The Premier League. A negative twinge.

[The Fish]

For a club like yours the steps should surely be;

1. Promotion
2. Survival
3. Consolidation
4. Establish
5. Aim towards the limit of your capability

Any step may take a few years, you could skip a step, or you may need a couple of goes to achieve any one of them.

This season survival is the key, the money the tv deal brings will dramatically change the finances of your club, and the caliber of players you can attract will change to match that. A few seasons in the top flight under the right management (from boardroom to boot-room) and Brighton won't be a plucky little club patronised by the pundits and underestimated by the opposition, but a fixture of the league.

Look at Southampton, they came up after years in the lower leagues, stayed up and now a season flirting with relegation is unlikely. They'll be able to compete in the cups if they take them seriously and are fortunate with fixtures.

Hell the last time we went down and returned we fluked a 5th placed finish, a combination of poor management from the owner and a poor manager screwed us, but had we been better run we could have strengthened from a position of power and consolidated as a top half team.

The top of the Premier League isn't a closed shop as proven by Spurs. Sure they benefit from being financially secure and being a fashionable club, but with the right manager at the helm and sound purchases and they have (in my life time) moved from a quintessential midtable club, into one of the best teams in the country, playing some of the best football.

Also, I don't know how wealthy your owners are, but being in the top flight will have sickening rich people casting admiring glances your way. The kind of wealth that will allow you to grow exponentially. You also benefit from being close to London, which is a huge thing for a club these days as players will be more likely to sign for you than Burnley, say.

It may be years of midtable mediocrity, but as long as you don't treat the top flight as either a lovely adventure (like Blackpool/Hull) or the limit of your ambition (like Sunderland/West Brom/Stoke) it's ****ing brilliant.

 

[Icy Gull]

A club has to get to Stains level IMO before there's regular good news on the pitch. Other than the shockingly dull and scoreless football under Puel, over the last 5 and a bit seasons, they've had masses of home wins, scored a lot of goals, beats giants quite a few times and rarely had long losing runs.

The rest, even including WBA, Stoke and Plucky have had very long winless and low scoring runs, and the fans of WBA and Stoke have whinged with the best. As for the level of West Ham, other the freak Payet season, their fans are forever miserable about life in the PL (going by KUMB and phone ins).

You lost me at "scored a lot of goals"

 

[LamieRobertson]

Personally i don't look that far ahead....looking forward to Sunday and living in hope...as i did in 1979

 

[studio150]

The future is bright and exciting.

We can aim for the clubs highest ever end of season position.

There will be highlights and fun days along the way. Just cast your mind back to 79-83. The away league at Liverpool, end Forests unbeaten home record, winning easily away at Palace, coming from 3 down to gain a point at Coventry

Some good home wins.

The number of international players we have increasing, hopefully development squad players becoming first team players

And maybe a lengthy cup run, Thursday nights in Europe.

Thats hope the stay is a long one

 

[Hampster Gull]

To OPs post, that's no the Brighton way. We are likely to be up and down for a few years with plenty of spills an thrills

 

[el punal]

You're right.

That feeling when the final whistle blew v Wigan, the beers afterwards and the Derby equaliser will NEVER be matched in the Premier League. I cried a little bit. Don't think I will ever again.

God that's depressing.

A case of 'it's all about the journey rather than the destination'. Last season was the most enjoyable Albion watching year for me since the 1976/77 one.

 

[Surf's Up]

A term I used at the end of last season (to someone who was about to call it a night after we'd beaten Wigan to secure promotion) was "peak Albion". That really may well have been it - it never gets any better. (He stayed out for more beer)

So, yes, I agree with what you're saying. You look at the solid mid-table sides, say West Brom, and where does the excitement come from? They don't even seem to have a go in a Cup.

Yes - "peak Albion" does rather sum it up. What I'm currently having enormous difficulty coming to terms with is why/how a plucky little club like Bournemouth can make a relative success of PL survival, how the fvck are Huddersfield steaming ahead leaving us in the rear view mirror and how do clubs that are similar in size to us like Southampton, Leicester, Stoke, Palace, Bournemouth, Norwich, Burnley, West Brom, Watford and Swansea all have much stronger and more consistent showings (normally, ok I know Norwich are in the Championship and Palace and B'muff are both beneath us atm) in the PL. Why are we so crap at working out what it takes to have a modicum of success at this level? I know we all said it would be hard but thats just becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy and it's so bloody difficult contemplating the possibility of getting beat week in, week out.

 

[Not Andy Naylor]

I despise the Premier League on many levels, but I want the Albion to win as many games as possible and that means (eventually - i.e. now) playing at the highest possible level. We'll be back in the Championship sooner or later so let's just enjoy this season and hope we upset a few of the bigger clubs while we're here. And Palace, of course.

 

[Pantani]

if we do go down then we will be in a FAR stronger position to push for promotion again than had we not been in the PL at all. This season might be a grind at times but in the long run it will be worth it.

Middlesbrough 7th, Hull 17th and Sunderland 21st

 

[crookie]

Middlesbrough 7th, Hull 17th and Sunderland 21st

Exactly, can't understand how anyone would be blase about becoming a yoyo team, or confident that we'll bounce straight back if we go down. Surely the agony of 2 seasons ago isn't something people want to experience again. For every Newcastle and Burnley, there are plenty more Leeds/Villa/Forest/Derby/Wolves/QPR/Ipswich/Birmingham/Fulham who have struggled to get back up. Enjoy the ride and pray we are 17th or better come the end

 

[Weststander]

You lost me at "scored a lot of goals"

You've lost me.

Southampton have given their fans plenty of those happy moments when their team actually scores. They're good at it. Beats the souless football of Pulis, Garcia and Puel, which turns fans off and away.

And Palace this season!

A model to follow if we manage to stay up at the first time of asking.

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

**Miserable git alert**

So as we prepare for a big game on Sunday we will be scrapping for 3 points to help get us to the promised land of 17th place at the end of the season. If we manage to get there, after patting ourselves on the back, we will then start looking out for next seasons fixtures so we can start scrapping for survival points all over again.

Repeat this until we get finally relegated.

Fun? I'm not sure.

This year it will be fun. Next year, the year after? I'm with you.

Thing is, I really think Brighton is being set up with so much more in mind. Bloom and Barber know what they are doing and there is still so much more potential. Bournemouth, Burnley, Watford may all be stronger than us right now, but the set up we have at Brighton, the massive fanbase, the training ground, the attention to detail, I really think that we aren't stopping here.

Not to say this year won't be hard, might get relegated, but the long-time is exciting, I;m sure of it

 

[pocketseagull]

As a JCL I'm loving the experience of being the underdog. It's brand new to me. I mean we had the Hyypia / Hughton season but we weren't underdogs then. We're gonna be up against it a lot this season and I think that's often when the Amex is at its best - when every moment that goes our way feels like a fightback against the odds.

 

[1234andcounting]

Before the West Brom game I speculated as to whether they might be our future. If that is the case, I can't say I am looking forward to it. They came to the Amex, against a team that many believe will be relegated, with the sole intention of getting a draw when they had had their best start in the top flight for a generation. As [MENTION=6886]Bozza[/MENTION] said, they also have done the square root of f... all in any of the cups. If this is our future, I will tolerate it but I won't enjoy it.

I don't believe that this is the club's ambition and that there is a genuine intent to kick on and become both established and sufficiently comfortable to feel that attention can be given to the cup competitions. But, but.....

 

[sir albion]

It's the most boring league in the world let's be honest

 

[Seasidesage]

We go up, we go down. It's always been the same. It'll never effect my support of my club.

 

[paul-brighton]

I'm

Sent from my SM-T520 using Tapatalk

 

[Jim in the West]

This year it will be fun. Next year, the year after? I'm with you.

Thing is, I really think Brighton is being set up with so much more in mind. Bloom and Barber know what they are doing and there is still so much more potential. Bournemouth, Burnley, Watford may all be stronger than us right now, but the set up we have at Brighton, the massive fanbase, the training ground, the attention to detail, I really think that we aren't stopping here.

Not to say this year won't be hard, might get relegated, but the long-time is exciting, I;m sure of it

I agree - there will be quite a few short-term painful moments (e.g.: Friday evening), but the focus on the Development Squad, the training ground, etc, show that the real thinking is long term.

 

[SIMMO SAYS]

I'm

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I'm with you

 

[Bodian]

Absolutely understandable. For me, my love of the Albion, and excitement about all things Albion, reached a thrilling crescendo towards the end of last season that I massively doubt will ever be reached again. I just can't see how it realistically will be..

15 years or so ago I simply couldn't imagine us even being in the Premier League, I thought we'd be bouncing between the second and third tiers for decades. The transformation to the last four years where I have felt 'sooner or later it's going to happen' has been astounding. It isn't unrealistic anymore to think we can do well in the PL. As PG Wodehouse often said; 'never confuse the unlikely with the impossible'.