The 2018-2019 Biggest Bottlers goes to...

Little Ollie is strapped to the wheel!

 

Yeh... but apart from all that it was pretty good

Good post mate and appreciated. You're right my opinion is only as an outsider looking in.

Fwiw I can understand why he would've done that, his fear and therefore priority was to try and prevent relegation - the infamous second season outcome for a lot of newly promoted teams. Maybe he just wanted to secure the club in the prem before building the attacking football? What was he like in the Championship?

 

You have just described Rafa at Newcastle. Some of the dross we've had to endure over the last two seasons has been mind numbing.
Isn't football supposed to be a form of entertainment?

 

In 2016/17 We were never top of the league, won 12 out of our last 13 matches, the title was never in our hands, came 2nd and still got called bottlers...so thems the rules mo fo...

But you were the ...

 

For me, Arsenal are the bottlers of the decade.

 

The problem is, becoming more defensive hindered us, and then because we’re struggling Hughton goes even more defensive. It becomes a vicious cycle, not helped by how defeatist Hughton became in every interview “they’re a good side, they’ve got players who can hurt us, we need to keep it tight, stay in the game etc”. EVERY WEEK. Mentally for a player who must it do when your manager never praises you before a match, it’s always about how the opponent are dangerous/better etc; even when you’re playing Cardiff/Huddersfield.

There was a few games last year where Hughton let the shackles off at home. We stuck 3 past West Ham & 4 past Swansea. We were more expansive against Man.U this season and beat them too. That just makes it even more frustrating though when we slowly edged back in to his safe space of 4-5-1.

The best moment to sum up how defensive we became is the fact away at Chelsea we were 2-0 down and still had 11 men in our own box for their corner. Really, what is the f*cking point of turning up at that stage?

He was good in the championship, excellent in fact. We scored 144 goals and picked up 182 points in his two full seasons. However, it’s worth remembering we had an embarrassingly good squad too. Bruno - Dunk - Duffy - Bong gave us the solid base Hughton craves, we had the best player in the league with Knockaert & then 3 strikers who will always score at that level (Murray, Hemed, Baldock).

I think it’s simply a case of Hughton having a ceiling. He’s one of the best there is when it comes to getting in to the Prem, but he’s never going to manage much more than a 40 point season at that level, and once the rut sets in...

 

If you were a fan of a club whose manager had 3 wins in his last 23 games, was playing dire bus-park football and lost a 'must win' game at home to their relegation rivals in the manner they did, you'd be calling for his head to roll. It was a decision that had to be made, poor refereeing in Cardiff's games saved Brighton.

Interesting to see how he'll do at Brighton, he seems to suit a 'community club', he performed a miracle at Swansea and if he can get your squad on side with his methods you could be in the hunt for the Europey pot league.

 

That's why I asked about the Championship. Because I thought he was more attacking iirc. But your reasons explain a lot.

I agree, your first season it felt like Brighton were capable of beating virtually anyone at your ground. You always looked like you would score. I wasn't expecting you to have such a hard season after that tbh. So where do you hope to see Brighton in terms of the Prem next season, or in a couple of seasons?

 

You suggesting that Brighton, as well as Wolves, could overtake Arsenal?

Interesting, Urn.

Mind you, Pixie will be getting all defensive and challenging you to a wager. Be prepared to be accused of "having no stones," when you try to humour the silly fcuker.

 

Oh yes.

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In our first season and a half we only lost to one non big 6 team at home, and that was Leicester. Then the rot kicked in and we lost consecutive home games to Burnley, Southampton, Bournemouth & Cardiff. We had 6 shots on target across those 4 games and leaked 11 goals too. It was genuinely ridiculous how quickly our home form fell apart.

I’m sensible enough to realise that next year will be a massive struggle, and survival will be the aim again. So my main hope for next season is we play better football and we see some of our better youngsters given a proper chance to shine. Especially as we have Dan Ashworth working behind the scenes now; the man who is largely credited as the reason for England’s recent youth dominance.

Over the next 2-5 seasons I don’t see why we can’t push for a top half finish and put ourselves in the same bracket as Everton, West Ham & Leicester whilst producing exciting, young homegrown players. We certainly have the facilities to push for that and our chairman is ambitious.