foot in a football ground in their lives, even less eaten a sweaty burger at half time at Whaddon Road or seen a guilt-edged opportunity blazed over the bar at Deepdale, 3 minutes into time added on. It just doesn't feel AUTHENTIC.

But at the same time, it won't ruin my day

 

[Jolly Red Giant]

Potter really hasn't proven anything yet - he has been a PL manager for a season and a half and the team has bounced around between 14th-17th during that entire time.

The players are who they are - it is difficult to attract top class players to a club that frequents the bottom third of the table and skirts with relegation. The club have pumped a lot of money into players over the past four years so there should be some improvement in the squad - but we have no idea whether he is getting the best out of the players at his disposal (we have nothing to compare it with) - or whether the improvement comes from the training ground or not.

It is arguable that the team should be doing better given the players available - and the Palace game showed that the team still has a soft underbelly. So I would say that while things are improving, Potter still has some way to go to demonstrate that he is capable of becoming a long-term PL manager.

 

[Guinness Boy]

1. I think there's another possibility here that you've overlooked: Do the strikers available to us have further untapped potential or have they reached a peak from which no further coaching can improve them? And another possibility: do we simply not have the right mix of strikers - if they're all "too similar", then it makes it easier for opposition teams to train to counter those strikers. If we have significantly different options, then they can't focus their efforts as much (or if they do, they leave a door open).

2. As mentioned in 1 above: is Bielsa simply working with a player who always had that unlocked potential? Whereas maybe Potter's working with a player (players) who are already at or near maximum potential?


I have a feeling my second possibility in 1 above is part of what is costing us. All our players who can shoot are pretty similar. Apart from at set pieces where the tall defenders like Dunk can get involved, we're overly reliant on smaller, agile players, who we hope to get into a space where they can shoot. Opposition managers for me seem to have cottoned on that these players generally aren't quick enough or good enough to get a scoring shot away when the box is crowded, and we don't have any alternative. So they can focus training ahead of a Brighton game on ensuring they transition rapidly to defense and get players into the box to lock down the likes of Maupay, Connolly, Trossard before they can get a clear shot away. That leaves us either taking shots from further out, through a crowded box, or trying to one-touch-pass our way through. The latter, when it works, has produced a couple of brilliant goals with the final shot being a simple tap-in - but has otherwise generally seen the attack break down. The former seems to result in whoever takes the shot snatching at the chance, trying to hit it too hard to get it through before the defense closes the gap, and that's where the accuracy falls apart.

Yes, all our attacking options are too similar. There are circumstances when you really need a proper bullet headed number nine who can hold the ball up, kick defenders and win headers. Unfortunately ours was too slow so we flogged him to Forest. Never been replaced despite his age and lack of pace being rather obvious.

However, we'd need to adapt our style slightly for such a player and I don't see Potter being that flexible.

 

[Swansman]

Potter really hasn't proven anything yet - he has been a PL manager for a season and a half and the team has bounced around between 14th-17th during that entire time.

The players are who they are - it is difficult to attract top class players to a club that frequents the bottom third of the table and skirts with relegation. The club have pumped a lot of money into players over the past four years so there should be some improvement in the squad - but we have no idea whether he is getting the best out of the players at his disposal (we have nothing to compare it with) - or whether the improvement comes from the training ground or not.

It is arguable that the team should be doing better given the players available - and the Palace game showed that the team still has a soft underbelly. So I would say that while things are improving, Potter still has some way to go to demonstrate that he is capable of becoming a long-term PL manager.

... and this perspective would be different if we could just find some sliver of Irish DNA in him.

 

[Stato]

There seems to have been some talk since Monday of our club's need for a £50M striker. I know that all on here know it to be absolute guff, but before the word of idiot pundits starts being taken seriously, I thought it might be useful to look at which English clubs have signed £50M+ strikers. According to Wiki there have only ever been six strikers/forwards signed by four English clubs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_association_football_transfers None of these were signed since the start of the pandemic, nor by clubs who reportedly have a wage cap somewhere near the bottom of the league, nor by by a club that had just announced an eye watering record annual loss.

Man Utd signed Lukaku in 2017, Man City Mahrez (2018) and Stirling (2015), Chelsea Morata (2017) and Pulisic (2019) and Arsenal Aubameyang (2018). Liverpool and Spurs are the only other two English clubs to have paid £50M+ for any player. Of the four of these still playing in the league two have scored more goals than Maupay this season: Stirling has 9, Aubameyang 8, Maupay 7. The other two have scored less. I know that someone will be along to say that Maupay's goals don't count because they were penalties, but my point is really just that we won't be buying a £50M+ striker. We have bought what we could afford. If we are lucky enough for Tony to buy again it would likely to be for around the £20 million that we bid for Nunez in the summer. For this you might get a Dominic Solanke or Rhian Brewster and still get relegated, or you might be lucky and get an Ollie Watkins.

By the way: Performance statistics between Watkins and another £20M striker signed from the Championship are not so widely different as the current moral panic may tempt you to think: https://www.fctables.com/ollie_watkins-vs-neal_maupay-294847-290619/. Watkins has scored more, but has a similar shots per goal ratio to Maupay, so seems to have scored more because of the higher number of chances he has had. Maupay's accuracy and conversion rate are both not where he would like them to be, but they are also not out of the ordinary when compared with most of his peers: https://www.footballcritic.com/prem...ats/strikers/shooting/conversion-rate/2/41756 This seems to support my interpretation of our current malaise. Our strikers are not of lesser quality, but the chances we are able to create are. Our domination of the midfield encourages opponents to sit deep and narrow against us and tasks us with creating clear chances in packed penalty areas. Faced with that conundrum, I'd suggest that the number of strikers who could be relied upon to always score a goal, amounts to one and he is 32, injured and paid quite a lot of money by Man City.

Potter has to tweak things and find another way. Its a big ask. If he manages it, we will all be much happier, until bigger clubs notice that then he will have proven himself to be too good for us.

 

[Bry Nylon]

There seems to have been some talk since Monday of our club's need for a £50M striker. I know that all on here know it to be absolute guff, but before the word of idiot pundits starts being taken seriously, I thought it might be useful to look at which English clubs have signed £50M+ strikers. According to Wiki there have only ever been six strikers/forwards signed by four English clubs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_association_football_transfers None of these were signed since the start of the pandemic, nor by clubs who reportedly have a wage cap somewhere near the bottom of the league, nor by by a club that had just announced an eye watering record annual loss.

Man Utd signed Lukaku in 2017, Man City Mahrez (2018) and Stirling (2015), Chelsea Morata (2017) and Pulisic (2019) and Arsenal Aubameyang (2018). Liverpool and Spurs are the only other two English clubs to have paid £50M+ for any player. Of the four of these still playing in the league two have scored more goals than Maupay this season: Stirling has 9, Aubameyang 8, Maupay 7. The other two have scored less. I know that someone will be along to say that Maupay's goals don't count because they were penalties, but my point is really just that we won't be buying a £50M+ striker. We have bought what we could afford. If we are lucky enough for Tony to buy again it would likely to be for around the £20 million that we bid for Nunez in the summer. For this you might get a Dominic Solanke or Rhian Brewster and still get relegated, or you might be lucky and get an Ollie Watkins.

By the way: Performance statistics between Watkins and another £20M striker signed from the Championship are not so widely different as the current moral panic may tempt you to think: https://www.fctables.com/ollie_watkins-vs-neal_maupay-294847-290619/. Watkins has scored more, but has a similar shots per goal ratio to Maupay, so seems to have scored more because of the higher number of chances he has had. Maupay's accuracy and conversion rate are both not where he would like them to be, but they are also not out of the ordinary when compared with most of his peers: https://www.footballcritic.com/prem...ats/strikers/shooting/conversion-rate/2/41756 This seems to support my interpretation of our current malaise. Our strikers are not of lesser quality, but the chances we are able to create are. Our domination of the midfield encourages opponents to sit deep and narrow against us and tasks us with creating clear chances in packed penalty areas. Faced with that conundrum, I'd suggest that the number of strikers who could be relied upon to always score a goal, amounts to one and he is 32, injured and paid quite a lot of money by Man City.

Potter has to tweak things and find another way. Its a big ask. If he manages it, we will all be much happier, until bigger clubs notice that then he will have proven himself to be too good for us.

Excellent as always. Are you going to send this to Mark Chapman or shall I?