[Albion] "Brave", "a risk" and "I can see it going horribly wrong"...

[Stat Brother]

I think most of us are aware that it could go horribly wrong and some are hoping it will too

 

[Perfidious Albion]

I could see it all going wrong too, but I can also see it all going wonderfully tight .. so let's believe, with optimism and belief .
We are supporters .Let's support .

 

[Bakero]

I could see it all going wrong too, but I can also see it all going wonderfully tight .. so let's believe, with optimism and belief .
We are supporters .Let's support .

So you're saying were not loose?

 

[blue-shifted]

In sacking Hughton and appointing Potter, there is a risk that Brighton will be relegated

In keeping Hughton there would have been a risk that Brighton would have been relegated

I can't personally quantify which one of those risks are bigger. All I know is that on Saturdays through March and April I was waking up in the morning, thinking "bugger, I've got to go to football today". Maybe that won't change as the personnel won't allow Potter to make the changes he would like or maybe we'll be one of those teams that wins at Everton one week and gets pasted 6-0 by Wolves the next. We'll find out. It's time for those who disagreed with the sacking of Hughton to take a deep breath and start getting behind the new guy

 

[Moshe Gariani]

Well we didn’t win one game last season with a swagger about us.

Well there was ONE rather magnificent bit of swaggering by us at The Amex last season. Florin Andone swaggered about 70 metres before scoring our third goal....

 

[Barham's tash]

Bizarrely Andy Townsend came out with most credit for me as he actually seemed to have some knowledge of our squad and the reality of what CH did...


Most disappointed unsurprisingly with Sutton who said without much actual knowledge the transfer window was a disaster and Bissouma was the only purchase who performed well. Think Bernardo might take umbrage with him on that.

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

I hate pundit-bashing but I listen to the Monday Night podcast on the drive in this morning.

Chris Sutton basically claimed Potter had done average at Swansea "with a team that came down". So suggesting it was prem players.

THANKFULLY the ever sensible Rory Smith (I believe of the NY Times) actually informed Sutton that Swansea basically played their youth team last season.

 

[Mackenzie]

I hate pundit-bashing but I listen to the Monday Night podcast on the drive in this morning.

Chris Sutton basically claimed Potter had done average at Swansea "with a team that came down". So suggesting it was prem players.

THANKFULLY the ever sensible Rory Smith (I believe of the NY Times) actually informed Sutton that Swansea basically played their youth team last season.

Rory Smith was very good.

 

[Sarisbury Seagull]

The Totally Football Show podcast today provides a far more informed, positive view of the appointment, which just highlights further how shyte many of the ex player pundits are in terms of spouting opinion based on no research whatsoever

This. There’s generally no point listening to the BBC/BT/Sky/talkSport for intelligent, informed debate and opinion - you won’t get it. Podcasts like Totally Football Show and websites like 365 are far superior.

These pundits are the same who at some point in the next few months will be moaning about a foreign coach getting a job ahead of an English coach from the lower leagues.

 

[TSB]

They've picked the thoughts directly from my head.

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

Rory Smith was very good.

Indeed. He always is.

I always enjoy when Ian Wright and Rory Smith are on with Sutton.

Wright+Smith. Entertaining, informed, happy to debate but polite and respectful.

Sutton. Loud, obnoxious, unwilling to listen to another opinion and, In fact, always VERY rude to Smith. You can just tell he looks at him as 'just' a journalist.

 

[Sarisbury Seagull]

I hate pundit-bashing but I listen to the Monday Night podcast on the drive in this morning.

Chris Sutton basically claimed Potter had done average at Swansea "with a team that came down". So suggesting it was prem players.

THANKFULLY the ever sensible Rory Smith (I believe of the NY Times) actually informed Sutton that Swansea basically played their youth team last season.

I haven’t listened to it but Rory Smith is usually excellent. One of the younger group of excellent journalists like Jonathan Lieu and Daniel Storey who seem to be getting more exposure these days thankfully.

 

[Taybha]

Potters budget will interest me the most, if its roughly the same as last seasons and we finish higher then job done isn't it?.

if we finish lower then and only then will it be the catastrophe pundits are banging on about, I have absolutely no idea on how much Potter will have at his disposal but we must actively pursue a proven Premier League striker which will smash our previous purchases.

The gambling on lesser league strikers hasn't really worked and basically Murray kept us up in terms of goals to points return.

I'm encouraged by Potters CV and some of Swansea's attacking play looked very expansive but very effective, we actually do have the players required for his type of play but unfortunately for the likes of Izquierdo he seemed to be nothing more than a defender under CH and frankly looked very disinterested when he did get a game.

The one player we have that I think will flourish under Potter is Propper, who was so badly misused by CH, I'm very much looking forward to seeing Propper in a more attacking mode.

It's a new start Mr Bloom has transformed the club into a Premier League outfit and I guess he now wants to take the next step of the journey, hold tight it could get a little bumpy but I honestly think we will see some cracking football next season and whatever happens we should fully back Potter and his staff and most of all stick with the team he decides to pick, now he's actually been appointed my mojo has risen quite a bit, roll on June and the fixtures.

 

[rippleman]

It is not for nothing that Mr Chairman is known as "The Lizard"!

"His form earned him the nickname "The Lizard" at the poker table — he must be cold-blooded to make such ice-cool decisions, people said."

In Bloom we must trust.

 

[LamieRobertson]

What is there to disagree with? They make the reasonable point that Brighton is set up as a defensive unit currently with Dunk & Duffy as outstanding CBs. Changing that to a high press, free flowing team looks a bit of a stretch and requires some good recruitment, with possibility of at least one of D&D moving on. Frankly, cannot see what is bollox about that. Perfect sense IMO but a change that is required as the CH way has been found wanting. Of course it is a risk but less than keeping CH would have been.

Agreed listened to the whole article it at the time...of course when you take one ‘negative’ comment out of the whole interview some are going to be up in arms.

 

[warmleyseagull]

Interested to know what the reasoning is behind this? Hughton's form figures are 1 1 in terms of keeping us up. Potter has no form at all, and proposes to play a more aggressive style of football which widens the range of possible outcomes in terms of the final points total. How is that not *more* of a risk?

It is a judgement call of course. The problem comes with thinking that keeping CH is less of a risk because he kept us up. Well, yes he did but only by 2 points. Brighton achieved fewer points than preceding season and were comfortably in relegation position for H2 of the season. Staying up was achieved only by virtue of three fortunate successive 1-0s early in season. Poor runs of form are to be expected but 3 wins from 23 is more than that: something is structurally wrong.

Put it like this: had Albion won 3 from 23 from the beginning of the season and lay 19th in table would you still think it was more risky to change manager? The structural problem is being disguised by some fortunate results in early season and Crystal Palace doing decent thing by us at Cardiff.

Brighton were 19th in PL for goals excluding penalties; 20th for shooting accuracy; 20th for shots on target; 20th for passes in opposition box; 20th for touches in opposition box (source: Times article today); stats that doubtless TB was looking at. It simply would not be sustainable to stay up for another season with that combination, let alone kick on towards mid table security. Which is why it is less risky to appoint Potter; it might go badly wrong but IMO less likely to go badly with Potter.

 

[Spicy]

Sticking with Hughton, it seems, despite the same media slating our playing style and statistics for months

Exactly and couldn't the same words "brave", "a risk" and "going horribly wrong" have been applied if we had kept the faith with Chris? Don't get me wrong as I have ultimate respect for the man, but things needed to change.

 

[Mellotron]

It’s all good but realistically no one knows what’s going to happen. If we did we wouldn’t bother going

As you say - this is also why I was slowly losing desire to go to games towards the end of the season just gone - because you felt like you did know what was going to happen, more or less.

 

[Barham's tash]

In sacking Hughton and appointing Potter, there is a risk that Brighton will be relegated

In keeping Hughton there would have been a risk that Brighton would have been relegated

I can't personally quantify which one of those risks are bigger. All I know is that on Saturdays through March and April I was waking up in the morning, thinking "bugger, I've got to go to football today". Maybe that won't change as the personnel won't allow Potter to make the changes he would like or maybe we'll be one of those teams that wins at Everton one week and gets pasted 6-0 by Wolves the next. We'll find out. It's time for those who disagreed with the sacking of Hughton to take a deep breath and start getting behind the new guy

TB’s entire career and wealth has been generated by calculating risk of a certain event happening or not.

He will have come up with a % for keeping CH and replacing him with GP [his #1 pick]. On the flip side there would have been a % of success too [whatever metric he chooses - league position, change in style] then net off the two figures and primarily choose what to do based on that.

If it’s good enough for him then it’s good enough for me and whether my emotions around CH cloud my judgement or not I’ll deal with it eventually.

 

[Mtoto]

The pundits would have been just as certain we were going down if we’d stuck with CH. I’m not a little bit surprised they think it after the appointment of a relatively unknown manager with no PL experience. We are and were favourites to go down because we are PL imposters, end of.

It's getting a bit boring to keep pointing this out, but whatever "the pundits" might think, we are not now favourites to go down, were never any shorter than 9-4 against last season (when there was only one place still available) and have been a shade of odds-on for the drop for about a fortnight in our entire two years in the PL, right at the very beginning when we lost our first two games. You might have persuaded yourself that we "are and were" favourites to go down to suit a glass-half-empty view of the season, but that doesn't make it true.