Topic: Brighton & Hove Albion.

[Terry de Niro]

Yep he looks a really good player. Some team they have at the moment. No doubt they will hammer us next week.

Agreed about the lad and the team.
but, Optimisation eh!

[MBL?]

That Ferguson kid looks like a great get for them. He was highly rated here so it’s surprising us or united didn’t get him. His mother is English as well so I’m sure Southgate will try get him on that side. In saying that I’d be shocked if he changed sides unlike rice and grealish who grew up English.

[BarryCrocker]

That Ferguson kid looks like a great get for them. He was highly rated here so it’s surprising us or united didn’t get him. His mother is English as well so I’m sure Southgate will try get him on that side. In saying that I’d be shocked if he changed sides unlike rice and grealish who grew up English.

In reality, Chelsea did make an enquiry, but they were not the only Premier League club to do so. Liverpool and Everton both took him on trial, while he regularly travelled across the Irish Sea to train with Brighton's youth teams.

"I went to Liverpool a few times,” he told The Athletic. “It’s a good club, but you see so many boys at Liverpool just fading away and there’s no chance to get in the first team. I was thinking, ‘Do I just want to play two years of Under-18s and then go to the U23s and go from there to where?’"

[MBL?]

Fair enough and he has a point. Centre forward would be the hardest spot to get in here, I said in the Doak thread that as good as he looks he needs to consistently produce goals and assists for it to work even in the short term.

This kid is doing it straight away but they look like a well oiled machine and he’d be given more time regardless there.

[Wolverine]

I think Brighton play the most entertaining brand of football in the entire country. Their a bit crap defensively because otherwise I wouldn't of been shocked to see them finished 4th this season given the standard of the teams below 3rd this season.

[Nick110581]

They might still be a streaky side as teams can almost stop playing when they are effectively safe although I don’t think they will

[Gerry Attrick]

Signing Joao Pedro from Watford for £30m. A big transfer for them, so they’re obviously expecting to receive quite a lot of readies…

[MonsLibpool]

Signing Joao Pedro from Watford for £30m. A big transfer for them, so they’re obviously expecting to receive quite a lot of readies…

Where does he play?

[Aldo1988]

Signing Joao Pedro from Watford for £30m. A big transfer for them, so they’re obviously expecting to receive quite a lot of readies…

He's a very good prospect, we really need to buy their scouts!

[LovelyCushionedHeader]

Probably a good signing as he was very highly rated before going to Watford (to the point where other clubs were trying to buy him from Watford before he actually moved there). But he hasn't actually been that great for them, particularly in the Championship, although it's been a shit show for them all round this season. You'd expect him to flourish in Brighton's system.

[Legs]

Where does he play?

Forward positions and like poster below says Watford arent really good for progress seem to have 3 managers a season !

On another note im surprised Sarr is still there thought someone like Palace/West Ham would snap him up

[elsewhere]

Are they actually much better team than they were with Potter?
They cleaned Chelsea's bank acct then got a much better manager.

[Malaysian Kopite]

As someone who's mentally checked out this season, how did these get smashed by Everton again?

[thaddeus]

As someone who's mentally checked out this season, how did these get smashed by Everton again?

Their manager was very clear that they weren't mentally right for the game.  Conceding a goal after 34 seconds is a good sign that they weren't on it from the start.

Even still it was a crazy score-line given every other statistic for the match:
Possession: 78/22
Shots: 23/10
On target: 5/5 (for much of the match Everton had more goals than shots on target!)
Corners: 15/1
Expected Goals: 2.76/2.3

It's one of those freak games that if played again you'd expect Brighton to win almost every time.  A massive boost for Everton in terms of the three points and the goal difference but not indicative of any great progress by Everton.

[jillcwhomever]

An amazing achievement by Brighton to qualify for Europe. Well done the Seagulls.

[disgraced cake]

Shame about the results against Everton and Newcastle, but yeah, great achievement. I think they're straight into the Europa League group stages barring some freak goal swing against Villa puts them into the Conference League.

Will be interested to see who they draw and how seriously they take it. Their league form may suffer a bit next season, but they've got to test themselves in the Europa League. Could get a tough draw considering they'll be seeded in the bottom pot.

A bit mad to think that we'll be in the first pot alongside West Ham if they win the Conference League.

[AndyMuller]

Good season but they are overrated and started to believe their own hype.

[Redsnappa]

Hope we don't get these in the knockout rounds, they've got our number 

[BobPaisley3]

Ipswich 2000-01 vibes.

[Red-Soldier]

Ipswich 2000-01 vibes.

I don't think they'll get relegated next season.

Ipswich spent badly, that summer.

[BobPaisley3]

I don't think they'll get relegated next season.

Ipswich spent badly, that summer.

Yeah, think you’re right unless they struggle after the impending fire sale.

[LovelyCushionedHeader]

Ipswich 2000-01 vibes.

Potentially the worst shout ever.

[The G in Gerrard]

Well done. Some odd dislike for them.

[bird_lfc]

Well done. Some odd dislike for them.

. A well run club, not run by dictators, who haven’t splashed a load of money to get where they are. Happy for them and the fans, myself.

[A Red Abroad]

. A well run club, not run by dictators, who haven’t splashed a load of money to get where they are. Happy for them and the fans, myself.

I like the city too - progressive politics and a decent weekend away.

[Crosby Nick]

Yeah they’ve done well. Annoying results these last few weeks from our perspective but they’ve done what’s best for them during a bit of a fixture like up. They’ll have to get used to that next season though.

[Hazell]

Well done. Some odd dislike for them.

Probably based on their recent results and how they've affected us but well done to them really. Well run and done things the right way. Added bonus is that Tottenham won't be in the Europa League next season and might miss out on Europe altogether.

[tubby]

Can't be mad at them, they're just living their lives.  No chance they get sucked into a relegation scrap next season, think they'll hover around midtable and have a decentish run in Europe before crashing out.

[newterp]

Will be interesting to see how they this season and how De Zervi does overall. He seems to be a good progressive manager.

[GinKop]

Bump. Found this on page 4.

The football these guys are playing, they deserve to be talked about a lot more.

Just saw the full passage of play for the Gross goal posted on their Twitter.

Fantastic football...going to be very interesting to watch them and Di Zerbi this season. Let's see how they go when Europe starts, but absolute credit to them.

During this age of selling your soul to an oil club, they really are an impressive story.

[Fromola]

Without knowing who drops out the CL, you could argue they're our biggest rivals for Europa League this season.

Just looked at the odds and they're actually second favourites!

Followed by Roma, Villareal and West Ham.

[GinKop]

Without knowing who drops out the CL, you could argue they're our biggest rivals for Europa League this season.

Just looked at the odds and they're actually second favourites!

Followed by Roma, Villareal and West Ham.

That's very surprising they're second favourites, but also not from a footballing perspective.

What I can't tell is if this is just a purple patch where everything just clicks (remember Sheffield United and Wilder a few seasons back) or if there is something much deeper than this.

They're obviously a better run club overall than Sheffield United were, and everything seems to be going right for them. Do they make dud signings at all?

I'm no expert in them at all but I'm looking at the stats since he's been in charge there and they top or are second in a lot of interesting metrics.

[Jwils21]

Would have been easy for them to get giddy with the Caicedo money and splash it all in one go, in a similar fashion to Spurs after selling Bale.

Instead they’ve strengthened the first team a bit, and there are still key parts to play for the experienced heads like Dunk, Groß, Lallana and Milner. They’ve got a good balance between shiny new talent (Mitoma, Pedro, Ferguson) and experienced older heads.

As long as it’s not at our expense, wish them the best. It’s nice to see a story of relative success that doesn’t involve endless dodgy dealings.

[Elzar]

That's very surprising they're second favourites, but also not from a footballing perspective.

What I can't tell is if this is just a purple patch where everything just clicks (remember Sheffield United and Wilder a few seasons back) or if there is something much deeper than this.

They're obviously a better run club overall than Sheffield United were, and everything seems to be going right for them. Do they make dud signings at all?

I'm no expert in them at all but I'm looking at the stats since he's been in charge there and they top or are second in a lot of interesting metrics.

They do make dud signings, but they tend to barely even make it to the pitch so nobody notices. They tend to spend low on some prospects, and then only need a few to come good to make some good money back on them. In the recent case, they have made a lot more than I bet they were expecting.

They tend to manage the younger players they sign well too, loaning to the right places and giving them a chance to develop rather than asking them to sit on the bench and make an impact sporadically.

I suppose it is due to their position and lesser status that they can do all this, so if they manage to keep it up and grow in the game, trying to compete further, it will be interesting to see if they would still take a risk on someone like Dahoud, Igor or Verbruggen, or if they will try shop in a higher market.

[keyop]

Bump. Found this on page 4.

The football these guys are playing, they deserve to be talked about a lot more.

Just saw the full passage of play for the Gross goal posted on their Twitter.

Fantastic football...going to be very interesting to watch them and Di Zerbi this season. Let's see how they go when Europe starts, but absolute credit to them.

During this age of selling your soul to an oil club, they really are an impressive story.

Definitely. They are the antithesis to the Utd's, Chelsea's, City's and Newcastle's of this world.

This was posted in the Utd thread, which is pretty accurate (its actually only £18.8m...), and is just unreal team building to play the football they do for such low spend on players:

Read this on Twitter, crazy if true:

Brighton Starting XI: Steele £0, Veltman £1m, Van Hecke £2m, Dunk £0, Lamptey £3m, Dahoud £0, Gross £3m, Adringa £8m, Mitoma £3m, Lallana £0, Welbz £0 = TOTAL £20m

In other words, 1/4th of a Maguire

Whatever their formula is, it's working very well and shows that smaller clubs don't have to spend big (or play Neanderthal football) in the PL to survive or succeed.

[tubby]

They're doing brilliant work, but I do think they'll crash and burn at some point in this season because of European competition.

[groove]

It should be nearly impossible to do what they're doing. They are the only team in the division with a positive net spend over the last five years and they have a bottom 5 wage bill. They are playing the transfer market so much better than everyone else likely due to Tony Bloom setting up the most comprehensive analytics department around.

[keyop]

They're doing brilliant work, but I do think they'll crash and burn at some point in this season because of European competition.

That's true - they might find it hard to juggle it all, but that's normal for a club their size when you've spent relatively little compared to the bigger clubs, and have been trying to slowly progress since promotion. Crash and burn is more akin to what Chelsea and Utd do - clubs like Brighton are allowed a wobble now and then or a difficult season, given the size of the club and the relative spend/wages.

Since promotion in 2017, they've finished 15th, 17th, 15th, 16th, 9th, and 6th. This season is still young, but 4 wins and 15 goals in 5 games is a solid foundation, and it wouldn't surprise me if they finished in the Europa positions again (or very close). They've clearly taken a few seasons to find their feet, build a system, build an analytics/recruitment network for PL football, and developed their style of play. They also made close to £200m in transfer sales this summer, and have spent less than half that on new young players.

That's what makes Potter's move to Chelsea seem so odd - he left a great project to join a club with no footballing identity or strategy, which was going backwards, and a club who give managers no time to build a team or any long term plan. He was probably seduced by a megalomanic owner with big pockets and a bigger ego, and thought the step up from Brighton would be smoother.

Brighton then qualified for Europe the season after he left, Chelsea finished 12th, and he was sacked.

[Jwils21]

It should be nearly impossible to do what they're doing. They are the only team in the division with a positive net spend over the last five years and they have a bottom 5 wage bill. They are playing the transfer market so much better than everyone else likely due to Tony Bloom setting up the most comprehensive analytics department around.

Losing White, Burn, Cucurella, Bissouma, Mwepu, Mac Allister, Caicedo, Trossard and Sanchez over the last 3 years could have crippled them, but they've recovered well and have brought in players who fit their team dynamic. It's really impressive work. Look at the likes of Mitoma, Enciso and Buonanotte who have come from less fashionable leagues for low sums and look like strong talents.

[disgraced cake]

Their European group is Marseille, Ajax and AEK Athens and you could actually see them winning it if they take it seriously and why wouldn't they in their first ever European campaign. Marseille are unpredictable but typically let themselves down, see getting knocked out of the Champions League qualifier by Panathinaikos who themselves ended up going out to Braga. Ajax haven't looked good for a few years now, they'd be lucky to finish midtable in England, and they should be able to manage a couple of wins against AEK. Qualification in general will be the aim but they can win that group and nobody would really fancy facing them from there on.