POTTER LEARNING FROM BEST
GRAHAM POTTER has just pitted his wits against Mikel Arteta, Antonio Conte and Pep Guardiola – and his only regret is he didn’t get to chat to them for longer.
Potter’s Brighton came out of those games with wins at Arsenal and Tottenham and a defeat at Manchester City – in which they held the champions to a goalless first-half before eventually succumbing to the inevitable. He also guided Brighton to a draw at Anfield against Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool earlier in the season and it has been a steep learning curve for a young coach who hadn’t managed in the Premier League until he arrived from Swansea.
But as his side prepare to take on Southampton today he wishes there was some way of picking the brains of the top managers he faces. Potter said: “Sadly you don’t
get to speak to them too much, which is a shame because there is a fountain of knowledge there.
“The way the game is, people go off and there’s not a dialogue.
“But of course I respect all of them, they are fantastic managers. Just to play against them and watch their teams you learn a lot. You see how they prepare and their ideas, and what they are trying to do.
“I find myself thinking how fortunate I am to have the kind of top experience of playing at Tottenham, for instance, on a sunny day in a fantastic stadium against one of the people I admire most in football. “Then to have that experience quickly followed by Pep Guardiola at Man City. It doesn’t get much better than that.
“You can learn every day from those experiences.” Premier League managers do get together from time to time at LMA events or pre-season briefings. But even then Potter reckons it isn’t always easy to pick the brains of the men he admires. He added: “You do get to meet, but you need more time than that to really get into a proper conversation. The reality is the only time managers have a real chance to go around and talk to people is when they are out of work, and that’s when you have the time to find out a bit more and share ideas in a different way.
“Right now, you’re just focusing on the games and you have to learn from the experience of playing against each other instead.”
It looks like Potter is doing just that, with Brighton just a point away from recording their best ever points total in the Premier League.
And they are also on target to match their best ever top-flight finish – 13th in 1982.
“We’ve got five games remaining and we’ve already got 40 points. We’re going to try and get as many more as we can,” Potter said.
Albion will be without suspended Yves Bissouma today but are hoping to have Leandro Trossard back from illness.