Does Graham Potter really believe Brighton do not need a new striker?

Brighton & Hove Albion’s striker problem is an issue that refuses to go away for Graham Potter. As more and more easy chances go begging every week, so the need for the Seagulls to sign a centre forward in the January transfer window who can actually stick the ball in the back of the net seems to grow.

Or does it? Speaking to The Argus, Potter has once again played down the trials and tribulations his centre forwards have suffered in front of goal so far this season, which reached a new nadir in the 1-1 draw with Sheffield United when Aaron Connolly put a header off target from two yards and Alireza Jahanbakhsh hit a post from three yards.

“I am happy with what we have,” said Potter when asked if spending £20 million on a new addition is in the winter transfer window pipeline.

“You only have to look at the league and there is a lot of £20 million players that haven’t succeeded to start with. It feels like the easy solution and believe you me if that type of player is there then we will of course do our best to do it. But I think it is always a collective problem and a collective challenge and that is what we have to work with.”

When he says he is happy with what he has, then the hope has to be that he is lying. Neal Maupay has four goals all season, two of which were penalties and his confidence in recent weeks has looked shorter than Tom Cruise.

Connolly is a young player who was thrown in at the deep end last season because Brighton had nobody else. His full Premier League debut was stunning with two goals as Tottenham Hotspur were hammered 3-0 at the Amex, but he has only managed two further goals in approaching 15 months.

Danny Welbeck has been a welcome addition who can at least finish. He too though has been culpable of a couple of glaring misses, leading to rumours that there must be something in the water at Lancing which means that even a proven Premier League centre forward ends up losing their clinicalness as soon as they arrive at the Albion.

Andi Zeqiri is a 21-year-old who has come from the Swiss second tier. It is asking far too much of him to arrive in England and instantly start scoring in the Premier League.

He always looked like a development squad signing anyway, despite what the club claimed about him being a first team player which was obviously said to try and quieten the growing clamour for a new striker in the summer.

Leandro Trossard is a bit of a square-peg-in-round hole answer when played up front, likewise Alireza Jahanbakhsh and the one striker that Graham Potter did have at Brighton who does know where the back of the net is was Glenn Murray, who Potter packed off on loan to Watford.

An increasing number of supporters are calling for the return of Murray to solve the Albion’s goal scoring issue. When you see Connolly and Jahanbakhsh failing to hit the target from less than three yards out when presented with open goals, you begin to think they might have a point.

It is a damning indictment of the current batch of Seagulls centre forwards that a 37-year-old who cannot even get in the Watford team at the moment is looking increasing like Brighton’s best striker option. Potter though has made it very clear that he does not rate Murray.

To not rate Murray is one thing; to be happy with his existing roster of strikers quite another. Does Potter really believe that the Albion do not need reinforcements in January?

Potter is not the sort of manager to use a press conference to put pressure on his board to bring in new signings. He was never likely to respond to a question about a striker with, “Tony Bloom needs to spend £30 million on a centre forward, or else we are buggered like a pool party at the Barrymores.”

Firstly, that lets selling clubs now how desperate you are and gives them more confidence in holding a buyer to ransom. Secondly, it would hardly be good for the already fragile confidence of Maupay, Connolly et all to hear their manager effectively saying in public that they are not good enough.

Potter also has form for playing down what he wants and needs, only to then do the complete opposite. He spent most of the summer talking about a new striker as a “silver bullet”, only to then go and sign Welbeck on a free transfer following his release from Watford.

That signing happened after the transfer window had shut, which did give the impression that it may have been a move made out of desperation.

It was certainly not a piece of long-planned business, more an opportunistic transfer which only occurred after Watford decided to cut their losses. Even so, it was a departure from Potter had been saying for weeks beforehand.

But what if Graham Potter does truly believe that a new striker is not needed to get Brighton our of their current mess?

Even though most of the football world can see that the Albion are a goal scorer away from being a rather good team, Potter does not think like most people. For proof of that, just ask Dale Stephens, Davy Propper or Pascal Gross about their time spent at right back under his management.

Cast your mind back to the Albion Fan’s Forum in the summer. When asked then about a new arrival to improve the squad, Potter spoke about improving the output the existing strikers in the Brighton squad instead.

The message was that rather than go and spend £30 million on a “silver bullet” like Odsonne Édouard, Sebastian Andersson or one of the other players Brighton were linked with, Potter was backing himself as a coach to get more out of Maupay, Connolly, Trossard and Jahanbakhsh.

Which has not worked out well. If anything, the Albion’s strikers seem to have become worse in front of goal, squandering easy opportunities which last season they would have put away.

Potter has failed to achieve what he believed he could do in terms of coaxing goals from his own players. If he recognises that fact and changes tack to try and sign a better quality of centre forward in January, then happy days.

If he still thinks that he is a good enough coach to extract more out of Brighton’s current strikers despite three months in which the evidence has suggested the opposite, then the Albion are in big trouble.

Of course, it is easy to sit here and say Brighton need to spend £20 million on a striker in the next month. Finding the right quality of player is much more difficult, especially in a 31 day transfer window in which it is notoriously hard to do business.

Bloom might still be scarred from the last centre forward he signed in January. Jurgen Locadia arrived for £14 million from PSV Eindhoven in 2018. Three years later and Locadia is on loan with FC Cincinnati, the worst team in the MLS in the 2020 season for whom he managed two goals.

With all the financial implications caused by the pandemic, Bloom and Brighton cannot afford another Locadia Disaster. But they also cannot afford to go through the second half of the season with the Albion squandering so many chances if they want to still be a Premier League club for the 2021-22 season.

Signing a striker looks imperative for Graham Potter and Brighton. We have to hope that the Albion manager, despite his public utterances, realises that.