Fine margins saw Seagulls miss out on a European adventure
There was a hint of frustration in the voice as Graham Potter touched on how close his side were to an European challenge this season.
The Brighton boss explained how the 11th placed Seagulls could be even further up the Premier League table – if only a few key moments had gone their way.
“You can say the form is so different [home and away] and it’s hard for me to disagree with that, but like I said, a couple of penalties, a couple of nil-nils turned into wins, and all of a sudden you’ve got eight more points and you can see where that puts you in the table, and that gets you closer to the positions you’re talking about [European places].
“You have to remember as well, last year we had something like the third lowest budget in the Premier League [16th in terms of expenditure], probably haven’t changed so much this year [19th in terms of net-spend]. Sold £65 million worth of players, it’s not all negative you know!”
Potter no longer wants his side to celebrate not being relegated, but to look further up the table.
“I’m not in favour of parties when you’ve still got five games to go because we’ve still got points we want to fight for and what I’d like is for the supporters to celebrate a win and a good performance.If you disrespect the Premier League in terms of the quality of the opposition, and things don’t go well and you’re not together and you have problems, you can find yourself pretty quickly out of the league.
“My previous club Swansea
City were in the Premier League for seven years and now they’re in the Championship, it’s not easy.
“There’s still a pride, a satisfaction and a happiness when you have enough points to stay in the Premier League, but we’re ambitious and want to keep moving forwards, and that’s what we’ll try to do. Winning games of football is what we’re here for and it makes life a lot easier if you do that, so, it’s quite simple, we’ve got five games, we’re on 40 points now, we want to try and get as many points as we can, and you do that by focusing on the next one.”
Potter also said he was pleased with how his charges had dealt with the ‘tough moments’ during Albion’s recent winless spell. He said: “I haven’t doubted that [the team’s resilience] because I have seen it over the course of my time here, there are always tough moments and you’ve got to come through.
“If you look at the league table, a lot of teams find getting points in this league hard, whether it’s home or away. It’s the nature of the competition.
“There are a few points separating a number of teams, so it’s not a bed of roses, you’ve got to deal with tough moments.”