Graham Potter calls for perspective over start to season

The Seagulls’ head coach is not happy with how general perception of his team’s performances and start to the season has seemingly shifted.

And he let that known in his replies during the regular Thursday lunchtime media session.

Not in a table-thump, eye-popping way. The words were carefully chosen and calmly delivered.

But a sense of patience wearing thin was pretty obvious.

It is a balancing act. Albion’s supporters do not always expect to win games in the top flight but they probably expected three points versus West Brom, certainly at half-time.

We have had a long few days since then, in-keeping with what seems to be a generally bleak mood in this rain-lashed, Covid-threatened, suddenly very dark week.

Potter was certainly not thrilled by the second half against the Baggies but still felt his side had the better chances over the 90 minutes.

That observation is both fair but also another reason for disappointment at the result.

Potter said: “There’s an assumption that every chance you get you’re going to score – and that’s not football, that’s not reality, so we can’t say we must put our chance away. It doesn’t work like that.

“The hardest thing in football is to score and there’s better players than our players that miss and there’s other teams that are far better than us that miss so we have to understand that.

“Like I said, the bigger thing for me to understand is that we’re in the Premier League, as I understand it, we’re Brighton.

“Unless I’ve missed something, we haven’t been at this level for too long in our history, we are fighting every day to be here, and we’re no better than anyone else, we’ve got no divine right to win a football game so we shouldn’t be putting ourselves under any pressure in terms of ‘We must score this chance, we must score this goal’.

“Now, sometimes the opponent does well and we have to keep going and that’s the mentality I would rather us have.

“I think most of our supporters understand the history of this club, understand where we’ve been at, where we’ve come from.

“There will be a few that just expect us to win because we’re Brighton.

“I’d like them to explain that to me but that’s the way of the world.”

The “remember where we’ve come from” theme recurred a few times during the media session.

Most people do and most – not all - also appreciate the financial considerations which mean they have not been able to match other clubs for spending this year.

But, still, they will have expected to have beaten West Brom, an expectation based on the good football we have seen on several occasions already this term.

Potter recognised his team did not have the level of control they would have wanted.

He said: “I think that’s something that we have to deal with better because we need to understand that, in any game at this level, that we have to fight for everything.

“It’s not like just because we’re at home against West Brom that we should automatically get the three points. It’s not the case.

“I don’t think the players were short of effort at all, it’s just a collective understanding that we’re in the Premier League and we have to fight for everything and I’m sure that the players understand that. It’s part of the process we have to go through.”

Ahead of the West Brom game, the perception seemed to be that Albion did not have the points they deserved.

The problem on Monday was they did not get three points because they did not deserve them.

Potter said: “Have we had a good start or not based on one result is a strange reality for me.

“Of course, it’s all about perspective. Sometimes there’s a difference between illusion and imagination and reality.

“The frustration is not with the players, that’s for sure, because the players give everything, I think the performances have been really, really good, we’ve got one of the youngest teams in the Premier League.

“We’ve performed against Manchester United and Chelsea quite well and maybe could have got something more than we did but we didn’t.

“Unless I’ve missed something since I’ve been in Wales or Sweden, I don’t think Brighton have ever been a top team or a top performing team.

“I think when I came in, the season before they had 36 points, so I’m not sure where this perception of where we should be or whether it’s bad or not comes from.

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“Because if we’re a club that expects to win games in the Premier League just because we’re Brighton, then I must have missed the memo. I must have missed something.

“For us to sit here and go, ‘Oh yeah, it’s a really bad start, we’ve got five points’ in the Premier League. We’ve played Chelsea, Man United and Everton. I find it strange.”

There is a range of opinion out there. The unhappiest tend to be the loudest. But a change of mood would be welcome.