How seriously should Brighton take the FA Cup?

First things first – we love the FA Cup at WeAreBrighton.com. The FA Cup is the greatest cup competition in the world and has provided some magical memories for Brighton fans – both good and bad – throughout the years.

The run to the semi finals under Chris Hughton two seasons ago will live long in the memory. From a rare win away at Plucky Little Bournemouth to the drama of a penalty shoot out in a febrile atmosphere at Millwall to the day out at Wembley against Manchester City, it had everything.

When people talk about the 1982-83 season, nobody really cares that Brighton slipped out of the top flight and would not return for 34 years – because the Albion also reached the FA Cup Final.

So misty eyed do people go over 1983, the club even decided to recreate the kits used during that run to the final for the current campaign.

Brighton sit 17th in the Premier League wearing replicas of the shirts they wore last time they were relegated from the highest level. Some might say it is an ominous sign.

Then there is what the FA Cup meant when the Albion were scuttling around in the lower leagues. Away trips to proper non-league clubs like Woking, FC United of Manchester and Torquay United. Scoring eight times against Northwich Victoria.

And days out like Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur, when Brighton gave some of the best teams in the county a real fright despite the fact we had no pot to piss in at the time.

The higher that a club climbs up the footballing ladder, the less importance seems to be paid to the FA Cup. For Tony Bloom and Paul Barber, it is a pretty straightforward decision about what to prioritise – if the Premier League guarantees you hundreds of millions of pounds worth of income, you are clearly going to want to put all your eggs in that basket and sacrifice taking the FA Cup seriously, with its pitiful prize fund in comparison.

For supporters though, it is never that clear cut. Money in the bank and finishing in the lower half of the Premier League every season might be nice, but nobody will never celebrate scraping a draw with Fulham which takes you a point closer to staying up in the same way anyone who was at the Den in 2019 went batshit mental when Solly March scored in the final seconds to take it to penalties.

The game is about glory for fans. Nobody remembers Wigan Athletic’s finishing positions in their eight years as a top flight club. Everyone though remembers when they beat Manchester City to win the FA Cup, an achievement that will stand the test of time and guarantee their place in the history books forever.

Which leads us to our question – how seriously should Brighton take the FA Cup in the 2020-21 season, as they enter the competition at the third round stage against League Two promotion hopefuls Newport County?

Having won only two Premier League matches all season, Graham Potter’s side are in a real relegation battle and so all eyes no doubt are on avoiding a reunion with the Championship come May.

The draw for the third round has been both kind and tricky at the same time. A Premier League side should make easy work of a League Two outfit, but Newport have developed a reputation as cup giant killers over the past few seasons, something which the Albion are all too aware of having been dumped out of the League Cup by the Exiles in an embarrassing 3-1 defeat at the Amex in the 2013-14 season.

In this season’s League Cup, Newport eliminated Watford and took Newcastle United to penalties. Their FA Cup victims over the past four seasons include Leicester City, Middlesbrough and The Leeds United, whilst they also forced a replay against Tottenham Hotspur. Rodney Parade has proven a cup graveyard for many higher division clubs.

Which is why Potter should be taking the trip to south Wales semi-seriously and playing his senior players. This is the strongest squad that the Albion have ever had, giving Potter the opportunity to make wholesale changes whilst still being able to field a side who would be good enough to push for promotion from the Championship.

Take Brighton 0-1 Arsenal for example. Potter controversially made six changes for the clash with the Gunners, in effect playing the exact sort of second-string line up who could play against Newport and still win the game.

If Potter wants to go further, then the Albion’s excellent run to the fourth round of the Carabao Cup also provides a blueprint. Brighton named senior players in their 4-0 win over Portsmouth and the 2-0 success at Preston North End.

If the likes of Jason Steele, Alireza Jahanbakhsh, Alexis Mac Allister, Pascal Gross, Max Sanders and the rest of the Albion’s current fringe players can see off Championship and League One opponents, then in theory they should be able to overcome League Two Newport.

What Potter should not do is play the sort of side we saw him field against Aston Villa in the Carabao Cup last season. The Brighton starting line up consisted of two 17-year-olds, an 18-year-old, three 19-year-olds and one 20-year-old, meaning that seven of the side would not have be allowed to enter Molly Malone’s when they operate their over 21s door policy.

The only way Potter could have taken the Villa game less seriously would have been if he spent the 90 minutes dressed as a clown, riding a unicycle around the perimeter of the pitch while given out balloon animals to children.

Brighton have lavished enough money in the past four seasons to have built a squad with a lot of depth; Potter has 25 professionals all of whom have shown they can do a job in the Premier League. There is no excuse for him to start throwing kids in.

If Potter does decide to use his fringe players, then he must also ensure that they are up for the challenge. In last season’s FA Cup third round exit to Sheffield Wednesday, the team which Potter named should have been good enough to beat an Owls side struggling in mid table in the Championship at the time.

Brighton lost 1-0 though because neither players nor manager looked like they could give a toss. The message from the top was clearly that nobody cared about the competition and that translated to the pitch.

In turn, that angered supporters who were rewarded for parting with £25 per ticket by 11 players making next-to-no-effort. The atmosphere at the Amex turned so sour by the full time whistle that both Barber and Potter took the unprecedented steps of using their next set of programme notes to try and instruct fans about how they should support the team going forward.

There should be one final consideration for Potter when it comes to how seriously Brighton take the FA Cup. Momentum. Judging by the constant chopping and changing of his team from one week to the next, the Albion manager does not appear to place much stock in the value of momentum, but for us it is a very real thing in football.

Deliberately throwing games can destroy it. We saw that last season with the Sheffield Wednesday game. The Albion came into it on a bit of a roll having taken four points over the New Year period from a 2-0 win over Plucky Little Bournemouth and drawing 1-1 with Chelsea at the Amex.

The game with the Owls should have been an opportunity to keep the ball rolling by picking up another positive result. Instead, Brighton gave a lethargic, woeful performance which stopped dead any momentum that was building – and which was followed by a nine game winless run in which only only five points from a possible 24 were garnered. It took a three month lockdown for the Albion to recover, regroup and win again.

Morale around the Amex should be high following Brighton’s comeback draw against Wolves last time out. After weeks of disappointing performances, the players finally showed some fight to pick up the sort of result that turns a season around.

All of that will be undone if Brighton then go and suffer the embarrassment of being eliminated from the FA Cup at the hands of a League Two side.

Fans will again begin questioning Potter and his players and the momentum that beating a team as good as Wolves 2-0 over 45 minutes of football has generated will be lost. It will be a case of back to square one.

Which is why Potter should take the FA Cup seriously. Send out a team of first team players who are good enough to pick up a first win in nine and put a smile on the faces of supporters. A cup run could do wonders for Brighton & Hove Albion this season.