Potter seeks substance to go with style as revolution gains pace
Manager says Brighton must win more than admirers, starting at Palace, writes Sam Dean
There have been only two occasions in Brighton’s Premier League history when they have gone to the home of one of the “Big Six” and not lost. Both took place at the Emirates, with Arsenal proving to be the most vulnerable of their high-profile opponents in the past two seasons.
The two games in north London took place within 16 league matches and six months of each other, yet there are few similarities between them.
It may well have been Brighton who earned a draw at Arsenal at the end of last season but, by almost any other measure, the team who won there this month are a totally different side.
There have been few footballing transformations as drastic, or as sudden, as Brighton’s under Graham Potter. There has been no gradual phasing out of Chris Hughton’s football, no lingering muscle memory that got in their way during the early stages of the campaign.
The statistics from those two matches against Arsenal confirm what even the most casual observers of Brighton can see. In May, they enjoyed 29 per cent of possession and played 235 passes. Earlier this month, they had 51 per cent of the ball, playing 413 passes.
Stylistically, the Brighton who will face Crystal Palace tonight are almost as far removed from Hughton’s side as it is possible to be. A match-up with Roy Hodgson’s team, their great rivals, used to be a battle of two organised, structured sides. This one will instead be an intriguing contrast: Palace’s rigid shape against Brighton’s fluid movement.
“I think we adapted quickly,” says Leandro
Trossard, the forward, of the change in methods on the south coast.
Trossard joined from
Genk in part because
Potter had promised him a role in an open, attractive team. “He said how he wanted to play, more attractive. He said you cannot change it in only one month but also the way he saw me in the system, playing between the lines. I think from the start you could see it is a lot quicker.”
The longer-serving players have adapted, too, which is arguably the most impressive aspect of Potter’s tenure so far.
Defenders such as Lewis Dunk and midfielders like Dale Stephens are two disciples of Hughton who have adjusted to a new approach without hesitation. “We are all enjoying playing football like this,” said Dunk this month. “Long may it continue.”
This season, Brighton average 55 per cent of possession, up from 41 per cent last year. They score 1.3 goals per game, up from 0.9 last
‘If you told me the players don’t enjoy their football, would that bother me? I would say yes’
year. They shoot 14 times per match on average, up from 10 last year. It goes on and on.
Did Potter think it would take longer to impose his style upon the team? “You can’t predict like that,” he says. “You see how it is from day to day and what you need to progress. And then keep it simple. “It is not as if I sit here wanting people to like me personally, but I think it is important that they enjoy playing football. No one enjoys losing. If you told me that the players don’t enjoy their football, would that bother me? I would say probably yes.” Potter’s bosses are enjoying the football, too. He was given a two-year contract extension after just six months and 13 Premier League games in the job. “He has brought a different approach with a new style of play, which has been embraced by players and supporters alike,” said chairman Tony Bloom last month, when the extension was announced.
For all this, though, there is one statistic that is easily forgotten. After 16 games, Potter’s side have 19 points. At this stage last season, they had 21. The change in style has won over the neutrals, the fans, the players and the chairman, but it has not yet made them a more effective team in terms of points.
All of which makes it doubly interesting that Potter was handed that contract extension, and that the mood at the Amex is so optimistic coming into the busy festive schedule. So much is made in modern football of the importance of the “club philosophy”, and Potter’s Brighton have provided arguably the most comprehensive proof yet that the game really has become about more than results.
Not that it matters to all clubs. Just ask Palace, whose supporters are certainly not demanding an on-pitch revolution. Hodgson has his way of doing things, and that is working just fine, thank you very much. Indeed, Brighton’s opponents tonight have tried to take the expansive route before, under Frank de Boer, and it was nothing short of a disaster.
Potter, for his part, is pragmatic as well as philosophical. He appreciates that attractive football only works if it is successful football, and he knows that the promise of these early months will count for little if Brighton end up in the relegation zone in May. It will not help him, either, if his side look naive in a painful defeat at Selhurst Park.
“It is not to say that what we are doing now is better than what they [the Brighton players] were doing before,” Potter says. “It is not about better or worse. History suggests that if you look at Crystal Palace, they changed something and lost seven games and then made a change again. It is the Premier League. You can talk all you want about styles but if you don’t win then you’re in trouble because people don’t believe.”
Right now, they do believe. They believe in a new way of doing things and a long-term project that involves appealing football and younger players from the academy.
The cynics will snort and say it means nothing if the end destination is relegation, and they are probably right.
But Potter and Brighton are showing that, in modern football, the journey can be just as important as the outcome.