Pascal Gross and the Instagram generation

If you understand football, then you know just how good Pascal Gross is. Watching him play is an absolute joy at times, be it the way he can find the space to get a ball through the eye of a needle, leave a man completley bamboozled by that beautiful Cruyff turn of his or put a set piece straight onto the head of his intended target.

Gross’ stats of course back up what the naked eye tells you. Only five players in the top flight so far this season have created more than the German’s 22 chances and he creates one big chance every 107 minutes.

He’s scored 10 times in the Premier League for the club – a total bettered by just Glenn Murray – and he has registered 11 assists, something nobody else comes close to.

He is also miles ahead of any Brighton player in terms of overall chances created, having conjured up 158 goal scoring opportunities since his debut for the club.

That’s over 80 more than any other Albion player and in that time, only Christian Eriksen, Eden Hazard and Kevin De Bruyne have created more across the whole of the top flight.

Gross should be acclaimed as one of the best players that the Albion have. And yet, he isn’t. Indeed, there are some on social media who question why he is in the starting 11 each and every week, completely ignoring that there isn’t anybody in Graham Potter’s squad who can touch the creativity of Gross.

The most used reasoning for this plea to see the German jettisoned is that he is too slow. It’s a strange argument given that his skill set of unparalleled vision and the ability to perfectly weight every ball he plays means that he doesn’t need pace.

If you were dating Ariana Grande, you wouldn’t give her the elbow because she’s only five foot tall, so why say Gross isn’t good enough because he is slightly lacking in one attribute that doesn’t actually take away from his overall game?

In fact, it’s probably a good thing that Gross doesn’t have pace. If he did, there is no way he’d be playing for the Albion. It’s only his lack of speed that is preventing one of the Premier League’s big boys from paying serious money for him, as Liverpool were reported to be keen to do last season.

So, what’s the real reason behind the Gross apathy? The answer, as with most of the problems with the modern world, could well come down to social media.

The majority of Albion supporters who don’t rate Gross seem to come from the younger range of the Albion fan base. We’re talking the Instagram generation who would rather base the ability of a player by what they post to their followers than what they do on the pitch with a ball.

This is a problem for Gross. He is one of the few modern-day professionals who doesn’t have any form of social media presence for Brighton fans. No Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram.

Rather than posting about his daily life or interacting with supporters, Gross prefers to put his time and energy into playing football.

Those hours of practice are no doubt what makes him so technically gifted, as well as helping him to cover the insane amount of ground that he does – when he was fully fit in the 2017-18 season, he was streaks ahead of his Albion teammates in that field as well, averaging 10.84km per game for a total of 401.1km over the course of the season.

Gross doesn’t retweet or like anything that Albion fans say about him, because he can’t. We never know what his pet pig is up to, what clothes he is wearing or when his new album is going to be dropping.

In a day and age where we’ve become used to footballers sharing themselves with us, he’s got a refreshingly secretive life away from what we see in a Brighton shirt.

And younger Albion fans don’t seem to like it. It clouds their judgement about just what Gross offers on the pitch – and this isn’t just something that the German suffers from because of his lack of social media presence, either.

Who have been the Albion’s favourite boo boys over the past few years? Dale Stephens, hardly posts anything. Solly March, hardly posts anything. Gaetan Bong, hardly posts anything.

Look a little further afield, and James Milner was criminally underrated until he joined Twitter and revealed himself to be one of the most entertaining players in the country.

Milner signing up for social media has been every bit as important to people finally appreciating his talents as him playing a significant part in the resurgence of Liverpool following Jurgen Klopp’s arrival at Anfield.

You can also see this social media bias in the players that the Instagram generation like. Step onto Twitter and Instagram and you’ll still find calls for Alireza Jahanbakhsh to be starting games for the Albion – sometimes even ahead of Gross.

Jahanbakhsh has registered zero goals and zero assists since his £17m move from AZ Alkmaar. Yet because he documented his entire transfer to the Albion on Instagram stories and people went mad for it trying to work out if he was signing for Brighton or Leicester City, it seems to have clouded the fact that he just isn’t very good.

Florin Andone was another favourite of the Albion’s younger fans, despite being an injury prone madman who was just as likely to get sent off as he was to score.

Yves Bissouma clearly has potential but has he actually delivered much in a Brighton shirt in the grand scheme of things? No Premier League goals so far and a phobia of defending at times, but still the more youthful elements of Brighton’s support think that because he has a catchy song he sometimes dances to, he should be starting ahead of Stephens

And then we come to Jurgen Locadia. Perhaps the ultimate example of the Instagram generation. You can certainly see the appeal of the Dutch striker to those on social media; he is a musician who loves posting about himself and constantly interacts with supporters.

But that didn’t help Locadia score more than three Premier League goals in 18 months. It hasn’t helped him set the world on fire at Hoffenheim either, where he has made just three appearances from the bench so far and been an unused substitute for their past two Bundesliga games. Incredibly, some still seem to think that he is the answer to our goal scoring problems.

It seems mad that a player who is such a joy to watch like Gross is so criminally underrated by certain elements of Brighton’s support. Could it be that they’ll only realise quite how good he is when he’s gone?

Let’s hope not. We’re lucky enough to be watching a magician at work each and every week, one who is thriving thanks to Potter’s more positive approach.

The stats tell you how good Gross is. Watching him at the Amex should do the same. Don’t let the fact that you can’t send him a tweet or like a picture of his dog on Instagram detract from that fact.