Exclusive: Paul Barber ANSWERS the questions every Brighton fan wanted to ask.

Walt Jabsco said:

Well, Mr Barber replied to my previously posted questions by about 3pm this afternoon. Only just checked my email or I would have got them up sooner.

Some of the questions are predictably avoiding the issue / no comment type responses, but as a whole Q&A it will no doubt interest a few people on here. A few key lines in there make interesting reading.

Paul Barber answers the question every Brighton fan wanted to ask

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Walt Jabsco said:

It does say in the piece that he "sort of..." answers them. The best I can hope to get without any real clout behind me. I am just a bloke doing a blog, which makes it very difficult to demand fuller answers in the way The Argus could.

A few lines I thought were interesting were:

- "The unique culture and history of our club must always be remembered and respected (and is) but equally it cannot and should not be used as a barrier to change at a time when football is, once again, changing all around us – whether we all like it or not."

- The plans to introduce regular surveys of different fan groups and hold more regular meetings at the stadium for fans to be able to put their questions more openly and directly to key members of our staff.

- Pre-season/summer planning has "progressed without any delays since the season ended". In which case, how involved was Poyet going to be in this? Was the club already planning for this contingency before the shit hit the fan?

- The fact he talks to / reports to Tony Bloom on an almost daily basis. They seem very much a strongly cemented double-act now.

- David Burke is handling player recruitment, "As is normally the case at this and other times of the year." Does that suggest the Albion favour the more continental approach? Have all our signings over the last couple of season's actually been Poyet's choices? Hard to tell, but possible food for thought.

Sorry this Q&A does not have anything particularly ground-breaking, but I said I would put the replies on line regardless of how well he answered them.

Don't shoot the messenger...

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Barrel of Fun said:

Did he really say we have hundreds of thousands of fans?

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Kalimantan Gull said:

saying that he knows of absolutely no reason why any fan would be against the proposed membership scheme

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Walt Jabsco said:

Was disappointed not to get an answer about the time-frame of Poyet's suspension and when the club expects it to be concluded. But, as I said above, I am just a bloke writing a blog so can't carry the same demand for answers that The Argus can.

Also, I agreed to print the responses in full, otherwise the information could have been written in the style of stories. Therefore a quick non-response about a club deadline would become "Brighton have refused to say when they expect the on-going saga over Gus Poyet's suspension to be concluded, leading to fears among supporters it could drag on and derail pre-season plans..." type piece.

The most frustrating aspect is that I doubt very much many of the actual details will come to light in public. Any agreement between the club and Poyet is likely to include a gagging order type aspect I would imagine to protect both party's integrity.

I think the most interesting aspect for fans would be confirmation of WHEN the alleged breaches of contract took place because I don't think all the dates would necessarily be what people expect...

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