@James__William
This article was originally published in Dogma Issue 5 (Decemeber 2021)
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Roberto De Zerbi: un altro livello
In 48 hours Roberto De Zerbi will make his debut as Albion manager at Anfield. Many things have been said about him in the past few weeks since his appointment but these have mainly been about his tactics and background, we wanted to focus on the football that made the man, his history and career from the perspective of his home nation, by way of our go to man on the boot - Marcello Goussot. 
Who is Roberto De Zerbi? We need to try to understand how his career as a player and manager developed and how it fits into Italian football over the past few decades.
Ultimately as a player De Zerbi did not have the kind of career his early promise at AC Milan suggested. In the late 90s He was a classic number 10, as is said in Italy a fantasista or a mezzapunta. The kind of iconic players of the era such as Roberto Baggio, Gianfranco Zola or Francesco Totti, but he never reached their heights.
His debut was at Monza in Serie B in 1998-99 but in the following seasons he played only a few games in many clubs of Serie C/1 (third tier at that time) like Padova, Lecco and Avellino.
In 2002/2003 he joined Foggia in Serie C/2 (fourth tier) where he met a man that would become his mentor as a player and as a manager: Pasquale Marino.
Pasquale Marino, is key to understanding De Zerbi. A young sicilian that surprised everybody taking a small club from his area (Paternò Calcio) from the amateur league (Serie D) to the Serie C/1 in three years between 2000 and 2002. Marino did this playing offensive football based on the 4-3-3 and ball possession. A model De Zerbi would replicate throughout his managerial career.
Marino made De Zerbi a real footballer and the two stayed together for four seasons, winning two promotions, in 2002/2003 into Serie C/1 with Foggia and in 2005/2006 into the Serie A with Catania, the first in 24 years for the sicilians. These successes sandwiched between a good 2004/2005 season in Serie B with Arezzo.
After the Marino years De Zerbi had another good season in Napoli (a promotion to the Serie A in 2006/2007) and then a decline with just 64 appearances between 2008 and 2013, the final year being when he retired from playing.
As a manager Foggia was again in his destiny. It was there that he suddenly broke into the attention of Italian football in the 2015-2016 season.
After a bad spell with a small club in the Serie D called Darfo Boario (fifth tier at the time, an amateur level) in 2014 he was signed by the club from the Puglia region who were in Serie C.
It’s important to understand how Serie C is structured: it’s the third and last professional tier of italian football divided into three regional groups based on north, central and southern Italy.
Group C, the southern, was the group in which Foggia were (and still are) included and historically is one of the hardest leagues to prosper in. It’s full of experienced managers with extremely defensive play and very small pitches with passionate supporters and players who make life hard for young managers.
De Zerbi arrived there with different ideas: offensive football with 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1, ball possession, high pressing. And it worked! In his first season, Foggia finished 7th and were the highest scorers in the league: 63 in 38 games. The following season was even better: Foggia finished second, again with the best scoring record (61 goals in 34 games), and only lost out on promotion into Serie B at a playoff final against Gennaro Gattuso’s Pisa in a dramatic second leg at home.
His experience with Foggia is the best example of De Zerbi’s ideas about how football should be played. Faced with tradition and resolve De Zerbi found a way out. A model for the rest of his successful career and how he can succeed at the Albion and take Brighton to un altro livello.
In Sassuolo, by far his most important experience as a manager, he exemplified another key tenet of his career - the capacity to launch very important young players: above all Giacomo Raspadori who recently scored for Italy against England. Something that in italian football is very difficult. Clearly his success with young players has been identified by the Albion as they look to continue their strategy of promoting from within.
From an Italian perspective the Albion have made a great call appointing De Zerbi to take on their ethos. His career in Italy provided the foundation and it seems that De Zerbi could be the man to take Brighton to another level.
Words: Marcello Goussot
Illustration: @BHAgullski
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Glass ceiling
“Cash rules everything around me, C.R.E.A.M – get the money, dollar, dollar bill y’all.”
It is highly unlikely that Wu-Tang legend Method Man penned those famous bars about the Premier League way back in 1993, but nearly thirty years later, they ring loud and true. Propped up by billionaires, consortiums and eye watering television deals, the Premier League has become a commercial juggernaut. Generating a collective GDP higher than some third world countries and with millions of eyeballs glued to it every week, it has become the ‘Super League’ – a measure of footballing success from which every other domestic competition is measured.
Yet for all this money pouring in and ever increasing quality of global talent, it has become an increasingly closed shop; a glass ceiling between the have and have-nots. The Champions League spots have become a virtual guarantee for the ‘Big Six’. Manchester City first entered the Champions League in 2011/12, and haven’t missed one since. In the same period, Chelsea have only missed out on the biggest European stage twice. Taking into account the remaining cluster of teams in that same group, it becomes fairly easy to predict the top 25% of the league year-on-year – a percentage which will only increase given the inevitable rise of Newcastle United. This should not really be a surprise – these teams are owned by some of the wealthiest owners in the global game – financial resources far beyond the rest. Have a player they deem a threat? Expect them to be hoovered up, often to rot on the bench. By weakening one side's hand, further cements their position above the glass ceiling.
Brighton & Hove Albion were the latest team to provide a realistic threat to the glass ceiling. Developing slowly since Chris Hughton’s departure, under the playing style envisioned by Graham Potter, Brighton were a side that appeared to be trying to do things differently. This did not feel like luck or good fortune – it was sheer intelligence. An excellent internal structure, solid and proven recruitment system and a highly-rated manager, created terrific foundations from which to build on. Brighton were becoming a threat in more ways than one. They were providing a blueprint for others to follow.
This was no doubt attractive to potential investors. Coupled with a great stadium, state of the art training facility and a catchment area ripe for growth, the only way was up. Whilst never confirmed, no doubt Tony Bloom has been approached numerous times regarding a takeover.
In light of the tumultuous last week at Brighton, there is a realistic hypothesis that the American consortium, headed by Todd Boehly, tried to enter the world of soccer prior to their acquisition of Chelsea. They no doubt shopped around the fringes of the league looking for a vessel for their project. As a result, it is safe to assume that they approached Brighton regarding a takeover. Had Bloom not slammed the door firmly in his face, Brighton would have represented a sound (and profitable) acquisition.
Opportunism stuck when Abramovichs’ Chelsea suddenly became available – a result of Russia's unlawful invasion of Ukraine. On the face of it, Chelsea do not represent good value for money. Coupled with an inflated price tag, the club was held together by Roman’s deep pockets – not conducive to pulling out profit in the medium-to-long term. Boehly might have believed he could own Brighton, and when he could not, proceeded to rip the spine out of the club in an act of spiteful revenge.
They knew they could not just take control of Chelsea and remove Champions League winner Thomas Tuchel, the fanbase would have been hysterical – riotous even – so they intentionally undermined his control to gain in the long term. As Manchester City did in the preparation of Guardiola, they signed players who fit the manager they had in mind. Cucurella, Forfana, Sterling and Aubamayang all fit the profile of players Potter would desire. Potter was already very familiar with Cucurella, but Sterling is a player in a similar mold to Trossard, with Auba like Welbeck, albeit more clinical in front of goal.
Tuchels reign imploding accelerated Boehly’s plan. There are plenty of viable ‘project’ managers that would have fit the bill. Pochettino and Amorim are either free agents, or available at far cheaper prices. You could imagine both these managers having a similar impact to Potter. They knew Potter had some sense of loyalty and had completely bought into the Brighton project. But money talks. It is difficult for anyone to object to Potter taking that role. Taking home a pay packet of around £1 million a month is a life changing amount of money for a manager who feared never getting a shot at the very top. Boehly knew what he wanted and would stop at nothing to get it.
In the long term, Potter may not be the winner, but Boehly certainly is. In what feels like a footballing Game of Thrones, he has successfully gutted the team that perhaps spurned his advances – clipping the wings of a side who appeared to have created a system to finally smash the glass ceiling the ‘Big Six’ have worked so hard to protect.
For us fans, it is the timing that hurts the most. It feels like your wife asking for a divorce that you never saw coming. At the start of September, footballing life felt so full of optimism. Following a record breaking 21/22 season, this season looked like the upward trajectory was set to continue – dreaming of Europe. For Chelsea, normality. For Brighton? Uncertainty.
Words: Iain Budgen // @iainbudgen
Illustration: @iainbudgen // @BHAgullski
Potterings. Reflections on Graham's exit, from Dogma's JBD and Parker.
PissPotter
Right now, my head is all over the place. This isn’t unusual for me but, in relation to the reaction I’ve witnessed from myriad friends and Albion fans, I know I’m not alone.
He’s gone - our man has gone. He didn’t get pushed - he jumped.
Here was a man who ‘got it’. A man who told all of the ‘Johnny Come Lately’ (JCL) fans that booing a 0-0 home draw with Leeds, in the Premier League, required a history lesson being imposed upon them, to remind them just how far we’d come, and just how much we’d achieved.
Here was a manager who had the widely admired capacity to understand who we are, and to face down the media for using ‘teams like Brighton’. He was with us, he offered the ‘air quotation marks’ to the assembled international press, and let us know that he understood, stood with us, was on our side, and ready to give as good as he got if anyone dared try to ‘put us in our place’.
Is it any wonder that the inspiration, the hope, the joy, and the belief, all stemmed from a manager who celebrated with us, who understood who we were, where we came from, and what we might be capable of achieving in the future?
And so, to today, looking back in hindsight… as fair or as unfair as that might be.
Is telling our fans that they need a history lesson an acknowledgement that we should recognise where we have come from, and should be grateful for anything?
Is calling the press out on what they really mean by ‘teams like Brighton’ a convenient misdirection, designed to curry favour, when you’ve already told your fans to be grateful for whatever they get (even if it’s only a point, taken from a crap team)?
Isn’t ‘jumping ship’, mid-contract, the surest sign that he’s got his own idea of what ‘teams like Brighton’ might mean?
- Perhaps he only ever saw us as a small club to ride the waves upon- Perhaps he saw us as a team that need to remember our place, no matter that we fail to score against a bottom of the table teams
- Perhaps he thinks we need a history lesson so that we don’t get ideas above what we deserve
- Perhaps he sees us as a stepping-stone to ‘greater things’ for himself, and anyone else he can take from us, no matter how much he made us believe that he had bought into Tony’s vision.
Graham Potter’s treatment of this team serves as a classic definition of ‘teams like Brighton’ - too small to matter, not worthy of loyalty, an interim shop window.
Despite what he has said in the past, he has defined ‘teams like Brighton’ through his own self-serving and violating actions, and he has compromised his own integrity, and that of our Chairman.
I guess it doesn’t matter now, bar the requirement for antacids to rid ourselves of the sour taste that results from being able to reinterpret what someone said in the past.
We move on, and we still aim for the stars because, irrespective of our history, we have as much right to dream, and believe, as anyone else - no matter what others might think and how much money they might have. In Tony we trust. Fuck the others.
JBD (he/him/wanker)
So Long, Motherfucker
Graham Potter’s arrival followed a fairly dismal seventeenth place league table finish - fourth from bottom - and his tenure has ended with the club sitting fourth from the top.
This represents progress, and for that we can be thankful. But any gratitude or warmth that might have come his way has been washed away by the timing and nature of the exit. To walk out now, just as things were finally coming together, is one thing. To act as gangmaster and take the entire backroom team with you is quite another. It goes without saying that I hope his time, their time, at Chelsea is an unmitigated disaster.
It certainly could be. Graham’s whole shtick is patience. Performance over results, trust the process, don’t boo because we didn’t win, chew down some tasty XG numbers you ungrateful fuckers. And he was awarded a remarkable amount of leeway and understanding at Brighton. This is the manager who delivered one home win in a calendar year, let’s not forget.
But Chelsea are the elite instant gratification social-media-age football club, with a slash and burn rinse and repeat modus operandi that’s perfectly attuned to the whims and pulses of the morons who support them.
And their new owner, if anything, has doubled down on this approach. Let a load of perfectly good players leave for nothing and replace at great fanfare (hello Cucu). Allow another batch of homegrown talents to walk away (hello Billy). Attempt to sign ageing show pony Ronaldo… at the owner’s behest. Sack yet another big-name manager following a spell of middling results.
Into this environment will step Euro football legends and highly respected stars of the game Graham Potter, Billy Reid, and Bjorn Hamberg.
Graham and crew will be processed and judged through a filter of instant success, at all costs. He will also be expected to preside over a succession of expensive signings, or at least not complain when somebody with a hugely inflated price tag is parachuted into the dressing room. He’ll also need to act like an entitled prick on the side lines.
Is this, culturally, much of a fit? Graham is the demure nobody man. His persona is built on thoughtfulness and pragmatism, the modest humble guy who’d be happier in a tracksuit, bashfully diverting away praise and complimentary remarks.
But the nature of the exit would suggest there’s another side to that persona: arrogance, a ruthless streak, and a total lack of respect towards the football club that has supported your progress and development.
By all accounts the call arrived on Wednesday morning and he was straight up the A23 in his middle-management executive salon. No compunction, no hesitation… yes Todd or Ted or Turd or whatever the fuck your name is, I’d love to come talk.
This is a brash and clumsy way to treat Tony Bloom, but for somebody with a degree - don’t you know - in emotional intelligence, it’s a calculated act of aggression. Maybe he's the perfect fit for his new employer after all?
Fuck you. Sincerely, Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club.
Parker
Au revoir, le petit shithouse, et merci pour les moments.
Neal Maupay was the perfect signing for the version of the Albion he joined in August 2019. Post-Hughton, but very early-Potter, these were the nascent days of the campaign that finally came to fruition in May 2022: a top-ten Premier League table finish.
He joined a progressive club looking upwards, albeit one suffering from a touch of imposter syndrome. Park the bus for too long (or not even leave the depot when playing away at a big-six club) and you start to fear the big bright lights of the outside world.
Which is why Neal, with his brash nonconformist attitude, was such a great fit. Here was somebody who didn’t give a shit for stuffy reactionary constraints like status, or hierarchy. A musketeer from the South of France, who was entirely comfortable shithousing anybody, home or away, rich or poor. Vive le Revolution.
But August 2019 to May 2022 is a long old time, and spans three full seasons of football… that were mostly played out against a backdrop of groans, heads in hands, and the chimera of X fucking G hanging over us.
Our profligacy cannot be blamed squarely on Neal Maupay. Squandering chances in a Brighton shirt and Neal Maupay are not mutually exclusive.
But the superb run of form we put together late last season to help achieve our top-ten objective, and Danny Welbeck’s involvement, absolutely were. And the writing has been on the dressing room wall ever since.
What to make of Neal’s time at the club? There are two contrasting folkloric versions of Neal Maupay. There’s the swashbuckling baller who bangs in late goals and shushes opposition supporters. 27 goals across 107 appearances (in all competitions) is a tidy record in Premier League terms. But there’s also the lonely dejected version of Neal, shoulders hunched, hamstrung by self-doubt, wishing the ground would swallow him up.
This paradox is what makes him so interesting, and so easy to love - despite the shanks,scuffs and mishits. How could you not have empathy for someone who works so hard, and always came back for more?
He comes across as an intelligent, thoughtful person, and he’s a perfectly decent Premier League football player. An exceptional one, on his day, if the stars are aligned and he hasn’t the time to contemplate the consequences of failure before striking the ball.
And we were lucky enough to enjoy plenty of those exceptional days and moments down the years. Big goals, key assists, and some absolute first-rate shithousery - why’d you let it bounce, you fucking dipshits.
I’ve often wondered if the shithousing was a sort of coping mechanism for his self-doubts? Getting into other people’s heads to help keep control of his own. Or maybe Neal’s just a bit of a dick?
We’ll discover soon enough whether Graham Potter, with his degree in emotional intelligence, don’t you know, was able to get the absolute best out of Neal or not. But I have a hunch this is a good as things get. All football clubs bang on about ‘culture’ and creating a supportive environment, but we do seem to be particularly good at the emotional and psychological aspects of modern-day football management.
It’s been fun, but now a new project has commenced, something even sexier - trophies, Europe, maybe even some home wins - and so it feels like the right time to say goodbye. Merci pour les buts, les passes décisives et rendre les gens fous.
Oh and Neal, if you are reading this, I have some advice for you. You have to choose between Everton, Fulham or Nottingham Forest, is that correct? That’s a simple one, mate. At Goodison Park you’ll be mismanaged by somebody who displays about as much emotional intelligence as a mouse handler at a vivisection laboratory.
Fulham? What’s the point? They’re shit and will lose most weeks, may as well join an ambitious Championship club to enjoy the thrills and spills of a promotion campaign, than get sucked down the Premier League u-bend in a Fulham jersey.
Which just leaves Nottingham Forest and the consoling arm of Steve Cooper, the person who’ll take over from King Graham when he departs in the summer of 2024 (we don’t do sexy managers, we just do fucking great ones).
So we’ll see you Neal, our old friend, in mid-October.
Words: Parker
Artwork: Iain Budgen / @iainbudgen and Gullski / @BHAgullski
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Absolutely FAB-ulous
Graham Potter once said that “the most important relationship at a football club is the one between the supporters and the players”. For all his innovative, troubleshooting, possibly slightly dry characteristics as a tactician, GP is clearly someone who gets the perils of modern football. His interview and indeed use of the word “oligopoly” after the announcement of the European Super League not so long ago clearly spoke of a man tuned into the geopolitical landscape. And he is right. What you see on the pitch tends to reflect how things are behind the scenes. At that wonderful United game several weeks back, it wasn’t hard to see which fans felt the greater connection with their team and club.
When I first started watching Brighton and Hove Albion, the fans were stuck. The men in charge of their club were stood on the outside of the tent pissing very much inwards. We were circling the plug hole and action was needed quickly. Stadium sale, Hove race track, Gillingham ground-share, Sports Division. Buzzwords of a bygone era. One of my first ever games saw a 1-0 win over Carlisle rapidly followed by a pitch invasion. A clueless youngster, I just thought this was what you did when you beat Carlisle…
During this era, fan involvement in club affairs was less ‘awkward selfie with a frozen Pascal Gross’ and more ‘storm the pitch and literally break the goal frames’. It was a roiling political movement and it was organised, coordinated, often good-humoured and intelligent. It was actioned by a fanbase that had been pushed too far. It made us who we are and gave us an identity. A situation imposed on the only people that could reverse it led to the halting of a seemingly inexorable slide into the abyss of liquidation. It was real.
Recently our club Twitter commemorated the 25th anniversary of the Hereford game with a full stream of the match, replete with anachronistic Twitter content. “Love it, Robbie! 👏”, “Good afternoon, Kerry! 😎”. Had such things existed back then you feel it might have in theory been easier to rally support for our cause. But would there have been mysteriously anonymous bods with account names like ‘Ian Baird Supremacy’ or ‘Kevin McGarrigle Era’? Would the current celebration of ‘individuality’ have permitted the success of a fan-led movement that was really about the collective? Given how close we were to fading away it really does make the current state of fan discourse seem beyond trivial.
A full Football Twitter confessional would be enough to make even the most devout cardinal seek out a cleaning job at Number 10. But one of the insidious irritants of this world is an obsession with ‘content’. Young, often decent people who are just showing their passion for their club are reduced to expressing themselves with ‘content’ and the genuine belief that every thought that pops into their head is worth sharing to their audience. Arsenal fans destroying home furniture after an unfathomable collapse against Newcastle, head-smashingly stupid transfer rumours given the light of day, carefully curated spats with anonymous fans of rival clubs. And this is what social media does; an illusory sense of individuality empowers thousands to create a flood of vacuous, coiffured data. It’s just not real.
In this landscape, fan participation in the running of football clubs feels almost problematic. Enter BHAFC’s new Fan Advisory Board. On seeing the announcement of this initiative it is quite hard not to instinctively imagine a dystopian Love Island-esque series of glittery election campaigns. “I’m Gary and I promise that every time Joël Veltman scores I’ll stick my knob in a python’s nest! My wife has left. Please vote for me.” Putting the fun in non-fungible.
If properly executed, it is a good idea (the FAB, not the python thing…) The post-Bloom era will arrive one day and it will be far less scary with a quorum of good fans enmeshed in the organisation. They’ll need the stomach to deal with one of the more cantankerous fanbases; coordinating the think tank on whether wooden or plastic forks would be better in west lower, dissuading anti-GP types from burning bearded effigies after we finish 6th, assembling a focus group to discuss Solly March’s best position. They will also nonetheless have to listen to their blue and white counterparts. Putting ‘Proud member of @OfficialBHAFC Fan Advisory Board’ on one’s Twitter handle simply isn’t a good enough primary ambition.
This is a good idea if we get real Albionites with longevity in their minds and BHAFC in their hearts. It seems odd to say but what the fans have done for this club is facilitate the era of Dick Knight and then Tony Bloom. In the last 24 years we have never been truly fan-owned; instead, our owners have been fans. And in a landscape where content and stuff trumps all, it is an interesting time to welcome supporters into the boardroom. The brand-ification of human beings discussed above means that we’re no longer necessarily engaging with individuals. We’re forever in a state of potentially engaging with the followers and online sway that these people come with too. We should not see this as a chance to feed the bloated football Twitter cloud with yet more word salad. We should see it as a tangible body that is representative of and sympathetic to the wider fanbase.
Edward Woodhouse // @edwardwoodhouse
Robert Sanchez: closer to God
Everything and nothing has been written about Robert Sanchez. If you want 40 articles about how a kid from Cartagena ended up in Sussex at 15 then fill your boots on Google. Want intriguing headlines about Rochdale to La Roja? Go for it. There’s also about 200 of those clickbait ones on The Argus where a mate of a mate of a mate of Andoni Zubizarreta said he liked the guy. Good hands. Good feet. Athletic. Repeat.
It has all been written. The club press office has released him for interviews. It’s quite a story. But we still don’t know much about him. His rise was perhaps unforeseen, and yet here he is. Number one. Comfortable and kind of aloof and magically enigmatic.
His rise is both a compelling narrative in a storytelling sense (snore, see above) but perhaps most importantly to us, as fans, in the physical sense. Because that is the thing with Robert Sanchez. He just jumps. He jumps and he catches the ball. In what world does a keeper in his very early 20s command such status among a fanbase for catching a ball? Well, it’s typical Albion actually.
Since Tony Bloom turned up, we have seen the culture of the club change and there is a style of football, or footballer, we want to see. It’s not arrogant. We’re not proclaiming to have a ‘way’, or outwardly branding ourselves as such, but we’re in the business of creating idols in this period of club history and Sanchez fits the mould perfectly.
It’s simple; take a player with a high-ish level of football competence, sprinkle a little bit of magic in (normally this means being from somewhere far, far from Brighton, be it geographically or socially) and give them some mysterious origin story. Like they’ve arrived on a meteor. Or from the Spanish second division, either will do. The Spanish thing is very important here. Mention Spain or Latin America and it’s like catnip to Albion fans. A few people have shaped this club into what we enjoy today, but first we have to start at King Ferdinand II of Aragon and his wife Isobel I of Castile.
Jokes, not really (well, kind of … maybe that’s one for the BHAHS almanac; Carder, call me), but we can look at Gus Poyet. Poyet bought in Inigo Calderon, we started passing the ball, yada yada yada… you know exactly what happened. If you’re reading this then you probably lived it. We expected flair. Even in League One.
Because it’s flair that really drives us, and anyone who tries to de-flair this club is a heretic. That might be a push, but, well, hi Chris Hughton. One place where we always struggled with flair is between the sticks. David Stockdale was not flair. Casper Ankergren was not flair. Matty Ryan was not flair.
And it’s Matty Ryan that plays such a huge part in the Robert Sanchez story. Yes he was from the other side of the world via Valencia (top marks), yes he had a bit of a globetrotting path to Falmer (top marks), but when it came to that high level of competence? He just wasn’t there.
It was easy to elevate Ryan into something of a cult player. His pitchlength celebratory runs, the fact that he played for Australia … these things were quite cool. The reality though was dour interviews (unless he was getting stroppy about the club), a seeming lack of gamechanging contributions, some mistakes here and there but overall, a feeling of impotence in the area. A feeling of weakness when we were under pressure.
Now, it has been said by football people with numbers/brains etc. that height does not impact your success in claiming crosses. This is not about the two goalkeepers’ respective feet and inches. Ryan just never made you feel ‘chill’ when teams were launching crosses into our box. And that’s the crazy feeling you get when Sanchez plays. Because we’ve not been blessed with goalkeeping talent over the years. You would put maybe Tomasz Kuszczak and Sanchez’s mentor, Ben Roberts as two of the best but the rest are pretty forgettable, sometimes calamitous.
It was against Liverpool at Anfield last season that we saw another way. A contented state where we knew our goalkeeper was bigger, stronger than everyone else. He could do all the rest, the footwork, the shot stopping, the distribution, the organisation, but he could jump. He jumps and he catches the ball.
That is pure magic. A potent tonic for Albion fans. The sight of a 6’6 giant gliding across the pitch and plucking the ball from the air with grace. Normally it’s slow motion because we’re so frightened, now it’s slow motion because it’s balletic.
That’s why he is an icon already. That’s why he is untouchable when he makes the odd weird mistake or you’re a bit concerned that his ice demeanour is perhaps a little more stoner in vibe.
Robert Sanchez is the most exciting goalkeeping talent in the club’s history. When he leaves, and he probably will soon, it’ll be to someone like Barcelona or something stupid. We’ll wave him off like flag-shaggers waving off the Ark Royal down in Pompey, just glad to have seen him play. Reminiscing over a pint about better times, like with Vicente or, erm, Abdul Razak.
“I saw him, yeah” we’ll boast in pubs in 20 years or when he lifts the World Cup with Spain or wins the Champions League. This guy Sanchez. He’s just that little bit closer to god.
Sam Swaffield / @SamSwaf
'I'm #1' long sleeve t-shirt. 100% cotton // 100% Brighton. Artwork by @JamieEke available here. 
‘Lies, damned lies, and statistics’ - a position on the irrelevance of statistics in football
The cold hearted, emotionless prevalence of statistics permeates every aspect of our post-truth lives. Where nothing means anything unless it's quantifiable. The halls of business and government hum with the air of 'metrics' and these 'quantifiables' - yuck. For these sectors it's understandable. Capitalism and state control have an easier job when it reduces people to the very basics of how they'd like us to behave - as a number or a couple of lines of code. But football, football is sacred. Glorious and emotional, unexplainable, and unexpected - concepts which fans, from this writer’s perspective - cannot rationalise with anything other than their hearts and minds.
In the Potter era, especially last season, statistics have been regularly used as a salve to soothe the concerned. ‘But look we should be higher up the league based on... (some unintelligible series of case sensitive letters (xG?) or unromantic phrases such as ‘shot creating actions’)’. The unfortunate and understandably difficult reality for our fanbase is that we knew how well we were playing - without accumulating a reasonable return of points.
The rise of statistics over the past twenty years or so is in part based on the explosion of online betting. Bookmakers have created a culture of wagers on any number of situations or instances such as ‘who will win the next corner?’. You can bet on anything and people certainly do. Screens are furiously tapped away at while flat lager is served and squelched into the carpets of pubs by disinterested 30-something blokes like me who just want something to shout at on their dreary Saturday afternoons.
The same can be said of Fantasy Football, a game-within-a-game where you ‘score points based on those players' actual statistical performance or their perceived contribution on the field of play’ (Wikipedia). Fantasy Football and online betting are marketed and played to make otherwise irrelevant matches exciting and meaningful for the swelling customer base that is the modern football fan. Rating players on their stats creates an attitude that the result doesn’t matter, ‘as long as Danny Ings scored it’s all good’.
The rise of this culture has contributed to the idea that the game can be summarised or understood as a series of unrelated data points. Self-serving statistics are now a component of a game which, in its televised format, feels at times purely put on for the benefit of digital betting companies and broadcasters. Reducing watching the game down to a series of metrics dims the vibrancy of football as this meme demonstrates:
Gordon Greer at Pride
I get it, I do. Statistics and their bed-fellows gambling and Fantasy Football create another way to connect to a game which has been pulled away from its roots - as a theatre for the working class - and replanted in pubs or on television sets globally by the money men. The ‘premier league’* and their media associates have successfully marketed their product, first nationally and more recently globally, to fans who don’t have a tangible connection to a team. It reinforces their marketing message that the only thing that matters is the ‘premier league’. A casual fan will, for example, be able to tell you what KDB’s xG is more confidently than the name of Oldham’s ground. And that’s the way ‘the premier league’ want it.
The suits clamour for more exciting ways to increase engagement with their distant customers and draw them in by serving up what the internet calls ‘content’. This clamour for 'content' and the myriad online accounts which regurgitate this analysis propagate the myth that stats mean anything. For some it's a way to add colour to a game they can’t really ‘feel’. A futile attempt to replace the instantaneous emotion being in attendance creates and to rationalise a game which is essentially random and subjective to intangibles - confidence, weather, beach balls, slips, tufts of grass, pitch-invaders. I get it! But think it’s worth about as much as the change Alan Mullery chucked on the floor against P****e in 1976.
There’s a very definite place for @oilysailor style, Super Freakonomics-esque ridiculousness, see: Vardy is now only six PL goals behind Brighton and Hove Albion from September 2020. Curios such as this undoubtedly add colour and humour to an otherwise dull data set of ‘analysis’.
The case for statistics in football also certainly makes sense from the inside. Football clubs looking to create any competitive advantage in games or recruitment where every percentile matters will of course use the statistics. But what is the value from the outside in? What worth does it have to a fan who really loves the game? It’s not cricket, that’s for the summer, and it’s certainly not baseball, that’s a nice background to eat hot dogs to.
Ultimately football has a definitive way of establishing success or not – the league table, ordered by points acquired by results. In football the only numbers relevant are the few displayed on the scoreboard at full time and the accumulation of numbers displayed on the league table. Think of Ceefax, or the heartwarming tone of James Alexander Gordon (RIP). He scored, they lost, they drew, they won, that’s it. The rest is irrelevant.
*A note on style: The writer, on principal, refuses to refer to the brand name of the conglomerate formed in 1992 to more effectively market top-flight football in England. It will be referred to exclusively as the ‘premier league' without any titular capitalisation and with inverted commas in order to indicate the top-flight of English football is neither 'premier' or the premier league. Which league is premier is a completely subjective point and certainly not the decision of Rupert Murdoch et al. The Premier League™ is a brand name and the writer will not do lip service to promoting its registered trademark. LOL.
This article was first published in Dogma / Issue 3 and has been slightly amended here.
James William / @James__William_
Seve Alzate
The boy who came from nowhere. Leyton Orient’s death spiral 11, Swindon on loan, and then bang, he’s the best player on the pitch.
Sumptuous technique and touch, vision, elegance, a beautiful footballer right at home in what can be, when it comes together, a beautiful football team.
Are Alzate’s numbers good? I’m sure there’s some dullard out there with the metrics to prove this. Who cares? If you’ve seen him play, you’ve seen enough. He’s good, like really good. A technician’s technician.
And to add some stardust (and a lovely slice of reverse xenophobia, although probably lost on those most in need of noticing) there’s the Columbia aspect (ignoring for a second he was brought up in North London, and signed from one of East London’s most charmless football clubs, which is saying something considering who else occupies that neck of the woods). The little foreign beauty.
But let’s just consider this for a second. Exciting young Columbian midfield playmaker bursts onto the European top-flight scene and forces his way into Columbia’s starting 11, praised as the next big thing in the South American press. The new Carlos Valderrama, or James Rodriguez. Picked alongside Jorman Campuzano (Boca Junior’s Columbia starlet), Wilmar Barrios (Zenit’s key midfield enforcer, linked with 101 clubs, including us at one point, and selected in the official Copa America 2021 team of the tournament, alongside Messi and Naymar no less), and Luis Díaz (still at Porto, but linked with a £60m move to Real Madrid… or Newcastle). We’ll ignore Jefferson Lerma for a moment, although it should be noted that Bournemouth paid £25m for him four years back, so presumably £25m, plus some inflation, is the going rate for young South American international central midfield talent, no? Rodrigo De Paul moved from Udinese to Atletico Madrid for £35m last year, so let’s use that as our guide price.
You might expect to find this player in Valencia’s or Seville’s midfield, or at Sporting or Benfica, a sizable Euro outfit, a name for the hashtag crew to get excited about at transfer window time, linked with a move to one of the Euro behemoth monopoly clubs (or one of the tv money lottery winning or sports washed English outfits also operating at that financial level).
But no. He’s ours. The crisp passing, delicious touch, the technique, the goals (which will surely come in time), it’s all for us, to be treasured and enjoyed and adored… the purist’s purist, a perfectly balanced two-footed playmaker, who may have come from nowhere but is heading for the very top.
What’s more, there’s another one right behind him. The new Alzate: Moisés Caicedo. And after him: Andrew Moran. If you like neat and tidy highly technical central midfield playmakers (and who doesn’t?), you’re following the right team my friend. The flow of talent is extraordinary.
It wouldn’t be a surprise if Alzate does indeed end up at one of those Euro behemoth monopoly clubs one day in the future, as the South American starlet that he is. But in the meantime, let’s make the most of what we have right here, hiding in plain sight, an exciting South American international, who’d cost who knows what in the transfer market, one of the best players on the pitch ready and waiting.
This article was first published in Dogma / Issue 2.
Parker
A MERE PAWN IN THE WARS TO COME
Declan Rice, Jack Grealish, Ben White, Yves Bissouma all touted around like Oliver Twist on X Factor in a shop window in Amsterdam. Roll up, roll up, you've been plucked from obscurity to be judged by the baying mass. 'Do a little dance for us, that's it, show us your highlights reel' 'how much is he worth? 50 million?' 'no chance, 75 million?' 'they wouldn't pay that for him' ‘he’s exactly what we need’. How lucky you are, Football Twitter and some feckless pundit have decided ‘it could be you!’.
Transfer window time approaches and these excretions of hot ripe air intensify. The cycle becomes self-fulfilling: if one 'pundit' deems it so, the rest get a whiff of the brown stink and cock their leg to add to the guff, it reverberates around and eventually finds it's way to the established media who parp out the same line BUT this time it appears with a photoshop of the player in the shirt of the destination club, ooo nice, some air of legitimacy added to this. Those who did the crime get a recycled whiff of their own brand, lovely, ‘told you so’ they say - now it's a universal truth, an inevitably we’re all powerless in the face of.
The cycle is the same for every club and always relative to league standing. Brighton fans, for example, will do it to Brentford players, who's fans have in turn done it to Peterborough players and so on. However, the place where the stink is most pungent, is amongst fans and of unsuccessful but rich premier league team (regular scum like you or me or fans regularly employed by media organisations). Low on trophies, highly bored by their annual Europa League semi-final defeat to Benfica - usually rolling around on Twitter or in BT sport studios - they look to buying players as a kind of micro-competition, a competition they can actually win, achieving a modicum of success and the satisfaction of getting one over on their fellow unsuccessful but rich rivals. Of course, these fans will help you to believe, their clubs can pick who they want, pluck them from obscurity, the player and their current employer helpless to the pull of 12 more points and slightly less chance of losing to City next season.
The player and the selling club are merely a pawn in wars to come: the fight for fourth, the Europa League quarter final second league away defeat at Slavia Prague - the stuff that really matters. The lifecycle of one of these lucky few players laid out before them: over the top hype, crashing realism, inevitable disappointment, and subsequent loan move to Newcastle, all commented on by such esteemed critiques such as @neymarisgod808 – twice banned from Twitter, never actually been to the Emirates. Write a cheque, name your price, it’s a fait accompli.
The reality is that all this theoretical horse trading, is completely meaningless, of course. Highly organised, meticulously managed multibillion dollar companies would not operate like this. 'Well some clubs are being rumoured to be looking at him Geoff’ of course they are! Do you really think that modern scouting networks do not cover all players all the time, especially ones in the same farting league? This seems obvious to suggest, but Football Twitter and pundits need to hear it, louder, from the back and cease their patronising and arrogant guff.
The ‘player’ or the organisation behind them makes up the name - agent, media agencies that look after them are complicity in pimping their asset and wafting the flame. It never hurts, making the right noises indicating an approach might be welcome, or at the very least helps with negotiations with excising clubs on new contracts. See Wilfred Zaha’s career.
Declan Rice, Jack Grealish, Ben White, Yves Bissouma or anyone else might well be sold, but it won’t be because of the swirl of stink surrounding their highlights reels on twitter or a comment made in the 70th minute of a Monday night 0-0 when Alan Smith has run out of cliches. It’ll be down to money, intent (to buy and sell) the wishes of the player, months or years of profiling and scouting and not whether @neymarisgod808 (sorry to have a go at you again mate) thinks Emi Beundia is good enough to play for Tottenham or not.
As the Premier League has become richer, clubs who finish 17th can afford wages once previously only affordable by a certain few, the prospect of the move become less attractive, see players such as Lewis Dunk who have chosen to become highly paid, club legends, doggedly fitting for the club that made them, relegation would be the only threat to that. The reality is, which hurts fans of the unsuccessful but rich clubs, is that Aston Villa to Tottenham for example, isn’t the step up it once was.
The arrogance from fans and pundits that believes that ‘lesser’ players and clubs are the playthings of the super-rich is a mildly annoyingly symptom or the increasingly inverted football pyramid - top heavy and creaking under the weight of its own hubris.
James William / @James__William_
GOODBYE ALIREZA
Three hit and miss seasons of football. And now he’s heading back to Holland, most likely on the same private plane that took him here in the first place. There’s been some good moments, no question. But some low moments too.
I’ll remember him fondly but I’m sure some Albionistas will be pleased he’s gone, and some delighted. By all accounts the quality of play in the Eredivisie ranges from Scottish League 2 standard all the way up to Champions League level. So I guess whatever your view on Alireza’s abilities, he’ll most likely find his groove playing for Feyenoord next season. Am I swimming against the tide by placing him at the upper end of that scale? Yep, but then again whilst I wouldn’t drive him to Stenhousemuir (mainly because I have no idea where it is) I’m sure lots of Albion fans would be happy to oblige… which seems a little unfair, all things considered.
When he first appeared on the pitch in an Albion shirt (back in August 2018) I think I was in love a little bit. He was so elegant, gliding across the surface, this beautiful man who had arrived to do beautiful things in a Brighton shirt (although looking back this might be more of a comment on some of his teammates from that era, yes I’m looking at you Dale Stephens). Immaculate grooming regime. Fabulous name. Exciting goal-scoring record. This was going to be fun.
As the club attempted to transition, so the plan seemed to go, from a top-end Championship outfit who’d squeezed every drop of effort and ability to survive their debut Premier League season, to something resembling mid-table Premier League (erm, still waiting on that one). Something pacier, with greater attacking intent, something better. Alireza was all set to be the guy. The conduit. The man who enabled the team to start playing much higher up the pitch, with some pace, to complement Izquierdo on the other wing. Seventeen million big ones. Hell yeah.
Alireza ended that first season with zero goals. And zero assists. But you know, I’m not sure those metrics, or lack of them, really tell the full story. He was mainly a substitute for the (relatively successful) first third of the season, was then injured for two months, and by the time he was a regular starter the death spiral had already started swirling.
Even so, sitting on that private plane back to Holland he might ponder some Sliding Doors moments from season 2018/19. The 30-yard screamer that almost snapped the crossbar against Huddersfield. Kyle Walker’s bottled red card in the cup semi-final. Some decent cameos off the bench. Being asked to operate as a kind of full-back sweeper, covering for the actual full-back by playing a bit behind him, or when chasing the game, alongside him. For goodness sake man he cost seventeen million pounds, play him in his proper position. Sadly for Alireza, none of his positions were operational during Chris Hughton’s Premier League tenure.
But then GPott walked through the door and now, now things would be different. Pills thrills & PotterBall. The round peg in Hughton’s square holes only formation (fucks knows why he bought him) would now be the smoothest of circular fittings in GPott’s round holes approach. Three up top. One left, one right, and one through the middle. Or one up top but three running in behind including somebody wide right. Here we go. Here we fucking go.
As an aside, it was perhaps Alireza’s lack of versatility that worked against him, now we know Potter likes players who offer a number of pegs, just as long as they’re nice round ones.
And two years on from that moment GPott walked through the doors, Alireza’s time with us has come to an end. Is it fair to write off his Albion career as a failure? £17m is a fuck tonne of money.
But in the overall scheme of things - and bearing in mind that Premier League football involves throwing insane amounts of money at players and agents in the hope of achieving some minor incremental gains - I think Alireza can point to evidence of contribution. Something positive, in return for the money invested in him.
Season 2019/20, his first under Potter, we have the goal and all-round excellence against Bournemouth (a really crucial victory at the time), and of course the overhead kick moment. I mean, come on, that alone was worth a chunk of his transfer fee. He was involved in ten league games that season, but started just three (a win, a draw, and a defeat). Two goals in three starts is a pretty decent return, no?
Season 2020/21, well, that wasn’t so positive (although in time I think it’ll be a season we collectively remove from our memories). But there’s some bad luck in the mix here too. The Sheffield United home game (with some fans back), it was Alireza’s excellent cross that Connolly somehow managed to miss whilst standing within the frame of the goal, and Alireza’s header that smashed against the crossbar in the dying seconds. The unspeakably painful home defeat to Man United - it was Alireza’s peach of a cross that Solly headed home in the last minute for what should have been the equalizer. Those outrageous goals in the league cup which hinted at something properly good. The ever-immaculate male grooming regime. I’m fairly sure I’ve seen signed and framed Jahanbakhsh posters in at least four barber shops across the city. Brighton’s barbershop community’s loss is Rotterdam’s gain.
In a world where you need to claim just a handful of wins plus a helpful clutch of draws to achieve your primary target, Alireza can most definitely hold his lovely head up high. You don’t really get that much for £17m, but then again, you really don’t need to pick up many points to avoid relegation.
Even right up until near the end of last season I still believed he’d come good. Despite the evidence - or because of it in my case - I thought I could see a decent player in there. One who just needed a proper run of games, in his proper position, in a team playing well and playing with confidence, to flourish.
Alireza started all four of the final games of last season in that favoured position, high up on the right wing. And quite frankly, he was bobbins in all of four of them. His last performance at the Amex was the Man City game and his only contribution of note was a bottled red card (I guess sometimes what goes around comes around). He’d had that run in the side, playing in his favoured position.
Sadly, he’s not good enough for us. And certainly not for that better version of us, that mid-table Premier League outfit, that we’re still striving to become.
But I’ll miss him. I loved him. I still do a little. And you know what, despite all evidence to the contrary, when he’s banging them in for Feyenoord next season (probably against Fortuna Sittart, PEC Zwolle, or somebody else with a Scottish League 2 level defence), a part of me will still be thinking… if only he’d been given a longer run of games, in his proper position, in a team playing well and playing with confidence, well then we’d have really seen him flourish in an Albion shirt.
Dogma, a BHAFC fanzine.