Seagull

We do get some opposition fans who criticise us for our antics but we've also had plenty of opposition fans who have been very complimentary. Peterborough for example even had their players saying in the press they were taught a lesson in football, I had Charlton fans outside the Valley telling me we were nailed on champions back in October! A Walsall fan said to me on Saturday that were the best side he'd ever seen at this level. We do have a cynical side to our game when we need it. We do look to earn every single little advantage we can. Having said that, I've heard us been called cheats a million times over the years. You always get it from opposition fans when they feel they've been wronged, that's football! We can play nasty, we can get stuck in and we can also play excellent, patient football. I think we play very controlling, very intelligent football thats too good for this division. The argument about whether one player would get in anothers side is pretty pointless really because different players suit different styles of play. For example, you could have a brilliant hulk of a centre half, but if he can't bring the ball down and be confident in possession he'd be no good to us with our style. I don't think we have the best 11 in the division individually. I don't think these awards mean a thing (players voting, and voting in January!) either. I'd have had Ankergren as the goalkeeper, 20 clean sheets and very few mistakes this season. I'd have had Hoskins up front with CMS. Would probably have found room for Gary Jones too.

The trophy presentation will be after the game so they won't want to lift the trophy after a poor performance. Additionally, if you don't beat us, we'll certainly want to protect the unbeaten home record in the last game. Gus has targeted 100 points but he's also said he's going to give some fringe players a chance once the title was won. I expect we'll see a few changes in the next few games. Brezovan may get a chance in goal, Alan Navarro will probably get a start or two (he was 1st choice until a serious injury early in the season and only just back) and we may see Chris Holroyd feature too.

Thanks for the congratulations. Never expected to be in this position this season. Thought we might be able to challenge for the last couple of play-off places but this season has just been incredible. Recall thinking how very unlikely it would be that we'd be playing Championship football at the Amex. I think if you went back to just over a year ago you'd find we hardly mentioned Saints really. We had a previous dislike of Pardew from his spell at Reading when we were battling with them for the league title some years ago and Dan Harding has suffered **** loads of abuse from us over the years since saying he would sign a new contract with us and then signing for Leeds. We'd brought him up through the youth system and given him his chance and felt rather betrayed. So when we played you at Withdean last season obviously those two were in for some stick. The game was quite fiesty, which obviously gets their fans on their feet and then you had Hammond, who we actually really liked and had a good relationship with, score and run to our fans mouthing obcenities! So you then had 3 figures of hate at your club, you then supposedly made a move for Calderon which obviously ruffled feathers even further! Add you being our titles rivals this season and its all spilled over a little. When we cheer you losing though, it's not really because we hate Saints or anything, when you score was announced on Tuesday everyone cheered and began chatting about how that means we could win the title on Saturday. Our concern was us being able to win the title in the next match, not you struggling. I suspect that in the main it'll rapidly cool off in years to come (unless we continue to be competing very closely in the leagues) although they'll probably always be a little bit of *****iness. I recall in previous years discussions on our forums and some of the old timers disliked you from the 70s or something but the vast majority didnt care either way. Anyway, thanks for the congrats, I'd personally quite like to see both you and Huddersfield promoted come the end of the season.

Brentford gave us (Brighton) and Huddersfield very close games and are playing some good stuff under Forster. Plymouth could be tough, but it depends on their players attitudes a bit really. Suspect there season will be over and you could hardly blame their players after a horrible season hardly getting payed not bothering. On the other hand perhaps they'll have the freedom to just go for it and give you a good game. I think you lot are up now though, you'll win your last 3 home games and that should be enough, perhaps with an away win chucked in too. Hudds away games are very tough and I think that'll be the end of them. I think home advantage will make a difference. We also, touch wood, won't have to play Battipiedi in midfield who's clearly not up to it and a 1st year pro at centre back. Will be a good game and could go either way though.

2,575.

The home end sells out every week. Away followings are generally awful, understandable given the shocking view you get. Wont dig up all the news items, but one example - http://www.seagulls.co.uk/page/Latest/0,,10433~2319059,00.html - Swindon game sold out, attendance 7,562 (298 away).

I can't predict the future but Gus has said it would take something very special (suggesting Chelsea/Madrid) to tempt him away. He said he didn't want to do an Ince and jump up to early. He said he wants to build something here and take us as far as possible. Possibly just saying what we want to hear but he sounded genuine. We've got the momentum and backing to push on for the Premiership - thats the aim - it might not happen - but if we are challenging at the right end of the table next season, to take Brighton from League One to the Prem would be a much bigger achievement on his CV than League One to Championship. You don't get that opportunity very often, and to throw it away for a mid-table Premiership club who would sack him after a few games if he started poorly, why bother? So long as we are moving in the right direction, he's happy to stay. Probably not but I've never seen a football league side as dominant as ours before. Dominance in terms of controlling a game, dictating the pace and not letting the opposition get hold of the ball. I fully appriciate, based on our performance at St Marys it's very hard to imagine that, but its true. We've destroyed Peterborough twice this season although I suspect you'll be our toughest opponents of the season when you visit. Nothing wrong with parking the bus. The difference this season is we've beaten pretty much everyone who's done it to us and others (notably Huddersfield) haven't. I don't think we came to St Marys to park the bus. Did we time waste, yes. Did we need to, yes. You were swarming all over us, but we stood up to it. It looked worse than it was though. It's very, very normal for us to slow the game down and time waste. We even do it when we're winning. I know that sounds like an alien concept but its all part of the game plan. We starve the opposition of the ball, we dictate the tempo, we get into their heads. They get rash, we stay calm, and we pick them off. It might sound boring to you, it took some of our fans time to adjust, and we've had to change our style a bit as sides have cottoned on to it a bit, but its genuinly a joy to watch. There is a touch of arrogance about it, we do laugh as we pass it to the keeper and the opposition striker gets ****ed off as he has to chase it down. But it works, our tactics are great, we do feel superior to others in that respect, and we fully deserve to. We could only get planning permission for 22.5k. Besides, most oppositions fans thought that was too big before. Room for easy expansion if we can prove transport system works. Not much really. You're a very good side, we know that. You pressured us, so rather than try a hopeful pass forward and lose possession, we retained the ball and went backwards. That's probably why we've got a brilliant defence record and rarely lose football matches.

What is a small-time mentality? I've never heard of this phrase before. Maybe only fans of "big clubs" use it? I'm going to contradict myself a little here but 1) there's a fear of complacency here, thinking the job is already done, so I don't think finding some extra motivation is ever a bad thing. 2) You're blowing it out of proportion a little (although, granted, we started that by putting it on website). Hunting for comments? Not really, it's often mentioned online and was mentioned in the programme so the players saw it before the game. Hardly Gus going out hunting for all comments about us. Need the motivation? Probably not, he's asked it by interviewer, he probably laughed at the comment when he read it and forgot about it, but its a standard reply in an interview. Our style of football. Well fortunatly we won't be playing Stoke in the league last season. We have however played Portsmouth and Watford in the FA Cup and beat them both and played excellent passing football in both games. Plenty of sides lose at Stoke, it doesn't matter whether you play passing football or not. The goals we conceeded had nothing to do with passing the ball about. It was more down to playing a good Premiership side away from home! Additionally, I'm sure if/when we go up, we'll look to sign better players who can play that style at a higher level. Gus has already said we're looking at 7/8 new players for next season. We talk about you because you're our promotion rivals. When we won League 1/2 a few years ago our challengers were Reading and Chesterfield. We spoke about them all the time too. There is some ill feeling too, from the game near the end of last season when our youth product ex-captain Hammond celebrated his goal by mouthing off at our fans who had nothing but respect and applause for him before that incident. Then there was the terror in the summer of potentially losing Calderon too you and then Adkins silly comments. It all builds it up, it's all part of the 'soap opera'/story of the season, it'll all largely be forgotton in a year or so's time when we're battling with someone else. Simply not true. We are enjoying being top, we are looking forward to the new stadium and next season and we're not actually that bothered about being above you. It says nothing about your stature, its about you being our promotion rivals this season. As I've posted above, we'll move on, it's normal. We've been like this with Reading and Chesterfield in previous years. Well to be fair every home game for ages has been a home sell out. Perhaps one or two empty seats where people haven't turned up but on the whole, yeah, its been small away followings. 1. I think you have more financial clout than us but that doesn't equal success, as we've seen this season. For a start, we might not want the same players. We've set a huge world wide scouting network. We've pinched Watfords much aclaimed Head of Football to help run that and set up our new youth academy. 2. Yes it will. Although there's loads of examples of clubs who have climbed through the leagues and seen attendances rise, Reading, Wigan, Hull, Swansea, Cardiff, Doncaster, etc etc. End of the day, the better you are, the more people who turn up. The longer you're successful the bigger core fan base you'll get, the longer you'll hold onto them if you struggle. I posted on here a few weeks ago saying you had better individuals/bigger star names etc than us but that we were a better team as a sum of the parts (or something like that) which most of your fans agreed with. To say we are average to poor though is joke. Ankergren (promoted with Leeds last season); Calderon (one of, if not the best right backs in the league), Greer (Swindons captain last season and superb), El-Abd (in the leagues official top 10 players), Painter (signed from Swansea whom he won promotion from this league with); Bennett (signed from Wolves, incredible season, subject to big bids from Norwich in January), Sparrow (signed from S****horpe, has won promotion from this league), Kishishev (Do I really need to say?), Noone (brilliant winger signed from Plymouth for 300k); Murray (Errrr....), Wood (Played in World Cup for New Zealand, loads of appearances for West Brom in Championship). That is not an average to poor League One side. Maybe - but to put our season into context.. the last 4 winners of League One, after 37 games.. PLD W D L F A PTS Brighton 37 24 8 5 68 27 80 Norwich 37 24 7 6 77 38 79 Leicester 37 22 12 3 69 31 78 Swansea 37 23 8 6 67 32 77 S****horpe 37 21 11 5 58 27 74

I think it's very important in this league to have a team who can scrap and nick a result here and there when you're not at you're best. I think we can do that reasonably well. However it's far, far from our normal game. Obviously you're not going to, but if you saw us play at home against an average League One side, you'd see we are an excellent passing side. We also played excellent football in the cup against Portsmouth and Watford so there's the confidence that we could do it at a higher level too. We certainly remember it but no matter how much some fans may find it rather amusing if we were to rest a few players I can't see it happening. Gus and Lee Clark had a bit of a falling out at the Galpharm and I'm pretty sure he'd want to get one over him. Having said that, if our season is over, he did play some youngsters in the last few games of last season to give them a chance so who knows. It's very easy to ignore a few things about that game though. We had to play a youngster, Lewis Dunk, at centre back after El-Abd got injured. He's only made 2 apperance this season, he started at Tranmere and he came on against you. He made his debut in a dead rubber at the end of last season. So he has 2 starts and 1 sub appearance in the league in his entire career. We were also forced into starting Battipiedi in midfield due to injuries/suspensions. He's only made 3 starts (5 subs) this season and was massivly, massivly out of his depth. You certainly had under the cosh first half and put us under a lot of pressure but we delt with that pressure and didn't fall to pieces. We weren't at our best, we had a couple of players with very little experience but we dug in, played some good football in the second half and could have won it in the end. Given the players you have, the threat you are to us and the pressure you put us under, no wonder we celebrated a good point away from home!

Please don't let this turn into a club size ***** fest. It's been a fairly decent thread so far. Club size discussions are really, really boring.

Our style is very different to anything I've ever seen before so it's no suprise opposition fans don't get it. I think for most Albion fans it's actually been an education in football. We don't play to frustrate but we play very controlling football and dictate the tempo of the game. Rather than chucking players forward and trying to attack in the traditional style we make the pitch big and we pass it about at the back to draw teams onto us. It's a bit like a chess game really, as soon as the opposition make one false move, 3/4 passes and we're in. You may be right only time will tell. From our perspective though, since we almost got back into the top flight in 91, we've been on a downward spiral as the mid-90's turned into a nightmare with the crooked directors and the sale of the Goldstone. We haven't had the means to push forward ever since. Now we're moving into a brand new ground, we're building a brand new top class academy/training ground. We're laying all of the foundations behind the scenes with excellent set-ups behind the scenes and terms of the medical dept, the analysits, the youth and so on. So when Poyet does go, it'll be an easier job for the new man as he'll have a great set up behind him. Poyet is doing a great job but it's not all about him. Its all about Bloom.

We're brushing sides aside with ease at the moment, we just look a class above to be honest. I could be totally wrong, as I don't really get the opportunity to watch you guys, but from an outside perspective, you (and Huddersfield) appear to be a team of individuals. You've gone out and got all these excellent players and expect them to fit together and win matches just because they're the best players in the league. I could be wrong, fair enough if you disagree, it's just how it looks from the outside. At Brighton I think we've got players who compliment each other much better and are suited perfectly to the system we choose to play. It's all very well saying that "random Saints player" is better than "random Brighton player" but your player might not suit our system. Craig Noone is an awesome talent for example and he's stuck on the bench for us we don't play with wingers at the moment. Fran Sandaza can't stop scoring from the bench but he's just a goalscorer and doesnt offer much else so cant get in. Then you've got someone like Ashley Barnes who I'm sure would get nowhere near your starting 11 but he's great for us because he plays so well as a deep striker linking up the midfield and attack.

Brighton have done better.