Thimble

You might want to read my post again...I never said we were second, I readily admit that we are in third place as it currently stands. What I did say is that we will be bigger than Portsmouth and in that I mean I expect us to get there in a more long-term. What I do find interesting is your views on Saints and Pompey's size as I see Saints as being bigger even now. From what I have heard and understand Portsmouth's fanbase comes mainly from the city itself and some of the immediate surrounding area with a few extra pockets here and there...Whereas Southampton seem to draw your support from pretty much the rest of Hampshire. Now, obviously you guys are going to know your Hants geography better than me so am willing to be corrected! We are all football fans so we are supposed to be biased...But that said, the Albion have spent the best part of the past 20 years stuck in the bottom 2 divisions and I have never seen any team play as good as football what we do at this present time...

Ok, being an Albion fan I thought I would wade into this thread. I am not sure what the difference between the 2 teams are but we are clearly head and shoulders above any other team in this division. The style we play is phenomenal as we mix a slow build-up with incisive passing football which is an absolute joy to watch...The way we just cut teams to ribbons is something else. The football we play is probably the best the bottom 2 divisions have ever seen and will likely to see for a while... Poyet has developed an awesome blend where we have excellent individuals plus everyone works well in the team unit and the spirit is excellent. The spine of the team is key and you can see why we bullied Swindon into them selling us Gordon Greer as he can not only defend but is the best ball-playing centre-back I have seen....Liam Bridcutt appears to be a great find and has been brilliant in the holding midfield role...Then there is Gary Dicker who must be the classiest midfielder in this division...Up-front Glenn Murray who has always shown touches of quality but is now doing it on a consistent basis. Poyet has playing in his "Brighton style" and never change it whoever we are playing and it is left to the opposition to try and stop us and combat the way we play...This has lead to plenty of teams "parking the bus" even when they are at home! As for the arguement of what players would get into our respective teams, it is a hard one to call because I do not know enough about Saints. I guess with all the reports and valuation of Chamberlain he must be quality so would probably get into our side...With your fire-power upfront normally I would suggest your strikers could get in but recently they have been scoring for fun so I am not so sure. When you beat Oldham 6-0 that wiped out our goal difference advantage we had over yourselves but now look at it!...We have also scored 4 in our last 3 games. We have always been a decent sized club and have only fleetingly realised any sort of potential but now all that is about to change. The club is almost re-growing both on and off the pitch and yes, whilst you are currently still a bigger club than us given time and all things being equal there will not be much difference between us for the long-term. One thing we can safely say though is that we will both be bigger than Portsmouth. With regards to 'expectations' no one expected us to be where we are at the start of the season but after seeing us click into gear during the early part of September it is easy to see why we are in first position...We hit top spot on the 25th September and have not been removed since. We have even had a pretty big wobble where we were pretty average during November and December but we have come through that and are where we are. Now whilst promotion has to be the aim I see anything other than winning the league as a disappointment as from what I have seen we are quite simply the best team. There is still a fair way to go and you never know we might blow-up and have a nose dive...I do expect us to slip up occasionally in the remaining games but so long as we just concentrate on ourselves and hold it together and keep playing the 'Brighton style' we will be fine. We play the best football in this division and quite rightly sit on top of the pile.

Apart from the fact we have not been playing badly...Granted, we had our sticky patch through November and December but we got through that and on the whole have been playing brilliantly which is why we are top...

Personally I think the Play-Off Finals should have gone to Cardiff as Wembley is unavailable although from an Albion point of view we should hopefully not be involved...As interesting as South Coast Derby as a Play-Off Final will be, if we drop into the Play-Offs now it would be a disaster...

We have been in for him during this window and we even inquired towards the of last year but we have been re-buffed which is odd considering he is out of contract in the summer and can walk away for nothing!...Now he knows that other clubs are interested in buying him he is surely not going to sign a new contract with them which means Exeter will miss out on a transfer fee. But what was interesting was that whilst we kept everything in-house as that is how Poyet likes it, Exeter's DIrector Of Football blabbed about it all to the press, which leads me to think they have done this to make other clubs sit up and take notice in the hope of tempting further bids. So, if you are going to make your move then I would do so quickly because if no one buys him before the end of the window I would expect us to go back in for him knowing that this will be the Grecians last chance to get any money for him before he walks out for nothing...Not that I think we need him as we have plenty of decent mid-fielders...

I have read most of this thread but not all but will add an Albion perspective. You came at us more than I expected as I thought you would get men behind the ball and try and stifle us...Also, you play a bit more football now which I am guessing is due to the change in manager as last season at Withdean you were direct and very physical. But attacking us should have helped us as we could have played our game and opened your defence up in the similar vein to when Posh & Charlton came at us and we saw them both off comfortably. The problem was we were are own worst enemies as the first half performance was the worst I have seen from us this season. We seemed to be unable to string more than 2 passes together and when we got the ball forward it was not sticking and this I put mainly down to our on-loan forward Wood. He has been borrowed from West Brom and it is clear Poyet is only doing it as a favour to his ex-Chelsea team-mate Di Matteo. As for alleged time wasting, it is just our patient game and all the time we are not losing we always play like that...Even at home! Thankfully, whilst we were woeful with the ball we were pretty good without it and were well organised and defended excellently. Saints were clearly the better team though without, in my opinion looking that great...But I was aware that if the game carried on in similar fashion then you would nick it. As for the second half, things started looking up for us when we brought Jamie Smith for a bit of pace and you could see early on that Saints had begun to tire...This meant you were not harassing our players in possession as much anymore and we finally found space to get out passing game going and started to take control. What made it even better was that Murray soon came on and we finally had someone up-front who could hold the ball and use it...The downside of this was that Barnes had to make-way which I thought was harsh and he was clearly not happy with the decision and nor was I. Especially as Barnes is now our penalty taker. That said I could not fault Wood's penalty too much (even scored a good one on Saturday) as he struck it well and into the corner but Davies' save was amazing. It seemed following the penalty you had the air of a team who had just got out of jail and with us controlling the game more you seemed resigned for trying to take a point...Especially as Davies decided to start taking his time with the goal-kicks. Murray was a constant menace proved that your no 15 (much like he was at Withdean last season) is not very good...Had we had Murray on from the start and putting him under pressure from minute one we might have got more joy in the first half. I was also extremely happy when Barnard went off as he always scores against us!! All in all, I cannot be too disappointed considering how truly terrible we were in the first period and I will always take a draw as a minimum from an away game no matter who we play...

If you are referring to what people say on North Stand Chat I would ignore them as most of them know nothing...I am an Albion fan and not pessimistic...

Thankyou people...I am looking forward to the match, should be interesting...

Hello people, I am an Albion fan and just thought I would come for a look around ahead of the game tomorrow...