[Albion] Gus Poyet v Graham Potter - which GP do you prefer?

[Reddleman]

Gus Poyet was 90% brilliant. For 90% of the time Potter was here I thought he was turd-juice.

Nonsense, when Potter left us we were sitting 4th in the PL, when Gus left us we

Yeah just watched the 3-2 Man U and Palace 3-1 games. Dreadful stuff

That’s a joke of a response. Any objective fan knows that the majority of that season was eye bleeding stuff and clearly Tony Bloom whose opinion I value much more highly than yours thought so too.

 

[Reddleman]

Another thought, Potter achieved what was asked of him, a top ten finish, he then left us perfectly placed to repeat the achievement.

Gus failed in his one task, to get us to the PL and then left and criticised Tony Bloom. That’s he is winning this poll so conclusively is baffling but I guess some people are still hurting.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Both draw specialists for much of their time with us.

But one stayed long enough to finally turn the draws into wins and get us to 4th in the Premier League. The other banged his head on an imaginary ceiling.

A recent podcast with Murray confirms my suspicion. Potter was superior in almost every way.

This.

Still, Potter never got a win against the Republic of Ireland, did he?

 

[Official Old Man]

Neither/Both.
Both managers took us that next step up. I'm in the 'without Gus we wouldn't be here' camp. But he took us as far as he could.
Potter again took us another step up, all be it very slowly.
QUESTION.
I've seen and applauded Poyet and ex players at away games as they walk past (on purpose) the away fans.
But I don't recall ever seeing CH and applauding him. Am I correct?

 

[pocketseagull]

I have a lot of time for both, despite the manner of their respective departures. But in the end I plumped for Gus, because it was under him that supporting the Albion started to be fun again.

Potter did something similar

Funny really, I found the opposite and rarely felt our time with Potter was fun at the Amex. Frustrating, disappointing, very rarely fun.

 

[Hugo Rune]

When did we finish 4th in the Premier League under Potter?

Did I say ‘finish’?

 

[pocketseagull]

Didn't we have the same points accumulated after 6 games in the previous season and then the usual Potter slump? He left before proving he could overcome that.

 

[Cowfold Seagull]

Neither/Both.
Both managers took us that next step up. I'm in the 'without Gus we wouldn't be here' camp. But he took us as far as he could.
Potter again took us another step up, all be it very slowly.
QUESTION.
I've seen and applauded Poyet and ex players at away games as they walk past (on purpose) the away fans.
But I don't recall ever seeing CH and applauding him. Am I correct?

You are quite correct, too much of a gentleman to say so, but l think Chris took his dismissal quite badly, and has never returned to the Amex.

Such a shame as l'm sure the fans would love to see him again, say thank you, and give him a warm round of applause.

He was the man who got us into the Premier League after all.

 

[BevBHA]

Time heals

 

[Cowfold Seagull]

Time heals

Up to a point.

 

[Justice]

When did we finish 4th in the Premier League under Potter?

I thought the same unless I slept through the champions league games last season.

 

[Acker79]

If we're looking at what the team achieved with them in charge it feels like an unfair comparison. As a fan, I look at how connected to them I felt.

I was irritated by Potter's occasional comments about home fans (I remember a couple in the vein of 'Our away fans are fantastic. Our home fans, well, that's a different thing' and 'Our away fans are always behind us. Our home fans are more of a mixed bag', when not even being asked about home fans in pre-match interviews on bbc sussex), his turning a handful of fans booing into a national story that ignored the overwhelming majority cheering and applauding that same match, the talk of history lessons, the response to fans shouting shoot as making it difficult for the players to play his preferred game of looking for teammates to pass to before shooting. It felt like he preferred football without the fans.

Because he seemingly had little interest in getting the fans onside, little understanding (or public acceptance of) the nature of fans (at least until he got to Chelsea), I stuggled to really connect with or embrace him. And as good as his football was on two thirds of the pitch, that final third was really frustrating, which didn't help.

It seems to me, most people turned on Poyet for supposedly saying that the club had hit their ceiling. That wasn't what I heard in the post match interview, so have never been angry about that. Just checking on youtube he actually says "there's plenty of things to check, where is the roof? y'know, did we hit the roof today and there is nothing above? y'know, what is going to be the situation next year? But we've got time, time for that". I remember the anger came following that post-match interview won sky, so assume that's where it's from. I don't know if there were other interviews, I've not seen him say anything like that anywhere else. But we did see budgets tighten following that season (at least comparatively, if not in real terms), and then our fortunes dipped until the budget was loosened under Hughton before we seriously challenged again.

I felt more connection with Poyet when he was manager, than I ever did with Potter, so I would vote Poyet, and it has nothing to do with recency bias.

 

[Justice]

History lessons v ceilings
FIGHT

 

[Joey Jo Jo Jr. Shabadoo]

Another thought, Potter achieved what was asked of him, a top ten finish, he then left us perfectly placed to repeat the achievement.

Gus failed in his one task, to get us to the PL and then left and criticised Tony Bloom. That’s he is winning this poll so conclusively is baffling but I guess some people are still hurting.

When was it ever said that Gus had the task of getting us to the Premier League? To claim that he failed when he got us out of League One playing brilliant football and then consolidated us in The Championship is laughable. Although you cant choose when to be promoted we were nowhere near ready for PL football back then, Bloom learnt a lot from that season and our subsequent campaigns.

Both Gus and Potter have their good and bad points. We wouldn't be where we are now without either, I'm slightly edging towards Gus though, life was never boring under him, I don't care how it ended and the breakdown in his and Blooms relationship he had us playing some beautiful football that no League One side should be trying.

 

[Reddleman]

When was it ever said that Gus had the task of getting us to the Premier League? To claim that he failed when he got us out of League One playing brilliant football and then consolidated us in The Championship is laughable. Although you cant choose when to be promoted we were nowhere near ready for PL football back then, Bloom learnt a lot from that season and our subsequent campaigns.

Both Gus and Potter have their good and bad points. We wouldn't be where we are now without either, I'm slightly edging towards Gus though, life was never boring under him, I don't care how it ended and the breakdown in his and Blooms relationship he had us playing some beautiful football that no League One side should be trying.

‘laughable’ really? Every thing he needed was in place to get us into the PL, Bloom would have given him time and backing but he threw his toys out the pram, criticised the owner and blew the whole thing up. If that isn’t failure I don’t know what is.

 

[Iggle Piggle]

History lessons v ceilings
FIGHT

"I think we're sitting eighth in the Premier League.

"But maybe I need a new ceiling at this football club."

 

[Joey Jo Jo Jr. Shabadoo]

‘laughable’ really? Every thing he needed was in place to get us into the PL, Bloom would have given him time and backing but he threw his toys out the pram, criticised the owner and blew the whole thing up. If that isn’t failure I don’t know what is.

Everything wasn’t in place at all. We’d only been in The Championship two seasons, sure we had a good season but the infrastructure was no where near what was needed. The total overhaul of our recruitment department and system didn’t happen for another couple of seasons. Having David Burke lead us into the Premier League would have been a disaster. Bloom learnt a lot from what happened over those few seasons and tweaked things as needed.

 

[Iggle Piggle]

Both of them had more than their fair share of moments at the club. That Charlton away performance still remains one of my favourite away days to this day, beating a high quality Saints team to the title (Jose fonte, Morgan Schneiderlin, Lallana, Hammond and Lambert to name a few) and the Palace 3-0 win were fantastic memories.

We beat some good teams and had great performances under Potter none more so that the united game last season. The away performance against West Ham this season was one of utter dominance. The change from the pragmatic approach under CH to the possession based performances shouldn't be under estimated either as it was remarkable in such a short space of time. That said, we also had a load of runless and goalless runs which is why the other GP just shades it for me. It was so incredibly frustrating at times.

Shame we remember both for history lessons and ceilings.

 

[Reddleman]

Everything wasn’t in place at all. We’d only been in The Championship two seasons, sure we had a good season but the infrastructure was no where near what was needed. The total overhaul of our recruitment department and system didn’t happen for another couple of seasons. Having David Burke lead us into the Premier League would have been a disaster. Bloom learnt a lot from what happened over those few seasons and tweaked things as needed.

Fair enough on the recruitment point, I did forget the recruitment approach is a more recent thing.

Personally I just find the notion that playing free flowing possession based football against the poor standard in league one is somehow more impressive than doing the same thing in the toughest most competitive league in the world baffling to say the least.

At the point Potter left he had literally delivered the best season in our entire history. Gus never even got close to those levels.

 

[Justice]

Fair enough on the recruitment point, I did forget the recruitment approach is a more recent thing.

Personally I just find the notion that playing free flowing possession based football against the poor standard in league one is somehow more impressive than doing the same thing in the toughest most competitive league in the world baffling to say the least.

At the point Potter left he had literally delivered the best season in our entire history. Gus never even got close to those levels.

Maybe points wise in the PL although 70% of that season was a hard watch tbh.