Well. It’s quite the pit of despair here this evening, isn’t it? I posted this after the Sheffield United match but it rapidly vanished in the swirl of sacker v licker recrimination that followed. In the light of tonight’s match I’m going to go all “look at me” and give it its own stage, in a slightly edited form.
Somebody somewhere has probably made up a weighted table of the football league over its entire history. However, if they have, I haven’t seen it so the following is guesswork. We’ve been around for 120 years now. Our average finish in the entire league is probably very close to bang average: somewhere from 40th to 50th. Viewed against the arc of history, we’re punching above our weight.
Granted, we are playing in 2020, not 1929 or whatever. We are currently in the Premier League and should always aspire to be improving. However, I do view our performance through a historical filter. We’ve stared over the abyss and lived to tell the tale. That absolutely colours my judgement with regards to our current predicament.
The Football League is littered with the bones of clubs who bought big to reach the promised land but ultimately fell. We don’t have to look too far to see this, as we suffered our own spectacular fall from grace: from the top flight to Hereford in just 14 years.
We are absurdly fortunate to have an owner that unquestionably has our best interests at heart. He has spent somewhere in the order of a quarter of a billion pounds putting an infrastructure in place designed to future proof us against another calamitous plummet down the ladder. If we are relegated we could reasonably expect to recoup some of the losses through player sales and have an academy producing talent already being battle hardened in the league we would find ourselves in. We are being run prudently. We hope to develop but we have a beady eye on an uncertain future. Would I choose that over a financial bonanza overseen by an uninterested conglomerate which might take its toys away at any time? Damn straight I would.
So I’m delighted to be in the Premier League and still rather thrilled at the novelty of it all. I start every season anticipating a struggle and this will remain the case as we clearly are not going to follow the path of rampant spending. This forum has lately been a blitzkrieg of blether. Of course the object is to score goals and win matches but provided I have a team that provides me with entertainment, I am prepared to accommodate its deficiencies. They are part and parcel of a club at our level.
I remember the final months of Hughton’s tenure. He’s a legend and I’d walk over hot coals for the guy or give him a kidney if he found himself short of one. However, by the end of that season we’d almost abandoned the notion of winning. We were durable and tenacious but forward thinking? No. It was heartbreaking to hear commentators describe misplaced pass after pass and embarrassing to hear my club derided for its lack of ambition. I just don’t feel that way anymore. I like watching us. It’s that simple. We have one of the most talented squads we’ve ever seen. It’s just that they are rendered ordinary by dint of being in this fiercely difficult division.
I’ll stick with Potter. Many won’t. That’s fine. Opinions about eleven guys kicking leather about shouldn’t cause so much ire so I am perplexed as to why so many on here appear furious all of the time. I don’t like losing. I’m feeling deflated yet again tonight but that’s the normal lot of a Brighton supporter, isn’t it? I’m surprised at just how far people expect us to go relative to our apparent expenditure. Why is this? The formula is fairly clear. The more you spend on players and their wages, the better your chance of remaining and progressing in the Premier League. In any league, in fact. I suspect that club is paying the price for articulating its stated ambition of a top ten place. Has this raised the bar for what many feel they should expect?
Thoughts? Preferably politely but if venting helps the pain, fill your boots and let it all out.
Somebody somewhere has probably made up a weighted table of the football league over its entire history. However, if they have, I haven’t seen it so the following is guesswork. We’ve been around for 120 years now. Our average finish in the entire league is probably very close to bang average: somewhere from 40th to 50th. Viewed against the arc of history, we’re punching above our weight.
Granted, we are playing in 2020, not 1929 or whatever. We are currently in the Premier League and should always aspire to be improving. However, I do view our performance through a historical filter. We’ve stared over the abyss and lived to tell the tale. That absolutely colours my judgement with regards to our current predicament.
The Football League is littered with the bones of clubs who bought big to reach the promised land but ultimately fell. We don’t have to look too far to see this, as we suffered our own spectacular fall from grace: from the top flight to Hereford in just 14 years.
We are absurdly fortunate to have an owner that unquestionably has our best interests at heart. He has spent somewhere in the order of a quarter of a billion pounds putting an infrastructure in place designed to future proof us against another calamitous plummet down the ladder. If we are relegated we could reasonably expect to recoup some of the losses through player sales and have an academy producing talent already being battle hardened in the league we would find ourselves in. We are being run prudently. We hope to develop but we have a beady eye on an uncertain future. Would I choose that over a financial bonanza overseen by an uninterested conglomerate which might take its toys away at any time? Damn straight I would.
So I’m delighted to be in the Premier League and still rather thrilled at the novelty of it all. I start every season anticipating a struggle and this will remain the case as we clearly are not going to follow the path of rampant spending. This forum has lately been a blitzkrieg of blether. Of course the object is to score goals and win matches but provided I have a team that provides me with entertainment, I am prepared to accommodate its deficiencies. They are part and parcel of a club at our level.
I remember the final months of Hughton’s tenure. He’s a legend and I’d walk over hot coals for the guy or give him a kidney if he found himself short of one. However, by the end of that season we’d almost abandoned the notion of winning. We were durable and tenacious but forward thinking? No. It was heartbreaking to hear commentators describe misplaced pass after pass and embarrassing to hear my club derided for its lack of ambition. I just don’t feel that way anymore. I like watching us. It’s that simple. We have one of the most talented squads we’ve ever seen. It’s just that they are rendered ordinary by dint of being in this fiercely difficult division.
I’ll stick with Potter. Many won’t. That’s fine. Opinions about eleven guys kicking leather about shouldn’t cause so much ire so I am perplexed as to why so many on here appear furious all of the time. I don’t like losing. I’m feeling deflated yet again tonight but that’s the normal lot of a Brighton supporter, isn’t it? I’m surprised at just how far people expect us to go relative to our apparent expenditure. Why is this? The formula is fairly clear. The more you spend on players and their wages, the better your chance of remaining and progressing in the Premier League. In any league, in fact. I suspect that club is paying the price for articulating its stated ambition of a top ten place. Has this raised the bar for what many feel they should expect?
Thoughts? Preferably politely but if venting helps the pain, fill your boots and let it all out.
