[Albion] Man City arriving on the back of three straight defeats

[AmexRuislip]

I have a little feeling Wlbeck is going to break that City duck tomorrow. In fact I'm sticking my neck out and predicting we'll score twice. Sadly they get more.

What is the 'thing' with Foden? Last season he gave the north loads when he scored, at the time I don't remember him getting abuse beforehand. Came across as a bit of a twat.

Nobody was asking for his shirt

 

[Sarisbury Seagull]

And if we should, some how, manage to beat them, Pep will be enraged in the post-match interview and all the "BRILLANT" and "AMAZING" comments about out team and manager will be completely forgotten. It'll be rage against his players and how they should be beating #TeamsLikeBrighton.

Nope, that's not Pep at all.

If we win, no matter how badly City have played, he will come out afterwards saying how brilliant City were, that they were "so, so good", probably their best performance ever and how much he loves his players.

I'm a seasoned Pep watcher/fanboy - I know his moves!

 

[Stato]

Fearing a return to the traditional days of them putting four goals past us

April this year?

 

[Stato]

We can't miss this gift of a chance. Just look at how weak they are.

The "injury ravaged" team that lost to Bournemouth last week	The team that beat us 4-0 in April
Ederson	Ederson
Walker	Walker
Akanji	Akanji
Ake	Ake
Gvardiol	Gvardiol
Gundogan	Rodri
Kovacic	Kovacic
Matheus Nunes	De Bruyne
Bernardo Silva	Bernardo Silva
Foden	Foden
Haaland	Alvarez

Of course, the poor lambs might have De Bruyne back tomorrow, but that still doesn't help much when you consider that they'd still have two of the rest unavailable. Not even Harry 'Bare Bones' Redknapp would appreciate the challenge of having only five time EPL winner and member of last year's La Liga team of the season, Ilkay Gundogan to replace Rodri. Worse than that: In the absence of Alvarez, they're going to have to throw in some Norwegian kid to lead the line. I'm welling up for them.

 

[AmexRuislip]

Brighton & Hove Albion (A) - Sat 9th Nov, 17:30 | PL | Pre-Match

Kick off time 17:30 GMT. Live on Sky Sports. Dreading it to be honest.

forums.bluemoon-mcfc.co.uk

A not so confident going in to this match.
Some interesting comments.

 

[Justice]

The question is how much does TB have to spend before we can expect more, our squad is worth what £600-700m or £800m we’ve done ok but we haven’t really got into any sort of rhythm this season and had some disappointing results.

 

[Seagull on the Hill]

f*** me, so much negativity on this thread.
I just hope that the Amex crowd don't share your nerves, and that they get behind the team from the off.
City aren't invincible, as has been shown over the last couple of weeks, and if the Albion are up for the fight there's no reason why they can't turn them over.
Man up, you lot.

 

[pigmanovich]

What is the 'thing' with Foden? Last season he gave the north loads when he scored, at the time I don't remember him getting abuse beforehand. Came across as a bit of a twat.

He did earn, take, and score from a free kick that shouldn’t have been awarded.

 

[deletebeepbeepbeep]

Got a feeling about this one 3-1 to the good guys, Welbeck and a brace from Rutter.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

April this year?

And the rest

 

[Stato]

f*** me, so much negativity on this thread.
I just hope that the Amex crowd don't share your nerves, and that they get behind the team from the off.
City aren't invincible, as has been shown over the last couple of weeks, and if the Albion are up for the fight there's no reason why they can't turn them over.
Man up, you lot.

It's not negativity, it's realism. We're a work in progress and I'm happy with the pace of the progress. However, City are the best team in the league, possibly in the world and we've taken 4 points to their 37 from our 14 EPL matches with them. We have a minus 31 goal difference from those games, so on average lose by more than two clear goals.

They've had a couple of dodgy results and, from that, the pundits have extrapolated that we are somehow not the underdogs. We very much are. The first eleven that they started against Bournemouth is valued at about £600 million. Were we to win tomorrow, it would be a massive acheivement for our young squad. Minimising the scale of the task would do them a disservice should they achieve it.

The question is how much does TB have to spend before we can expect more, our squad is worth what £600-700m or £800m we’ve done ok but we haven’t really got into any sort of rhythm this season and had some disappointing results.

According to Transfermarkt, our squad is worth €572.1m. City's is worth €1.26b. Arsenal's €1.16b and Liverpool's €963.2m. Their estimates are unreliable, but they do indicate the size of the wealth gap. Of the seven teams above us, only Forest are estimated as having a squad worth less than ours.

We are in the first dozen league games of a brand new manager and quite a few of the new signings have had injury blighted starts to their Brighton careers. After tomorrow we will have played seven of last year's top eight and six of the table's current top seven in our first eleven games. Whatever happens tomorrow, we seem to be progressing very well.

 

[Justice]

It's not negativity, it's realism. We're a work in progress and I'm happy with the pace of the progress. However, City are the best team in the league, possibly in the world and we've taken 4 points to their 37 from our 14 EPL matches with them. We have a minus 31 goal difference from those games, so on average lose by more than two clear goals.

They've had a couple of dodgy results and, from that, the pundits have extrapolated that we are somehow not the underdogs. We very much are. The first eleven that they started against Bournemouth is valued at about £600 million. Were we to win tomorrow, it would be a massive acheivement for our young squad. Minimising the scale of the task would do them a disservice should they achieve it.


According to Transfermarkt, our squad is worth €572.1m. City's is worth €1.26b. Arsenal's €1.16b and Liverpool's €963.2m. Their estimates are unreliable, but they do indicate the size of the wealth gap. Of the seven teams above us, only Forest are estimated as having a squad worth less than ours.

We are in the first dozen league games of a brand new manager and quite a few of the new signings have had injury blighted starts to their Brighton careers. After tomorrow we will have played seven of last year's top eight and six of the table's current top seven in our first eleven games. Whatever happens tomorrow, we seem to be progressing very well.

I agree and disagree about the progress, I’m not sure what our style is. When I heard Hurzeler’s second in command saying he prefers to win games as we did at Newcastle with a smash and grab and spend the rest of the game defending it’s seems far away from the DeZerbi patterns of play over loading in forward areas to get attacking players one on one with defenders.
Mitoma seems to narrow under FH and not as effecting games as he did. We’ve also have been conceding to many goals which is fine if we are scoring four.
Ten games in RDZ was smashing it ten games in this season and we have no idea what to expect.
Not a rant really more of a footballing observation before I get accused of hating on the manager.

 

[boik]

I agree and disagree about the progress, I’m not sure what our style is. When I heard Hurzeler’s second in command saying he prefers to win games as we did at Newcastle with a smash and grab and spend the rest of the game defending it’s seems far away from the DeZerbi patterns of play over loading in forward areas to get attacking players one on one with defenders.
Mitoma seems to narrow under FH and not as effecting games as he did. We’ve also have been conceding to many goals which is fine if we are scoring four.
Ten games in RDZ was smashing it ten games in this season and we have no idea what to expect.
Not a rant really more of a footballing observation before I get accused of hating on the manager.

RDZ inherited a team that was 4th and on top of their game.

 

[Bring back Bryan wade!!]

Time for Mitoma to put in one of his ‘worldie’ performances

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

RDZ inherited a team that was 4th and on top of their game.

Despite Potter, not because of him

 

[Stato]

Ten games in RDZ was smashing it ten games in this season and we have no idea what to expect.

In his first ten EPL games RDZ won three, drew two and lost five and had a -1 GD. Hurzeler actually has a better record: Won four, drawn four and lost two with a +3 GD. RDZ had it harder coming in part way through the season and his joining coincided with a difficult run of games. However him facing five teams, Liverpool, Spurs, City, Chelsea and Arsenal who sat in the top seven when we played them looks similar to Hurzeler having played five of the current top seven. They both ended up with a similar points tally from those five games: RDZ 4 and FH 5.

De Zerbi's side really got good after the break for the Qatar World Cup, but our eventual European qualification wouldn't have happened without the flying start that we had made under Potter. I'm not criticising. In terms of style, De Zerbi's team was absolutely incredible when it clicked, but the points per game he got in 2022/23 extrapolated across a full 38 game season would have seen us finish 10th*, one place above his finish in his second season. As with the other teams he had managed, consistency was an issue.

There is a long way to go, but compared with the last couple of seasons, Hurzeler's tally so far puts him nearest to the average points per game that Potter and De Zerbi's sides obtained to ensure our only ever European qualification.

Potter 2022/23: 6 games, 13 points, 2.167 points per game;
De Zerbi 2022/23: 32 games, 49 points, 1.531 points per game;
Averaged out at 38 games, 62 points, 1.631 points per game;
De Zerbi 2023/24 38 games 48 points, 1.263 points per game;
Hurzeler 10 games, 16 points, 1.6 points per game.

* - I've corrected this after @Brian Munich noticed an error in a separate post. I'd done RDZ out of a couple of wins that came from rearranged games against Palace and Bournemouth. The correction sadly means that Potter's points total over a 38 game season wouldn't have been enough to win us the title.

 

[trueblue]

I agree and disagree about the progress, I’m not sure what our style is. When I heard Hurzeler’s second in command saying he prefers to win games as we did at Newcastle with a smash and grab and spend the rest of the game defending it’s seems far away from the DeZerbi patterns of play over loading in forward areas to get attacking players one on one with defenders.
Mitoma seems to narrow under FH and not as effecting games as he did. We’ve also have been conceding to many goals which is fine if we are scoring four.
Ten games in RDZ was smashing it ten games in this season and we have no idea what to expect.
Not a rant really more of a footballing observation before I get accused of hating on the manager.

For me, the defensive stance at Newcastle was a specific tactic intended to work against opponents known to have trouble breaking down sides that sit deep. Haven't noticed us playing like that elsewhere. Tailoring the approach to circumstances seems like a strength to me, rather than playing in a rigidly structured way that ultimately becomes predictable.

I also think Mitoma has been more effective recently than we've seen for a while. Teams have looked terrified when he runs at them through the middle.

Incidentally, compared to the equivalent fixtures last season under De Zerbi, we are 6 points better off.

 

[nicko31]

f*** me, so much negativity on this thread.
I just hope that the Amex crowd don't share your nerves, and that they get behind the team from the off.
City aren't invincible, as has been shown over the last couple of weeks, and if the Albion are up for the fight there's no reason why they can't turn them over.
Man up, you lot.

Indeed, we should fear no one

 

[The Optimist]

I hate optimists.

 

[Bodian]

I agree and disagree about the progress, I’m not sure what our style is.

I'm hoping it's the first half at Liverpool style.