[Albion] De Zerbi: 'We deserved to lose...I understood the problem in January!"

EliasTaproot said:

It feels like a lose/lose/lose to me.

Lose: you sold the family silver last summer on the eve of our best and most historic season in our history and simply refused to spend it to reinforce adequately despite one of the best managers in your clubs history begging for the bare minimum of players such as more than two natural full backs in the entire squad, or a proper replacement for his most important duo the double pivot and doubled down in January after seeing the struggles.

Lose: RDZ stays. You see how bad this season went with squad quality and spend more this summer, with no European adventure, and possibly losing Mitoma and Pedro as well, you have to hope RDZ can lead us back to Europe. But you never know if you get a season of opportunity like this again, it all feels too little too late. You're now chasing the dream you already let go last season and the danger is there.

Lose: RDZ goes either to a bigger club or flat out resigns. One or both of Mitoma and Pedro leave. The club don't do much business this summer other than a few youth signings "to ensure the new manager can fully evaluate his squad this season".

Lose: RDZ goes either to a bigger club or flat out resigns. We keep our best players, we splurge £200m for our new manager chasing Europe again, but couldn't stand to spend a penny or two for one of our best ever managers, we rightfully look like idiots for not backing the manager who got us to Europe but splurging for a new unknown entity to dangerously chase the dream.


I think we just need to face facts, the club have made a very rare, but absolute mess of this season off the pitch with the exception of Pedro, thank god for unexpected talents suddenly rising to the occasion like Facundo and Hinsh, and Pedro himself being so influential, because if RDZ hadn't been able to get these talents up to speed as quickly, and Pedro wasn't so good in the pivotal moments, we'd be in the bottom six, out of all the cup comps and in a genuine spiral.

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EliasTaproot said:

Unfortunately but importantly, RDZ disagrees with you. He wanted Facundo out on loan until the very last minute and was only kept here due to injuries, he wanted 2-3 signings in the Summer and those signings might have helped mitigate the injuries, we'll never know now of course because the club disagreed with RDZ on 2-3 signings, they were happy with the squad even if RDZ wasn't.

In regards to the spending, I'd read that Bloom was looking to be more ambitious this summer: https://www.wearebrighton.com/newsopinion/bloom-has-ambitious-plans-to-establish-brighton-in-europe/

Maybe it's all a lie? I don't know.

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Muhammed - I’m hard - Bruce Lee said:

Stop.
Rotating.
Goalkeepers.
Every.
Bloody.
Game.

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EliasTaproot said:

Unfortunately but importantly, RDZ disagrees with you. He wanted Facundo out on loan until the very last minute and was only kept here due to injuries, he wanted 2-3 signings in the Summer and those signings might have helped mitigate the injuries, we'll never know now of course because the club disagreed with RDZ on 2-3 signings, they were happy with the squad even if RDZ wasn't.

In regards to the spending, I'd read that Bloom was looking to be more ambitious this summer: https://www.wearebrighton.com/newsopinion/bloom-has-ambitious-plans-to-establish-brighton-in-europe/

Maybe it's all a lie? I don't know.

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Farehamseagull said:

And that’s fair enough.

Personally I preferred it under Potter as I felt we were in control of nearly every game, I loved the way we set up and our passages of play building from the back. Obviously we lacked cutting edge so dropped points which I felt was more to do with team personnel at the time rather than Potter’s tactics but I went into every game feeling confident we would get a result. I just don’t feel like that under De Zerbi, I quite often end up fearing the next implosion and not that enthralled by our attacking play this season either - Joao Pedro and Mitoma individual brilliance aside.

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Weststander said:

I don’t think there’s a wildly different plan B.

But Ange definitely doesn’t (he admits it), nor do Klopp, Moyes, Conte, Mourinho, O’Neil from what I see.

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Mellotron said:

Blimey. Isn't this the first time we've lost two in a row in De Zerbi's time here? You'd think we were 17th and hadn't won in months.

More than anything this thread makes me realise quite how good things have been, and for how long. Since Bloom took over there have been remarkably few blips - Hyypia the most obvious one, and the Potter xG season was a ridiculous one (finished 16th but about 6th in the xG table).

The question is (or one of many, anyway), should we care more about holding on to RDZ? Or do we feel that someone better will come in afterwards?

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Hiheidi said:

Bear in mind that the squad going into the season included players that...
Were older so weren't going to be able to play full match programme (Lallana, Milner)
Were coming back from injuries, so needed to be carefully managed (Lamptey, Moder)
Were young, with little first team experience, so would take a long time to get up to speed (Baleba, Buonanotte)

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Nobby Cybergoat said:

I agree with you

And what I think many on here do and to a degree what the club have done, is to look at the raw numbers, which suggest we have enough, and count players who were can get 20 mins here and there out of.

We've counted, for example Lallana as a 1 full time equivalent, where we should have counted him as maybe a 0.15, to use the language of my HR team.

Again, no blame attached. But lessons I think need to be learned

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Harry Wilson's tackle said:

The only man with a plan B (and C) and the wit to flip during a game was (looks it up on the internet) Graham, hang on, hang on.....Potter!

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Bold Seagull said:

RDZ continued a run of form the side were already on stretching back to March of the previous season. He took over a side already scoring freely and challenging at the top.

Potter took over a Chelsea side already in a slump and results haven’t improved under Pochettino. If Poch had come in and had impact you might have a point.

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Weststander said:

He deserved a stint with a proper big club, instead he got The Chavs.

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Justice said:

Poch is overrated



Did he? Is that the benchmark for a successful manager these days win a few games with Brighton.

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Nobby Cybergoat said:

I agree with you

And what I think many on here do and to a degree what the club have done, is to look at the raw numbers, which suggest we have enough, and count players who were can get 20 mins here and there out of.

We've counted, for example Lallana as a 1 full time equivalent, where we should have counted him as maybe a 0.15, to use the language of my HR team.

Again, no blame attached. But lessons I think need to be learned

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Kinky Gerbil said:

Is Chelsea's destiny to be forever 10th in everything now?

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Milano said:

The issue is that we’re paying Lallana as a 100% FTE not a 15% FTE.

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Flounce said:

I am getting seriously pissed off with RDZ saying “We are not a big club” at every f***ing opportunity. We DO NOT need to be told this every f***ing week, we know it and we knew it before he had ever heard of Brighton and Hove Albion. Just give it a rest

He’s gone and said it again today

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