A small wonder or a well-planned scenario – Brighton & Hove Albion 2022-23 campaign
Brighton & Hove Albion are always a good watch when they hit the pitch, but their style is something that’s easy to miss unless you’re looking for it.
The club may be playing in the Premier League, but their approach is a throwback to an era where every position was valued by the players around it.
Static positions and direct passes are foregone in favour of fluidity, player movement, and a technical finesse. Is that the recipe to success in the Prem? Let’s find out.
Tony Bloom’s era
Brighton & Hove Albion are the luckiest team in the world to have Tony Bloom as their owner. He’s a sports bettor, a poker star, and a celebrity fan of Seagulls.
During his reign, the team has moved from a mediocre Football League One team to a serious Premier League team that can beat the top six.
Bloom’s passion and expertise for gambling has rubbed off on the team, making them one of the most exciting and unpredictable teams in the Premier League.
Like the cryptocurrency market, where you can buy Bitcoin with credit card and succeed within a few years, this is how Seagulls thrived.
Graham Potter’s trademark
Graham Potter is considered an innovator. He’s been recognized for his coaching ability, and he has spent years applying methods that have worked before to new situations and environments.
When he signed for Brighton and Hove Albion in 2019, the team struggled to go up in the table, and his efforts were immediately spotted.
According to Seagulls’ former striker, Glenn Murray, during Potter’s reign at the club, Brighton started to play beautiful football and began to implement strategies and tactics more suitable to the “Big 6” teams, rather than a club with average finances. And probably that’s the big reason why Chelsea decided to steal GP from us.
Last season’s surprise
The Seagulls were the surprise of last season, finishing 9th with 51 points. We were ahead of many teams that were supposed to be higher up the ranks, but Graham Potter seemed to have found some ties with the magician with the same surname!
We were 16 points clear from Burnley (the last relegated squad) and only 5 away from Europe. Who would suppose that?
Transfer policy
As we have seen from many examples in Premier League history: clubs like West Bromwich Albion, Norwich, and Fulham are quite an example of poor transfer policy teams.
Overspending when they get promoted, and then boom – back into mediocrity. It’s safe to say for our favourite club that Tony Bloom didn’t let such things happen, and thankfully, we’ve been quite moderate while staying in the Premier League for multiple seasons now.
Key players over the years: Yves Bissouma, Neil Maupey, Adam Lallana, Pascal Gross, Marc Cucurella, Alex Mac Allister.
But this summer saw Marc, Yves, and Neil leaving to Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur, and Everton, respectively. The team recouped more than £100m for the transfers and instead of spending recklessly, Seagulls actually managed to replace players successfully without overspending.
This is one of the key reasons why we didn’t have the fate of Norwich, for example (and Thank God we didn’t have that!)
Current standings
The 1-0 home loss against Tottenham Hotspur FC saw us drop from top four, which is quite unfortunate. But should we be sad from that fact?
Not at all. This campaign show us win at the season-opening match against Manchester United at “Old Trafford,” and we have recorded several wins afterward, including another away victory against West Ham and two home braces against Leicester City and Leeds United before nearly winning against Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool, which, albeit being weak this season, faced us on Anfield, where Leandro Trossard gave us hope not once, but three times, thanks to his hat-trick.
Season forecast
We should admit that the departure of Graham Potter couldn’t have happened at a worse time. We had to face Liverpool and Tottenham where we didn’t stand much change with the new manager Roberto Di Zerbi.
But we played some good football, and we remain optimistic for the rest of the season. Why? Apart from the games against Chelsea and Manchester City, all other matches seem pretty winnable until the World Cup.
Brentford, Nottingham Forest, Wolves, and Aston Villa can see us easily grab at least 7 points, and with some luck, we can chase 10 or 12.
After the end of the World Cup in Qatar, we can expect even better results. Why? Well, we don’t have the most International-busy squad on the planet, and we’ll definitely use that to our advantage.
And while top 4 seems a bit out of our reach today, we can definitely seal a Europa League spot if some things go in our favour.
