After that battering against Man City last week, this weekend sees West Ham fans travelling the short distance to the south coast to Brighton to see if we can score our first goals, and secure the first points of the season. Ahead of the game I spoke to Scott McCarthy from WeAreBrighton to discuss the game, last season, and the season ahead.
Hi Scott, the season seems to start earlier every year! Hope you’ve had a decent break. Brighton certainly had a great victory last weekend – was that expected?
Absolutely not! We went to Watford on the opening day last year, lost 2-0 and didn’t manage to record a single shot on target. Most Brighton fans would have been expecting an improvement on that, but to go to Vicarage Road and completely blow away a relatively solid Premier League club on their own patch was unbelievable. We’ve only won once away in the Premier League by three clear goals before – don’t worry, I won’t remind you of who that was against – and we only scored 16 times on the road in the whole of last season. So to win 3-0, it was chalk and cheese compared to last year. You’d have to have taken some pretty strong acid to have predicted that happening.
Of course you’ve appointed a new manager in Graham Potter. Were you surprised to see Chris Hughton being sacked at the end of last season, given that he had again successfully retained your place in the league? Was he a bit hard done by? What will Chris’s legacy be?
It’s a strange one by modern football standards in that whilst most Brighton fans were sad to see him go, it was a decision that unfortunately Tony Bloom had to take. On the face of it, Premier League survival and an FA Cup Semi Final appearance represents a good season. But that only tells half the story. We were 12 points clear of relegation at Christmas, at which point Hughton changed from 4-4-1-1 to 4-3-3. The result of that decision was that we won just two league games in 2019, lost at the Amex to Burnley, Southampton and Cardiff, suffered our heaviest home defeat for 46 years when Bournemouth left Sussex with a 5-0 victory, went 14 hours without scoring and ultimately had to rely on Crystal Palace of all teams to beat Cardiff to keep us up. It was abysmal and if Hughton had stayed and we replicated that form over an entire campaign, we’d be going down this season. That last four months doesn’t detract from the amazing job that Hughton did over his four-and-a-half years though and he’s still the greatest manager of my time supporting the club.
Before we start on this season and game, what were the highlights for you last season? And conversely the low points?
That 14 hour run without a goal and the Bournemouth home game were diabolical. I can’t recall a Brighton side ever playing as poorly as we did against the Cherries that day, and I’ve seen us lose 1-0 at home to a Walsall side who played for over an hour with nine men and go down 3-1 to Barnet in front of barely 1,000 people on a Tuesday night at ‘home’ in Gillingham. The high points have to be both wins over Palace. We took six points off our rivals and then they were the ones who kept us up by relegating Cardiff. Can’t imagine that went down too well in Croydon.
It’s now your third season back in the top division, what will be the expectations of Graham Potter this season, and can you tell the unenlightened a little bit about him?
It’s impossible to know really. Potter wants to play attacking, possession based football which is about as far removed from Hughton’s style as possible. We played 3-4-3 on Saturday with three strikers on the pitch and wingbacks pushed miles up the pitch. It’s bold and it’s brash and while it’s got absolutely no right to work against the big six, it’s ridiculously exciting to watch. We’re probably undergoing the most radical overhaul in approach that a Premier League club has attempted in a single summer since Palace replaced Big Sam and his pint of wine with Frank De Boer. We all know how that worked out and to be honest, we could end up going the same way. Or we could gatecrash the top 10. Nobody knows. That’s adding to the excitement and intrigue.
You certainly seem to have been busy during the close seasons with purchases: which of those do you see becoming regular starters for Brighton?
Leandro Trossard is the most exciting for me. He’s only 22 but captained Genk to the Belgian League title last season, scoring over 20 goals from out wide. He’s been in excellent form in pre-season but interestingly didn’t even make it off the bench at Watford. In Neal Maupay, the Albion will be hoping they’ve found Glenn Murray’s successor – which will be about time given that we’ve spent the past eight years trying to replace him since Gus Poyet went insane and released him first time around in favour of signing Craig Mackail-Smith. Adam Webster was our other big money signing but it’s hard to see him breaking into the back three at the minute with Lewis Dunk and Shane Duffy ahead of him and Big Dan Burn having been our best player at the weekend.
Given that you’ve got off to a flying start where do you think Brighton will realistically finish the season?
As I said, it’s impossible to guess – and I don’t think we’ll really know how good or bad Potter is until around Christmas time. After all, the last time we scored three goals away from home on the opening day under a new manager, we then lost the next 12 in a row, Martin Hinshelwood got sacked and we were relegated at the end of the season. Fingers crossed that won’t be the case this time.
Can West Ham recover from their opening day battering? What position do you think West Ham will end up in come next May?
Manchester City and Liverpool are so far ahead of everyone else that a 5-0 home defeat against one of those two isn’t actually a bad result these days. You seem to have recruited quite well and have a good manager, so top 10 should surely be the aim again.
Will it be the ‘same old, same old’ at the top of the League this year? What are your early predictions for the top 4?
The top three are pretty much sewn up but after that, it seems like a good year for someone else to have a crack at the top six. I’m never convinced by Arsenal, United weren’t exactly great once Solksjaer was put at the wheel permanently and Chelsea are serving a transfer ban having appointed a bloke whose managerial record reads one sixth place finish in the Championship. Most people would probably pick Wolves to gatecrash the party, but I like the look of Leicester. Brendan Rodgers is an excellent manager, they’ve bought well and they have a young squad packed with talented English players.
Who are your favourites for the drop?
Newcastle should be doomed now they’ve lost Rafa the Gaffer. Norwich keep telling everyone how they won’t compromise the style of play that won them promotion but look how that worked out for Fulham. Then probably Sheffield United which will be a shame as it’s an excellent city for an away day.
The old adage ‘Never change a winning team,’ doesn’t seem to apply too much in football these days, will Potter make a change for a home game? Predictions for the line-up?
There’s only one potential change I can see after last week and that might be Trossard coming in for Gross. That would be based on Potter wanting to introduce more pace to the side to play even more on the front foot than we did last week at Watford. Otherwise, unchanged: Maty Ryan in goal; Burn, Dunk Duffy as the back three; Martin Montoya right, Solly March left; Dale Stephens and Davy Propper in the middle; Murray through the middle with Jurgen Locadia one side and either Gross or Trossard the other.
You will have to think yourselves favourites for this fixture, are you feeling confident? Predictions for score?
I’ve watched Brighton for too long to expect them to follow up one good result with another. In fact, it would be very much typical if you came to the Amex and turned us over after last weekend. I’ll go for something in the middle with a 1-1.
Well many thanks to Scot for his time and comments. He has only made a modest prediction, so I will join him in going for a lowly 0 – 1 away win. Let’s get this party started! COYI