Boehlocks to Chelsea

And so to Saturday and the biggest ‘revenge’ game that I can recall us having in a long time. My desire for revenge isn’t against Potter, or Cucu, or the coaching team, or anyone else who might be about to depart. It’s against Todd-fucking-Boehly.

Here is a man so deluged in riches, so absent of any understanding of tribal football communities, so shallow and profit-driven, that he is determined to create success by any means necessary. Yes, football has become a market place; yes, our Chairman allowed the Boehl-monster to talk to, multiply wages, and recruit the best coaching team we’ve ever had (at least for now); and yes - fuck him.

How must it feel to be a Chelsea fan at the moment? Well, apart from the shame of having to wear a flat cap and act aggressively for no reason. I imagine they feel pretty good - continuing to have entitlement, self-aggrandisement, and bile flowing from every single one of their pores.

How does it feel to be an Albion fan right now? It feels pretty good.

We have a new coach who displays the passion, hope, solidity and fervour that we all cherish. He’s tinkering with things to migrate from Potterball to De Zerbismo, and it’s working. I overheard so many ‘Brighton are a bloody good team’ type comments after the loss to citeh - you could have been forgiven for thinking we’d won.

Truth be told, we had. We’d out possessed, often outplayed, and out-thought one of the world’s best teams and, bar some decisions that left many scratching their heads, we put on a hell of a performance. A real team, working for each other and fighting for each other.

Do I feel confident about Saturday? Too soon to say. Am I happy about Saturday? Hell yeah.

Am I looking forward to singing about Roberto De Zerbi for as much of the game as we can? Fuck yeah.

This isn’t a time for booing and feelings of regret - this is about celebrating what we have, what we can look forward to, and what we can continue to build on, in all areas of achievement.

Oh, and fuck Potter anyway.

JBD (he/him/wanker)

Asset strips

Who could say no to a four or five-fold pay increase? Two million pounds a year would seem to be enough for anyone, but put yourself in their shoes!

You can see why they did it of course, on an individual level. As we’ve been told, it’s all so achingly rational.

What this type of thinking (in)tends to elide is any wider question about what has actually happened here - the structure of the league, the financial inequality that puts so much power in the hands of those at the top, the laughable lack of competition that’s all taken for granted - as natural and irresistible as gravity.

If the strip mining of a club’s entire footballing structure as a result of three consecutive months of good results, an almost parodic display of everything wrong with the game, is just a fact of life, an object lesson in Premier League realism, then what hope is there?

The hope, I suppose, that Bloom’s algorithm can work its magic, we can put things together again and still, somehow, beat the odds, outsmart everybody, and continue to climb the pyramid. You wouldn’t rule it out.

And of course, there is always a possibility, even with all the weight of money reflected on the pitch, that eleven players can beat eleven others in a game of football.

That fleetingly, for one afternoon, for the fate of three points, there could be a sense of justice in the world. Or at least a chance to fuck the bastards off.

Up the Albion.

Rich / @common_ruin

How did it get to this?

It’s perhaps a bit rich for me to ask some fans to lower the temperature. Yes. I know he left us after 6 games. Yes. I know he took Bruno. AND Ben Roberts. AND Bjorn, Benny and the other ones.

Yes. I know he’s had a pay rise to pay for the beard trim. And yes, I know he’s probably mentioned that Paul Winstanley has a rather useful case file on South American wunderkind at some point over the last six weeks to big Todd. How DARE HE! What a f***ing rotter.

But then, I thoroughly enjoyed partaking in the abuse of panto villain Alex Pritchard for taking the wrong turn on the M25 (and little good it did him). It took a while for #ffsMurray to earn his chops with me, and some other bitter old men for Albion Part Two because he didn’t clap the fans... ONCE.

So, accuse me of hypocrisy all you like. I deserve it.

However, Potter won’t be hearing any displeasure from me, and I won't be buying an inflatable snake.

I’ll sit on my hands and keep schtum in the East Stand Upper - like most matches up there with the other fairweather fans.

I've some sympathy with the anger at how it all played out, the speed of the departure did leave a bitter taste and the five-game winless run hasn't helped, but some of the accusations about Chelsea and Hove Albion are well, a touch ridiculous.

Since when did it come to this? The grievances, the gnashing and wailing, the grumbles that it’s just not fair for #teamslikebrighton to attract a bit of interest and millions of pounds of compensation for some of our staff, squad or set up.

The whining, the lack of class… can’t we have a little bit more respect for ourselves?

Half a lifetime ago, in January 1973 I stood on a milk crate on the Goldstone West Stand terraces as Chelsea came to town. My first ever match. We have history.

That Division 3 version of the Albion were poor and had no answer to Peter Osgood in the third round of the FA Cup, losing 2-0. Instead, the only resistance that day was what commentator Jimmy Hill called ‘ridiculous’, as at one point late in the game, Brighton players were ‘going through the motions of fighting, nobody is really throwing a punch and it just looks so bad’.

Yet fifty years on some of us are still insistent on going through the motions, off the pitch at least. And putting up some token resistance.

Forgetting that last Saturday we went toe-to-toe with the world's most monied club (and VAR). Forgetting that our team has outplayed all of the top six in the last twelve months and tore Liverpool apart just three weeks ago.

Forgetting that RDZ will have a plan to out-think Potter, thanks very much. On the pitch is where we’ll get payback. This weekend’s game is as good a game as ever to reset the reign of Roberto, but not with petty theatrics we’ve long since outgrown.

So, looking ahead to the game tomorrow, can everyone just tone it down a bit please?

Mind you... that bloody Marc Cucurella, the turncoat, the double dealer, the Judas, the betrayer of wigs, the Estrella drinker. Watch out ESU friends, I’m clearing my throat…

Jem Stone / @JemStone

Welcome to the era of De Zerbismo

Chelsea at home. Who knew at the start of the season that this would be one of the most eagerly awaited fixtures. And not because of the football!

We’re five games into Albion’s De Zerbismo era and despite the points haul there’s a lot to be positive about. We had the blue side of Manchester under the cosh for much of the match last week, with them needing a world-class goal from De Bruyne to kill off the game.

For me, this was the game that De Zerbi started showing his tactical prowess as he made several tweaks that swung the game in our favour.

This is why I am optimistic going into this weekend’s game, even if their manager knows all of our squad intimately.

I’m intrigued as to how Chelsea will play us. I’m intrigued to see the systems both teams line up with. I’m intrigued what the atmosphere will be like. Basically, I’m just intrigued by the game.

What do I want to see though? A clinical edge and a Welbeck hat-trick. Perhaps more realistically, we need to go at them from the first whistle, just like we did to Liverpool at Anfield.

The players need to go out and make a statement (and not just in the hope of getting a call from SW6 in January).

If we can be aggressive, win the second ball and be quicker in attack, I don’t see any reason why we cannot take all three points. There will be space behind their defence and we have players that can score when they don’t have ten players lined up between them and the goal.

There’s a massive elephant in the room, and one that I’m trying to avoid mentioning. We can’t let all the pre-match talk, or the inevitable media shitstorm over the mixed reaction to ‘the return’ impact us. We need to get behind the boys in blue and white, make as much noise about our players and De Zerbi as we possibly can.

We need to make Falmer hostile. And show them that they can’t systematically dismantle our club just because they have loads of money. We’re more than that. We are Brighton & Hove Albion.

(Phew, I got through that without mentioning the names of any Chelsea employees).

Tom Hylands / @tomhylands

Can you really blame them?

Now I know this is going to be unpopular, but I don’t resent Potter going to Chelsea. I don’t resent Ben Roberts going. Even, dare I say it, ‘once a Seagull’ Bruno.

Supporting our club means more than a job to us, it’s a passion, it’s filled with unexplainable emotions.

Someone I know was the victim of a terrible crime and I got to talking to the detective responsible for the case. He was excellent at his job and made sure the person responsible was prosecuted. I had the utmost respect for him. And then I found out he was a P****e fan.

We discussed our respective support of our clubs and we instantly took a bit of dislike to each other. My opinion of him changed irrationally. I was just disappointed in him. How could someone I knew was a good person support them?

But football is a job. A career that can be brutal and short lived. Littered with stories of bankruptcies and poor support for players particularly when they leave the game.

I don’t blame any of them for going, after all, if it were your job and you were offered a chance to maybe double your wages, to do the same thing, what would you do?

It’s just it’s not a job to us, it’s the total opposite. It’s something we pay money for, week in and week out, something we invest everything in. We care more about The Albion than all those who have headed to West London. Do you think they care as much about us now? Of course not. They have a new group of fans to care about. That’s their job.

That said, beating Chelsea, who have taken so much of our talent, (and are eyeing up even more) would be fucking brilliant. I mean really fucking brilliant.

Potter’s first defeat in his new job by our hands is more than possible. It would be just like us in fact. We’ve never beaten Chelsea in the league, and it’s not far off 100 years since we beat them in the FA Cup.

Don’t forget Graham didn’t exactly win many at The Amex. Just five home wins last season. Almost six months with just a single home win.

As always, it’s the hope that kills you.

Mess / @messageismyname

Dear Graham

We are the club of incremental progress, Tony’s Maschinen-Fußballverein, but right now, in this moment in time, it feels like we’ve been pushed off a cliff.