Four things to look out for from Brighton’s friendly with Liefering

After two long months, football is finally back. Brighton kick off their pre-season friendly schedule – and with it the Graham Potter era – with a friendly against FC Liefering in Austria.

Now, games such as these are notoriously difficult to take much from. Playing Red Bull Salzburg’s feeder club from the second division of Austria football is a far cry from facing Manchester City or Liverpool in the Premier League.

Anything that does happen should be taken with a pinch of salt. In 2009, Craig Davies turned into a goal machine against the likes of Havant and Waterlooville to leave people giddy at the prospect of what he could do in League One.

The answer of course was nothing. He didn’t manage a single goal in the following season. Maheta Molango had a goal laden summer in 2004 which persuaded Mark McGhee to give him a three year deal. His subsequent Albion career was good for all of 12 seconds.

But having said all that, this summer is slightly different. It’s hard to recall a season where there was so much uncertainty on the playing front about personnel, tactics, formations and playing style.

Will Potter use the three at the back he favoured at Ostersunds or will it be 4-2-3-1 like at Swansea City? Can he help Jurgen Locadia and Alireza Jahanbakhsh finally justify the amount of money they cost? Can anyone from the development squad become the first player to establish themselves in the first team since Solly March six years ago?

The fixture with Liefering is our first chance to get answers to some of those questions. Here are four things to look out for from the game.

Formation
Throughout his managerial career, Potter has been rather flexible when it comes to formation. He tends to find a system to suit his players rather than attempting to fit individuals into a system – there’ll be no repeat of Pascal Gross on the right wing in a desperate bid to cram him into a 4-4-2 as we saw in the final throes of Chris Hughton’s reign.

What formation he uses against Liefering will be one of the more intriguing aspects of the game. A 3-5-2 would explain the signing of Matt Clarke from Portsmouth. 4-2-3-1 might be a way to get the best out of Jahanbakhsh. 4-3-3 was an unmitigated disaster under Hughton, could Potter find a way to make it work?

Bernardo said in an interview with the official club website that the players have been working on different formations and being tactically flexible during their training camp in Austria.

It could be that we see several formations used throughout the Albion’s friendly schedule as Potter takes a look at each one in a game situation. He might even use more than one against Liefering. Whatever happens, it will be interesting to gain our first insight into what his thinking may be for the season ahead.

Which young players get an opportunity
Potter has taken six development squad players with him to Austria and has spent most of this week bigging them up in the press.

Simon Rusk’s side finished third in Premier League 2 last season, Aaron Connolly was the division’s Player of the Year, Jayson Molumby was voted the fourth best player at the Toulon Tournament in the summer and Viktor Gyokeres has already scored an international goal for Sweden.

Clearly, there is talent in the ranks. Hughton didn’t really give any young players opportunities with winning promotion from the Championship and staying in the Premier League being his overriding priorities.

Much has been made of Potter’s record of blooding talent at Swansea, but his hand was forced at the Liberty Stadium. The Swans had a vastly reduced transfer budget following their relegation from the top flight, which meant promoting development squad players was a necessity rather than a choice for Potter.

Will he be quite so bold with the Albion when he may not need to be? And if he is, which of the six who are in Austria will make the biggest impression against Liefering?

How Alireza Jahanbakhsh and Jurgen Locadia play
For a combined outlay of £31m, Alireza Jahanbakhsh and Jurgen Locadia have contributed a grand total of three Premier League goals and one assist between them.

There are two schools of thought about the duo. Some Albion fans believe they were misused by Hughton and will thrive this season with a more attacking philosophy under Potter. Others think they are just shit.

Whichever view you subscribe to, this is a massive season for both. They’ve got to start delivering something if they aren’t to go down in Brighton history as two of the worst signings the club have ever made from a value-for-money point of view.

Should they both score against Liefering, then we wouldn’t get too carried away – see Davies and Molango again. But it would at least be a step in the right direction and a glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe Potter might be able to get more than two goals out of them this season.

It would also go some of the way towards banishing the nightmare of Locadia’s performance against League One AFC Wimbledon last pre-season.

He must have taken about 30 shots, none of which were on target with the best of those flying 70 feet over the stand behind the goal, after which he subbed himself off with an injury. He’d be hard pushed to be any worse than that in Austria.

What Potter expects from his goalkeeper
When we spoke to Steve Carroll, the editor of Swansea fanzine Swansea Oh Swansea, after Potter’s appointment, of the most striking things he told us was that Potter would base his goalkeeper selection largely on who was the best when it came to playing out from the back.

Steve said, “One thing I will say is the onus is on attacking play and passing football, with the goalkeeper expected to be part of that. Of our goalkeeping options, Potter favoured the one who is better with his feet, even though he can barely catch a cross or save a shot!”

Playing out from the back is something we’ve never seen Maty Ryan do, let alone David Button, Jason Steele or Christian Walton, who have only played a handful of games for the Albion between them.

How well will the Albion’s goalkeeping contingent cope with the demands of Potter’s football? In fact, that’s a question that could be applied to the entire squad.

We’re not far away from finding out.