Vote for your Brighton Team of the Decade: Left Back

In case you hadn’t heard or realised, the 2010’s are coming to an end. It’s been quite the decade for Brighton and Hove Albion with the Amex Stadium opening, two promotions and the realisation of the dream of Premier League football.

All of that success has been delivered by some excellent footballers. To recognise that fact, we’re putting together a Brighton Team of the Decade made up players selected by your votes. They’ll be lining up in the 4-4-2 of Chris Hughton’s Championship promotion season and the full team will be revealed before the clock strikes midnight to reign in the 2020’s.

Left Back

Left back has been a strange position for Brighton over the course of the past 10 years. For the first half of the decade, we didn’t actually have a permanent signing fill the position. Gus Poyet, Oscar Garcia and Sami Hyypia worked their way through a succession of loan players from Marcos Painter in 2010 to Joe Mattock in 2012 through to Joe Bennett in 2014. Needless to say, the latter two of those three failed to make the short list.

In fact, over half of the six players we’ve put into the frame for Brighton’s best left back of the 2010’s began life as loan players with the Albion. That they were all so effective suggests that such a muddled transfer policy actually managed to work for the most part, leaving one question to be answered – who was the best?

Marcos Painter
The first notable changes that Poyet made once he’d been appointed Albion boss were to bring in two full backs who suited his style of play. Inigo Calderon came in on the right and on the left, it was Marcos Painter from Swansea City.

Painter originally joined on loan in January 2010 with Poyet snapping him up on free transfer from the Liberty Stadium in the summer of 2010. He was the only player to start every single game in the Albion’s League One title winning campaign, a dependable figure at left back who even managed to chip in with the only goal of his career with an 81st minute winner at home to Walsall.

Painter struggled slightly with the step up to the Championship where his lack of pace was found out, but that shouldn’t detract from the fact that he was one of the most important – and underrated – components of the side that dominated the third tier.

Wayne Bridge
It was quite the transfer coup when Wayne Bridge rocked up at the Amex on-loan from Manchester City for the 2012-13 season. The Albion were rumoured to be paying £10,000 of his £40,000 a week wages, which at first appeared an eye watering amount for a Championship club at the time – especially as many fans thought Bridge was coming south for one last payday with little interest in playing.

By the end of the season, that view looked very silly and the money spent looked an absolute bargain – as well as making a mockery of Poyet’s claims that he hadn’t been backed well enough financially to deliver promotion.

Bridge was quite clearly a cut above any other left back in the division in 2012-13. He ended the season in the PFA Team of the Year and chipped in with three high-class goals. His most telling contribution was to keep Wilfried Zaha in his pocket during the St Patrick’s Day massacre at the Amex. And we even got to see the lovely Frankie wearing an Albion shirt on support on occasions. What a wonderful year.

Stephen Ward
Replacing Bridge looked like a tall order and yet somehow, the Albion managed to find another left back on loan who was just as good. Stephen Ward may not have been as big a name as Bridge, there was no celebrity WAG or 36 England caps, but Ward was an equally impressive performer on the pitch in Oscar Garcia’s 2013-14 squad.

He played 48 times in all competitions, becoming an extremely popular player along the way for his big nose and his dependable defending. Ward was even voted as our WeAreBrighton.com Player of the Season at the end of the campaign, the only loan signing to have won the award since it started in 2009.

You suspect that he could have gone onto become one of the Albion’s best ever left backs had we not dicked around with money in the summer of 2014. Ward’s signature from Wolverhampton Wanderers was up for grabs but Brighton continually underbid for him in an attempt to save a couple of quid, only for Premier League side Burnley to swoop in towards the end of the transfer window, pay what Wolves wanted and take Ward from right under our noses.

It was a spectacular cock up on the part of the Albion and meant that another season long loan signing in Joe Bennett filled the left back berth for the terrible 2014-15 campaign.

Gaetan Bong
Chris Hughton was the man who decided to end four seasons without our own left back when he acquired Gaetan Bong from Wigan Athletic in the summer of 2015. Bong was an interesting capture who, on the one hand, had just been relegated from the Championship with the Latics. On the other, he shared his name was drugs paraphernalia.

Picking up Bong on a free has proven to be an excellent piece of business however, despite what his very vocal critics may say. He’s played 101 times for the Albion over the course of his five seasons at the Amex as well as battling back from two long-term injuries in that time. You would struggle to find a better professional than him.

Sebastien Pocognoli
The fourth and final loan signing to make the six man shortlist, Sebastien Pocognoli spent the 2016-17 season with the Albion after arriving from West Bromwich Albion. He and Bong spent most of that campaign sharing left back duties with Pocgonoli playing 21 times for the club.

If we’re being honest, we can’t actually remember if Pocognoli was that good. He did however score one of the best free kicks we’ve ever seen in the win away at Queens Park Rangers, which alone makes him worthy of a place on the list.

Bernardo
Signed for a cost of £9m from Red Bull Leipzig ahead of the 2018-19 campaign, it took Brazilian left back Bernardo a little time to adjust to life in England.

He endured a horror debut away at Watford and wasn’t see in an Albion shirt in the Premier League again until November. From that point on though he looked like an inspired purchase, being one of the only players to emerge from the second half of last season with any credit following the dramatic collapse in form which ultimately cost Chris Hughton his job.

Please vote for one left back for our Brighton Team of the Decade