Gus Poyet and Brighton? Eeeeeeees complicated

How do you describe Gustavo Augusto Poyet Domínguez – Gus Poyet to you or me – as Brighton manager? Egocentric yet altruistic. Controversial yet compassionate. A revolutionary yet a man who refused to evolve. A brilliant manager but one who many people sadly remember for under-delivering.

Poyet was a package of contradictions wrapped up in a rangy, Uruguayan frame. He had been one of the finest Premier League players of his era, playing 244 times over the course of seven years with Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur.

That stellar career meant that it was seen as quite a coup when Tony Bloom managed to convince Poyet to become Brighton manager in November 2009 after Steve Coppell had turned down the chance of a second spell at the helm.

Poyet was a bloke who was used to performing in front of huge crowds in some of the finest stadiums in the world. Now, his office would be in a rented building on a playing field at the University of Sussex. His new home ground was an athletics stadium with no roof that only 7,000 people were turning up to every other week.

Appointing Poyet was not without risk for Bloom. It was the first managerial appointment he had made since replacing Dick Knight as chairman six months earlier and while most clubs in a League One relegation battle would have gone for a proven, experienced manager, Bloom instead turned to a rookie.

Poyet’s management experience stretched to a couple of stints as assistant to Dennis Wise at Swindon Town and The Leeds United and a spell working under Juande Ramos during the Spaniard’s ill-fated time at Spurs.

Poyet may have been a great player in his own right, but could he really know how to get the best out of journeyman lower league players like Andrew Crofts and Glenn Murray?

The answer of course was a resounding yes. In his first press conference, Poyet said, “The whole team, the whole club, with the city behind them want to go places and I want to be part of it. So I’m looking forward to the next few months or years.” Almost instantly, it felt like Bloom had found a man who got what Brighton is about.

Poyet’s first game in charge would go onto set the tone for what was to come. It was away at Southampton and probably remains the best debut any man has ever had in the dugout for the Albion.

The Saints were one of the strongest teams in League One in the 2009-10 season, having accumulated 22 points by the time that Brighton rocked up to St Mary’s.

They had no answer to a rampant Albion though. Brighton played some astonishing football at times. Murray scored twice along with newly-appointed club captain Crofts, giving the visitors a stunning 3-1 success.

As Poyet saluted a sold-out away end that was littered with Uruguay flags in tribute to the new man in the hot seat, it felt like a beautiful new era was about to begin.

Over the remainder of the 2009-10 season, Gus Poyet began to transform Brighton as a football club. It became very clear, very quickly what sort of team we were going to be under his leadership; one who played passing football, who dominated possession and who would go out and entertain.

Crucial to his approach was having a ball-playing back line. In came Peter Brezovan, Inigo Calderon and Marcos Painter to replace the hugely popular trio of Michel Kuipers, Andrew Whing and Jim McNulty.

Poyet described Adam El-Abd as the best defender the club had, a quote that raised more than a few eyebrows. At this point in his career, El-Abd had spent most of his time either giving away goals with short back passes or kicking people in central midfield.

Within a year, El-Abd was one of the first names on the team sheet and was being crowned as Player of the Season in 2010-11 ahead of the likes of Murray and Elliott Bennett. Gus knew.

Poyet wanted pace and trickery out wide, which saw him loan Kazenga LuaLua from Newcastle United. He quickly discarded the lazy Liam Dickinson and the veteran Nicky Forster in favour of a hard-working, young, hungry forward in the unknown Ashley Barnes from Plymouth Argyle.

Making such sweeping changes to style and personnel over the course of a summer would have been a challenge for most managers, let alone in the middle of relegation battle.

Gus Poyet though had no fear with Brighton eventually ending the season in 13th place, nine points clear of the drop zone. “The best satisfaction I can get as a manager is seeing the team playing my way,” Poyet said – and they certainly did that.

The hard work was only just beginning. Brighton had a clear aim for the 2010-11 season, which was to win promotion so that the American Express Community Stadium would open with Championship football.

Poyet continued to evolve his squad, bringing in more players to suit his style of play. Gordon Greer was central to that and after a long-running transfer saga with Swindon Town, the Albion eventually got their man for £250,000. Greer was immediately handed the captaincy and would go onto become one of the best skippers the club have ever had.

Technically gifted players like Radostin Kishishev and Matt Sparrow arrived. Casper Ankergren came in, partly because Brezovan broke his arm on the eve of the season but also because Poyet wanted an even better ball-playing goalkeeper.

The Albion boss also saw something in a young midfielder released by his former club, Chelsea. Liam Bridcutt came in on trial, signed a one-year deal and before the season was out, Poyet was saying that Bridcutt was good enough to play for Real Madrid.

So imperious was Bridcutt in League One as the beating heart of Brighton under Gus Poyet, that did not even seem like an exaggeration.

When the Albion took to the field in the opening game of the season against Swindon, hopes were high for a tilt at promotion.

Nobody could have been expecting what would go onto happen over the course of the next nine months however as Brighton completely dominated the division in a way that we are unlikely to see an Albion side ever do again.

This was a strong League One, too. Southampton would go onto win back-to-back promotions. Huddersfield finished third despite securing a points haul that in most other years would have won them the title.

Bournemouth under Eddie Howe were beginning their journey to the Premier League and Peterborough United – the side who ended up being promoted along with the Albion and Southampton – were a free-scoring team with a ridiculous front three of George Boyd, Aaron McLean and a certain Craig Mackail-Smith.

But none of them could keep up with Brighton. The Seagulls soared to the top of the division on September 25th thanks to Fran Sandaza‘s last minute winner over Oldham Atheltic.

We didn not relinquish first place once for the remainder of the season, winning promotion with five games still to play and the title with four fixtures remaining.

There were so many highlights that it’s hard to know where to start. Going to second-placed Charlton Athletic and winning 4-0. Following that up two weeks later by going to Peterborough – now in second – and winning 3-0.

Drawing 1-1 against Charlton in the return match despite having to play for over 70 minutes with 10 men. On that day, the Albion had to show real fight to find a way to come from behind and win.

Gus Poyet couldn’t hide his pride after, saying: “It’s all about Brighton, it’s all about Brighton. To still play, it’s all about desire, commitment and being proud. It’s all about the fans.”

There was the stunning, eight-pass move in the 5-0 New Year’s Day win over Leyton Orient which swept from one end of the pitch to the other to be finished off by Murray, the epitome of Poyet’s Brighton.

What else was there? Oh yeah, Mad March when eight fixtures were crammed into four weeks and the Albion won every single one. Bridcutt’s volley from 25 yards in the final seconds of Carlisle United’s visit to Withdean to secure a crazy 4-3 win. The stuff of champions indeed.

Beating Dagenham and Redbridge a month later to secure promotion. Poyet celebrating in front of the South Stand like a man who’d won the lottery.

Winning the title away at Walsall. “You don’t realise how happy you can make people,” Poyet said on the pitch at the Bescott Stadium. “They forget about everything today. They forget about health problems, about family problems, about financial problems. That’s football.”

It was quite simply the best ever season to be a Brighton fan. Poyet had given us an identity and pride. He was able to communicate in his wonderfully heavy Uruguayan accent just what it was to love and support the Albion, despite being one of us for only 18 months.

When he stood on the Victorian arches above Madeira Drive at the end of the open top bus parade through the city at the end of the campaign, League One trophy to hand singing “We’re ****ing brilliant” to a crowd of thousands, he could do nothing wrong.

Gus Poyet my lord was the song and he really was a God – which makes his astonishing fall from grace at Brighton even more remarkable.

Every judgement that Poyet had made up until that moment had been spot on. In the summer of 2011 though, that all changed.

Gus Poyet did not think Murray was worth the pay rise that the 22-goal striker was after to remain at Brighton and so allowed Murray to leave on a free – despite the fact that he perfectly suited Poyet’s style of play – to join Crystal Palace of all teams.

Poyet tried to replace Murray with Craig Mackail-Smith at the cost of £2.5m. Whereas Murray was a target man who could hold the ball up and bring others into play, Mackail-Smith was a chaser who thrived when being set away down the channels.

As a result, Mackail-Smith looked completely unsuited to the Poyet way. Poyet’s stubbornness had been a real asset in League One, but unless he was prepared to adapt to get the best out of his new record buy, those of us who could see beyond the price tag were worried that here was a player who would never work in the Albion system. Unfortunately, we were right.

A succession of strikers arrived to try and fill the void left by Murray, but none were able to. Billy Paynter, Sam Vokes and Stephen Dobbie all tried and failed before Poyet bought in Leonardo Ulloa.

Really though, we only truly found a replacement for Murray when re-signing Murray himself in 2016. Can you imagine if we’d had his services for the five years he was banging in goals for Palace, Reading and Bournemouth? Doesn’t bear thinking about.

The 2011-12 season was when it began to fall apart for Poyet – not that anybody was complaining after the opening day. The campaign kicked off in dazzling fashion with an afternoon nobody will ever forget as Doncaster Rovers were beaten 2-1 thanks to Will Buckley’s last minute heroics.

Poyet’s passion got the better of him as he was sent to the stands before we had even reached half time, despite having been very vocal in the lead up to the game about his players needs to control their emotions. Classic Gus.

It was not the only occasion that year he disappeared from the bench. In both games against Burnley, he stropped off of his own accord.

The home fixture saw Craig Pawson send off Barnes and Vincelot inside of the first 15 minutes, leading Poyet to throw his coat on the ground and storm down the tunnel in the middle of the first half.

At Turf Moor, it was an even more embarrassing moment of petulance as he headed for the tunnel with five minutes still to play and the Albion trailing only 1-0.

We still had faint hopes of making the Championship play offs, so to see the manager effectively give up, down tools and walk away was as pathetic as it was embarrassing.

That was not Poyet’s only embarrassing moment either in the 2011-12 season. Twice he waded into the Luis Suarez-Patrice Evra racism row to defend his fellow countryman Suarez, the second occasion coming after he’d been specifically told by the powers-that-be at the Amex not to get involved.

Then there were his constant gripes about money. Gus Poyet felt that Bloom hadn’t given him the backing he required in order to push Brighton towards promotion to the Premier League.

Poyet was not backwards in coming forwards, talking about the need to spend and the great job he was doing given the budget constraints.

When Vicente – a man who would go onto describe Poyet as “the worst person I’ve ever come across in football – scored a brilliant goal against Portsmouth at the Amex in 2012, Poyet turned around to the directors box and began rubbing his thumb and index finger together. The implication was obvious – give me more money Tony so I can have more players who can do that.

To be fair to Bloom, that is exactly what he did. In the summer of 2012, in came the likes of Tomasz Kuszczak, Wayne Bridge, Bruno, Andrea Orlandi, David Lopez and in January, Matthew Upson and Ulloa.

Poyet had a squad on paper that was more than good enough to finish in the top two of the Championship in the 2012-13 season – but his relationship with the Albion had become too strained to make it work.

In November, he talked about being “bored” at his side’s lack of goals; an astonishing comment to come out with given that he picked the team and chose the tactics. He also wasn’t forking out up to £40 for the pleasure of being bored to death either.

There were the constant attempts to escape the Albion as well. Every time a job came up elsewhere, Poyet would link himself to it – even if the club in question were not interested.

Chelsea, Spurs, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Leeds. Any vacancy that appeared and Poyet would quickly be telling the press that didn’t want to go there, even though whoever it was were a massive club in his opinion.

The one time that one of these massive clubs were actually interested was in March 2013. Despite the fact that Brighton were in the midst of a promotion battle, Gus Poyet took the opportunity to spend a few days holding talks with the might of… Reading.

He eventually decided not to move to the Madjeski Stadium. With Reading floundering towards the bottom of the Premier League, there was every chance that it would be Brighton replacing them in the top flight for the following season. That would have made it a sideways move at best.

If Brighton were to replace Reading in the top flight, then they had to find a way past Palace in the play off semi finals. Having finished above our arch rivals in the league and drawn the first leg 0-0 at Selhurst Park, the Albion were the favourites to progress to Wembley.

But Poyet’s side, packed with quality performers and full internationals, were well beaten by a Palace outfit made up of free transfers and youth team products.

As if that result wasn’t bad enough, Poyet then decided to make it 100 times worse. Having just been out-thought tactically by a bumbling idiot in Ian Holloway, Poyet used his post match interview 30 minutes after the final whistle to suggest that there was a glass ceiling to the Premier League that Brighton would never break through. According to the Gospel of Gus, the blame for losing to Palace lied everywhere but with him.

Bloom had heard enough. Poyet was placed on gardening leave in the aftermath and was eventually sacked.

Gus being Gus, he even managed to turn that into a drama by acting as though he had only just found out the news when told while working as a pundit for the BBC during their Confederations Cup coverage.

“Brighton sack manager live on television” read the headlines, despite the fact Poyet was well aware that he was out of a job before he’d gone on air.

That was Gus though. Egocentric, dramatic, brilliant at time and infuriating at others. That the Albion barely even mention the name of a manager who delivered one of the best seasons we have ever had and who was responsible for laying down the on-the-pitch foundations for the club we are today tells you everything about how much he had pissed off Bloom and the powers that be by the end.

So, going back to the original question – how do you sum up Gustavo Augusto Poyet Domínguez as Brighton manager? As Poyet himself would say, eeeeeeees complicated.