[Albion] How do you feel about the Potter revolution thus far?

[Behind Enemy Lines]

Love the way we’re playing, the movement, the high press, the attacking intent. The encouraging thing is we’re creating many more chances than last season when scoring was such a rarity. Having said that a worry is we are definitely thin up top and still missing the opportunities we make. Maupay has to work. But only have to listen to Potter to know that we’ve got ourselves a very astute and intelligent manager. The players clearly like playing for him. It’s very early days but I hope he’s here for years and years.

 

[SUIYHP]

It's a shame the results don't really reflect the performances. We are a rejuvenated side and the hope is that we have the depth and quality to show what we can offer against the mid-table/lower sides. The big gamble is whether Potter's progressive ambition is truly a worthy tradeoff for Hughton's defensive pragmatism. I actually think had we kept Hughton, we would have a similar points tally at this stage. Watford were utter gash to the point that I think we would have won (but more like 1-0 rather than 3-0) Man City was always going to be a loss but either West Ham/Southampton could have resulted in a loss/draw (again, it would have been a pretty depressing defensive slog). In the long run I reckon Hughton would have taken us down this season (or at best another incredibly depressing relegation battle), but I am optimistic that Potter gives us at least a fighting chance. Burnley will be the perfect match to gauge where we are (and also the inevitable decider between 'we're on our way to Europe'/bedwetting threads for at least another week)

 

[Acker79]

I'm... unsure.

The football is more attacking, but it's not really been more effective as yet. While I don't like parking the bus, I think there's a lot to appreciate in the defensive side of football, you win by scoring more than you concede, there aren't many teams who can go balls out attack. I don't remember any point in my life time that we have been a team that has been able to do that. Defence is an undervalued side of the game, and for me a good defence can be as important, and can be as entertaining as a good attack. It can also be more fun than a bad/ineffective attack. That's not to say I found Hughton's football thrilling, I didn't. I just don't think football is entertaining simply because you try to attack more. My overriding feeling leaving the amex v west ham and southampton was frustration. Frustration that we wasted so many good, or potentially good, moments, promising attacks breaking down because of that old chestnut - poor decisions, poor execution. We may have attacked more, but it felt as ineffective as it did last year.

Maybe the players are enjoying it at the moment, I don't know, but, I don't think they'd say they enjoy losing. And that could be an issue. If we don't start getting results, how long will the players stay happy and/or motivated to keep playing this way? They aren't doing this for their own entertainment, they are sportsmen, competitors, they do this to win. It won't matter to them how pretty it is, if they aren't getting good results.


But I'm also just generally feeling disconnected from football following yesterday's game. Listening to the game on the radio yesterday, there was a sense of 'if things had gone our way, maybe we could have scored a goal!' FFS. We're walking away from a game accepting a loss and dreaming of the possibility of maybe, perhaps, if we're lucky, getting a goal. I get it, Man City. Oooh, big money team. Runaway leaders. Yeah, who lost last season to Newcastle, to Leicester, to Palace, were held to a draw by Wolves. Over the past few seasons we've spent £100+m improving the squad. Are we really still so far behind Wolves, Newcastle, Leicester and Palace that we can look at them taking 3 points from City and think, nah, we can't do that, but if the wind blows our way we might score a goal! One of the criticisms toward the end of Hughton's tenure was that sense that we didn't belong, we were little ol' Brighton, lucky to be in the Premier League. I was looking forward to that going away. I remember reading someone on here saying (and I would agree) that against West Ham we looked like we belonged in the premier league. So what happened?

Having said that, it's just four games. New signings still settling in, old players getting used to the new system, and so on with all the usual cliches that are true and the main reason I'm not saying I'm unhappy, but don't really do anything to improve my feelings of how things are going at the moment.

 

[Pantani]

It seems like we are playing better because we are having more possession but I'm not completely convinced yet. We still look weak upfront and are missing chances. We are poorer at the back this season as we are pushing up more.

It's beginning to grate that every time the other team has a chance they seem to score. Even today; this was man city's closest game of the season on expected goals something like 1.87 v 1.05. why is this happening is it bad luck or is it the goalie or the defence ?

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XG is a broken statistic if that City performance only warrants an xG of 1.87.

 

[*Gullsworth*]

I don’t go along at all with this notion that Potter replaced Hughton because of bolix like entertainment or style of football, vast distraction exercise.

Hughton lost his job because he stopped doing what keeps teams like Brighton up, which is winning the winnable home games against the bottom 10 or 14 sides (pick the number you fancy).

Potter is so far 0 in 2 on that stat. He needs to start winning those winnable homes games at the frequency Hughton did in his first 18 months in the Prem. This is the only test that matters.

I’ll only be making any judgement on Potter when we have a few more of those type of games at the Amex

I think in reality this is exactly correct. Hughton.....in......Hughton....out......Potter....in ....Potter out.....and the end of the day entertainment is probably second to results. It will be no good playing well like yesterday and losing more games than Hughton......relegation then tumbling through through the leagues. Whether Potter can avoid this with more entertainment than Hughton remains to be seen. We all hope he can of course but only if he succeeds will he be deemed a success.

 

[Frankie]

We gave it a go, I'm happy with that, I think all those that were there applauded us off the park.

It seems odd doing that after a hefty defeat but the football on show was light years ahead of last season, stick to the way we're playing and we'll be fine this season.

Chatting to City fans in the pub after the game and they were amazed how different we were and
admitted to getting jittery at 1 nil.

They seemed very impressed with Trossard, I hope that dose not permiate down to Pep.

All in all everything was good apart from the vital result.

 

[One Teddy Maybank]

I think in reality this is exactly correct. Hughton.....in......Hughton....out......Potter....in ....Potter out.....and the end of the day entertainment is probably second to results. It will be no good playing well like yesterday and losing more games than Hughton......relegation then tumbling through through the leagues. Whether Potter can avoid this with more entertainment than Hughton remains to be seen. We all hope he can of course but only if he succeeds will he be deemed a success.

I would argue that, given Hughton overachieved and kept us in the league. If it was purely league survival then apparently Hughton is your man.

Were we on a downward spiral? The results would suggest we were, but it’s all so hypothetical given that we may have signed other players in the summer. Perhaps Hughton would have changed his coaching team - who knows?

I would say the only thing both Hughton and Potter agree on is that neither Locadia or AJ are good enough for their respective teams.


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[Uh_huh_him]

The football is much better, and on that score I'm happy.

However, we have 1 win against a Watford team that appear to have regressed massively.
There are improvements required by all players to get us to a level where I will feel that the better football is going to translate into better results.

To his credit Potter has stated this several times and is making it clear that the transition is still in it's infancy.
It will be interesting to see how teams like Bournemouth and Palace fare against us.

 

[One Teddy Maybank]

It will be interesting to see how teams like Bournemouth and Palace fare against us.

Yes, this. Stains was very unfortunate and we should have beaten West Ham.


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[The Oldman]

So so. Too early to tell if our swashbuckling style will keep us up. Yes it's enjoyable to watch but as last season we are not taking our chances in front of goal.

 

[dadams2k11]

New system will take time to master and I fully expect it to kick in, in the second half of the season.

I'm happy.

 

[fleet]

In a team with few clear goal scorers the defend for your life strategy seems wise. This season we are playing much nicer football, but we still don’t look like we have obvious scorers in the side. If the forwards click then we are in for a treat, but that isn’t a given.

 

[BLOCK F]

Interesting thought; if we had kept Hughton







Hypothetical question; if Hughton had remained at the helm, I wonder who and what type of players we would have signed.
Would Trossard, Maupay and Webster be Albion players , I wonder?

 

[Sorrel]

Happy, but if we play well against Burnley but can't score I will be less happy. (Of course, if we play badly I also won't be happy.)

 

[BensGrandad]

Goals on Sun day summed it up well how naive we were and how pleased Pep must have been for us to go and try to mix it with them We would obviously be 2nd best and will continue to do so until the defence can be formed again. I wonder if the fault can be put down to too many players attempting last ditch blocks rather than try to tackle the man with the ball.

 

[twickers]

It's a more entertaining way to flirt with relegation. We still look unlikely in front of goal.

 

[Icy Gull]

Goals on Sun day summed it up well how naive we were and how pleased Pep must have been for us to go and try to mix it with them We would obviously be 2nd best and will continue to do so until the defence can be formed again. I wonder if the fault can be put down to too many players attempting last ditch blocks rather than try to tackle the man with the ball.

The same pundits who slammed how we played in these games last season? Maybe we should just be grateful to be allowed to play them and bin any plans to try and win the game.

 

[London Irish]

Interesting thought; if we had kept Hughton







Hypothetical question; if Hughton had remained at the helm, I wonder who and what type of players we would have signed.
Would Trossard, Maupay and Webster be Albion players , I wonder?

Why wouldn’t they? He signed Knocky who is a more edgelord player than those guys can ever dream about

 

[London Irish]

I know this Hughton v Potter thing seems the dominant narrative on how people want to explain our football. But really it’s much more complicated than that, the issue of progressively building a Premier League squad every year we have the £100m is much more relevant - both Hughton and Potter have the same problems to overcome, finding ruthless defenders, finding clinical attackers

 

[London Irish]

The same pundits who slammed how we played in these games last season? Maybe we should just be grateful to be allowed to play them and bin any plans to try and win the game.

You surely can’t defend how we opened the match? continually giving the ball away, hopeless tackles, players being dragged out of position - City never had to get out of first gear to score the opener. Just not good enough, rabbits in headlights stuff. Cammie was spot on, pointless preparing a tactical plan if you step on to the pitch like that