[Albion] What exactly would the next manager do that would make everything good?

[Taybha]

Tell the players you don't get extra points for hitting the woodwork, the ball has to go in the netty looking thing to be in with a chance of points .

Pick the holes out of that one you pedantic bunch of cockwombles .

Merry Christmas.

 

[The red pepper kid]

Wow, you don’t think that Potter is using as many academy players as he can get away with?

We may get more applications than you can shake a stick at for the manager’s job so who could we realistically have got who would have done a better job?

I have yet to hear a single realistic suggestion other than Eddie Howe (who imo is not the man for the job as he needs BIG backing) but whenever I ask the detractors who we should get to replace Potter it always ends up “not my job, it”s the clubs” . Fine but these same people are quite happy to pass opinion on everything the club is doing wrong

We are a low budget club (comparatively speaking) playing in a pool of mega budget clubs but we are supposed to be as good as them? We are where we are because we are small time. I EXPECT a relegation struggle every season and that’s what we get but I see potential in Potter and what the club are doing, we are sailing close to the wind every season but we are going in the right direction imo.

I am keeping the faith but accepting of the fact that we may not have enough to stay up this season

Thank god one of us is realistic - this is the best squad ive ever seen us have since 1974(when I started watching the club)- my club
we are were we are and that is that !
we are punching well above our weight and just scraping it . We would need another 4-5 players to get 3 -4 places up the league .
I havent really enjoyed last season or this as we seem constantly to hang on and go no where (F.A cup semi Final ) Survival doesn't match the excitement of a promotion push.
thank god our owner wont bust the bank and repeat past mistakes.
I am personally happy but frustrated--- just deal with it -- we wanted CH gone and we got it , cant see Potter getting pushed although he might walk

 

[Bold Seagull]

You're missing the point that Potter was brought in because he'd coached misfits in Sweden and a youth team level squad at Swansea (supposedly) and got relative success. But, points and results wise he's doing no better than Hughton with a stronger squad. He's achieving the opposite of what he came in for at the moment. That said....

I agree. I think there's a post from me somewhere on here saying he'd improved exactly those players. But you're talking about two defenders and a CDM, while Alzate went missing from the squad just as people were realising how good he was. He has not improved the attackers. [MENTION=16159]Bold Seagull[/MENTION] says you can't. I say you can't when your entire outfield coaching staff are ex defenders. Ironically though, while he has made March one of our biggest attacking threats, he is also our biggest defensive liability because he doesn't have the pace relative to Lamptey to get back and has a habit of hanging a leg out when he's tired.

Well, I didn't say you can't improve players, I'm pretty sure I said you can only go as far as their ability allows. If you think it is all down to coaching, then that denys strikers everywhere have hot feet one minute, barren scoring spells the next. That isn't coaching, that is a fact of the footballing Gods.

How can you conclude he hasn't improved Connolly? Hughton wouldn't even put him on the bench. Potter has him as a PL starter. Okay, that hasn't resulted in a number of goals, but he is now an international regular and I have little doubt he has massively improved over Potter's tenure - he is still a 20 yr old kid, even if that isn't yet been enough to light up the PL.

As for March, he's never looked as effective as he does currently. He's more consistent now than he was in the Championship. His defending has been fine as a wing-back, Sunday he was required to drop into full back with the injury to Veltman and Potter going more attacking against a defending 10 man team. Not sure I can fault him for that.

 

[Icy Gull]

You're missing the point that Potter was brought in because he'd coached misfits in Sweden and a youth team level squad at Swansea (supposedly) and got relative success. But, points and results wise he's doing no better than Hughton with a stronger squad. He's achieving the opposite of what he came in for at the moment. That said....



I agree. I think there's a post from me somewhere on here saying he'd improved exactly those players. But you're talking about two defenders and a CDM, while Alzate went missing from the squad just as people were realising how good he was. He has not improved the attackers. [MENTION=16159]Bold Seagull[/MENTION] says you can't. I say you can't when your entire outfield coaching staff are ex defenders. Ironically though, while he has made March one of our biggest attacking threats, he is also our biggest defensive liability because he doesn't have the pace relative to Lamptey to get back and has a habit of hanging a leg out when he's tired.

He is doing no better than CH? Points wise you are 100% correct but I don’t want to punch someone after every game and give up going (watching) so I strongly disagree. I am incredibly frustrated watching us I admit but at least we TRY and take games to other teams and don’t adopt League One cup game tactics (against PL teams) EVERY ****ing week.

We are not going to agree on this are we ?

I struggle to hold Potter responsible for our strikers missing absolute sitters every single game.

 

[Icy Gull]

Thank god one of us is realistic - this is the best squad ive ever seen us have since 1974(when I started watching the club)- my club
we are were we are and that is that !
we are punching well above our weight and just scraping it . We would need another 4-5 players to get 3 -4 places up the league .
I havent really enjoyed last season or this as we seem constantly to hang on and go no where (F.A cup semi Final ) Survival doesn't match the excitement of a promotion push.
thank god our owner wont bust the bank and repeat past mistakes.
I am personally happy but frustrated--- just deal with it -- we wanted CH gone and we got it , cant see Potter getting pushed although he might walk

maybe it’s because we have both been watching the same length of time (I am one year less than you) that we feel like this

 

[Machiavelli]

A long one so I’ll have to do that thing of breaking the quotes up. But this is a good discussion that I’m happy to have in an intelligent manner (the same with one of the other mods who really doesn’t agree with me). I’m less pleased when Plooks starts yet another thread about pant pissing. It’s not constructive.
I was on The Albion Roar this week though kept mostly quiet as the other guest was Henry Winter and he’s the sort of guy you shut up for. Some of the below was discussed in more detail and I don’t necessarily disagree with you on bits of it.



I agree. I said on the show Sanchez was brought in to deal with set pieces at one end. The set pieces at the other
end are still well towards the bottom of the stats league though. Let’s see what Moder does.



Our defensive record has been worse under three at the back and we seem to just shoehorn White in for the sake of it. We need an alternative. Not everyone is Henderson of course but all I’m saying is it’s fairly easy for someone to cover for a forward thinking full back. TAA and Robertson are attacking weapons in a four. That, at the end of the day, is just tactics. Our players aren’t under 10s.



But when he’s available then “10” is his best position. Again covered off in more detail on the show. I think we should be more flexible on set up and I thought that was Potter’s strength but the formation part of “guess the lineup” is getting very predictable.



Agree on Burn. No idea why Potter doesn’t fancy Bernardo but are you sure it’s not because he doesn’t suit a style and formation that isn’t really working, based on goals conceded?



Fine. Re 6) maybe he’d make the case better. We always hear this line from our manager / head coach that they are happy with the attacking options when they shouldn’t be. I think Bloom likes a yes man.



Relegation would be more expensive, especially if Covid is still doing the business.



I didn’t make my point clear enough. I’m saying I think the bloke with two points is a better manager.
And now the questions:



If we keep Potter we’ll go down. Each year depends on the previous one TBH and no one can be certain of long term plans in the current climate.



That’s up to him. Not my job. But as I said on another thread he will have alternatives lined up in case Potter quits. Hopefully a chunk on a striker who works out.



You say loyalty but none was shown to CH. Again this is covered in a lot of detail on AR. Winter feels we acted with “cowardice” and his defence of that position is robust and interesting.



I think the long term strategy is correct and back Bloom in that 100%. I’ve become less than convinced that Potter is the right man to lead it.

I still haven't worked out that thing of how to break quotes up, so I'm replying more-or-less sequentially to your comments:
-- strangely enough, I was on the Brighton Rock podcast, and expanded a bit on this all in that, so two can play at that game, even if your game is more impressive
-- I'm still not convinced you're right on formation, although we might play 3 at the back because: i, it brings the best out of March and Lamptey; and ii, CB is the position in the squad we're best catered for, and have four really decent ones. I will say that we do need to do a bit more 'overlapping' or ball-carrying (Webster does this the most often, and the best -- not that this will be recognised by many on here), so we're not outnumbered in other parts of the pitch
-- line-up: many posters have mentioned it, but we do need to see more stable, consistent selection. We're unlikely to see it at this time of the year, with fixtures coming thick and fast, but that stability aids the development of, and understanding between, partnerships. Still not convinced with your Liverpool comparisons, nor building a team around Lallana at 10 (which is what your suggestion effectively amounts to)
-- I loved Bernardo under CH, but like you [MENTION=38333]Swansman[/MENTION] knows his football, and he's unimpressed, and I agree that he hasn't been up to much under Potter, who doesn't fancy him, I suspect because he gives the ball away too much. He has good athleticism, speed, strength though.
-- I've no idea why you've bought the line about Potter being happy with his forwards. He will say something different to the board to what he says to journalists, I'd imagine. If he doesn't, he doesn't understand what our problem is: see goals scored vs xG.
-- of course relegation would be expensive, but we go into every season with a chance of being relegated, for the simple reason that we pay a bottom six level of player wages.
-- I think Wilder has been found out at this level, and he lacks the tactical flexibility and playing quality (despite spending £70m+ on 3 players) to turn things round. They're going down. I suspect Potter will keep us up, but it'll be tight.
-- I'll listen to Winter but I turned against CH after the five-nil Muff dive. To his credit, Bloom kept him until the end of the season, but it proved to be the right timing: we'd been found out -- we scraped three lucky one-nils in succession that season, and were dire in the second half of the season, the football was uninspiring, our regular picks had nocturnal habits and weren't doing it, and we were only heading in one direction under CH. Add in the DS being ignored. The football we're currently playing is nowhere near that level, and we're creating the chances -- just need to finish them better.

One penultimate thing: we've also had a bad run of decisions this season (Batshuyi penalty most obviously, but there is a fairly long list), so it's not just xG, blah, blah, blah.
And the last thing: to repeat a point from my previous post -- if he's lost the players then he needs to go. Neither of us know for sure what's going on behind the scenes.

 

[boik]

One penultimate thing: we've also had a bad run of decisions this season (Batshuyi penalty most obviously, but there is a fairly long list), so it's not just xG, blah, blah, blah.
And the last thing: to repeat a point from my previous post -- if he's lost the players then he needs to go. Neither of us know for sure what's going on behind the scenes.

Oh come on. Not knowing something shouldn't stop you speculating it to death. You now how NSC works!

 

[Guinness Boy]

I still haven't worked out that thing of how to break quotes up, so I'm replying more-or-less sequentially to your comments:
-- strangely enough, I was on the Brighton Rock podcast, and expanded a bit on this all in that, so two can play at that game, even if your game is more impressive
-- I'm still not convinced you're right on formation, although we might play 3 at the back because: i, it brings the best out of March and Lamptey; and ii, CB is the position in the squad we're best catered for, and have four really decent ones. I will say that we do need to do a bit more 'overlapping' or ball-carrying (Webster does this the most often, and the best -- not that this will be recognised by many on here), so we're not outnumbered in other parts of the pitch
-- line-up: many posters have mentioned it, but we do need to see more stable, consistent selection. We're unlikely to see it at this time of the year, with fixtures coming thick and fast, but that stability aids the development of, and understanding between, partnerships. Still not convinced with your Liverpool comparisons, nor building a team around Lallana at 10 (which is what your suggestion effectively amounts to)
-- I loved Bernardo under CH, but like you [MENTION=38333]Swansman[/MENTION] knows his football, and he's unimpressed, and I agree that he hasn't been up to much under Potter, who doesn't fancy him, I suspect because he gives the ball away too much. He has good athleticism, speed, strength though.
-- I've no idea why you've bought the line about Potter being happy with his forwards. He will say something different to the board to what he says to journalists, I'd imagine. If he doesn't, he doesn't understand what our problem is: see goals scored vs xG.
-- of course relegation would be expensive, but we go into every season with a chance of being relegated, for the simple reason that we pay a bottom six level of player wages.
-- I think Wilder has been found out at this level, and he lacks the tactical flexibility and playing quality (despite spending £70m+ on 3 players) to turn things round. They're going down. I suspect Potter will keep us up, but it'll be tight.
-- I'll listen to Winter but I turned against CH after the five-nil Muff dive. To his credit, Bloom kept him until the end of the season, but it proved to be the right timing: we'd been found out -- we scraped three lucky one-nils in succession that season, and were dire in the second half of the season, the football was uninspiring, our regular picks had nocturnal habits and weren't doing it, and we were only heading in one direction under CH. Add in the DS being ignored. The football we're currently playing is nowhere near that level, and we're creating the chances -- just need to finish them better.

One penultimate thing: we've also had a bad run of decisions this season (Batshuyi penalty most obviously, but there is a fairly long list), so it's not just xG, blah, blah, blah.
And the last thing: to repeat a point from my previous post -- if he's lost the players then he needs to go. Neither of us know for sure what's going on behind the scenes.

I've not heard Brighton Rock before. I'll give that a listen. I just happen to have a few days off coming up for a change

Sorry, it was a blatant name drop but we covered a lot of this and I feel that sometimes you lose things in the written word, especially on something like NSC which is necessarily concise. Sanchez (or, really, Ryan), Lallana and our attacking options, "nice" football, Hughton's dismissal.

Re:

-- I've no idea why you've bought the line about Potter being happy with his forwards. He will say something different to the board to what he says to journalists, I'd imagine. If he doesn't, he doesn't understand what our problem is: see goals scored vs xG.

EVERY manager we have had since Oscar seems to say it and yet, Murray apart, we've really not had a decent goal scorer in years. Yes, they are not going to come out to the press and say "look at this shit bunch of strikers this joker's given me" but the message is scripted. I find that.......annoying.

 

[maltaseagull]

Get the team at a much fitter level. Bielsa realises to compete with a weak squad you have to have them super fit to lessen the gap.

Get the players to play with a much higher level of commitment which then raises the tempo. We are scarily lacking in this department, with or without the ball.

Stevens could have scored before their goal. He ran half the length of the pitch and no Brighton player went with him. Why FFS?

More importantly identify who did it and drop them until they're prepared to run for the team.

I have just watched an episode of the Spurs documentary in which Loris has a right go at Son for not tracking back. They nearly came to blows leaving the pitch at half time.
We need someone on the pitch to do that when they don't do their jobs.

 

[blue'n'white]

How many great performances have you see from the Albion against 10 men? I genuinely can’t remember that many

I remember many years ago at the Goldstone when we were playing Hartlepool. Their goalkeeper got sent off and a great lumbering centre forward went in the net. We managed no more shots on goal that day when you would think we should have been peppering the net with attempts.