Looking ahead to this evening’s home fixture with Dogma contributors Ed Woodhouse and Tom Hylands.

With a dream in my heart, with a love of my own.

Show me someone who considers it a bit of a shame that there’s almost nothing riding on this game and I’ll show you a liar.

With both clubs having come off the back of jubilant weekends, there is an admittedly minimal but amusing possibility that it could descend into Lancing Power League the day after a stag do; Grealish going off to vomit in the first ten, Levi Colwill surveying the damage of his WhatsApp interactions whilst sort of marking a ghostly, anaemic Julian Alvarez.

What’s more likely is that City will rest and then maybe bring on key players in preparation for their upcoming finals. Due to the good/crap binary code that is our recent form, it’s quite hard to tell how RDZ will play this one. If he obeys the code then our utterly knackered first choice stars will labour to a heavy defeat.

The return fixture last October provided probably our first real glimpse of what life under Roberto would be like. Trampled by a Norse catwalk in the first half, Albion came to life in the second and were genuinely a bit unlucky not to secure something.

It was comforting to know we had already reached the performance level of the previous administration, even in the midst of such upheaval. The amazing progress made since then is descriptive of a brave new era where the club’s DNA is predicated not just on tangibles and differentials, but, additionally, a hotheaded commitment to actually winning.

The ‘nice club’ tag historically plastered on BHAFC is starting to peel now. Behind the scenes there’s still a lot to like and it is nice that our owner’s interests don’t include ‘bad human rights records’.

However, winning is about being resilient and being resilient is not always a nice or pleasant way to have to be. Recently, the lego-haired Mikel Arteta certainly wasn’t that impressed after we scored three and won at their place for the second time this season. Internally, positive results aren’t met with a proud smile, but instead an insistence that things still can and will get better.

If we were to get hammered on Wednesday then Roberto would be as pissed off as if we hadn’t made Europe. His unashamedly emotional approach is jarringly at odds with other recent custodians of this club, and despite him having previously accepted that this can lead to trouble and touchline bans, he knows how big the pay-off is.

Being this way often offends the delicate sensibilities of the hard lads that make up the established footballing order. You wouldn’t get these histrionics with Scott Parker, and also his English is better (only slightly, mind you). It’s all seen as a bit unnecessary and undignified and, ultimately, portentous of eventual failure.

Even if it does fail, we have all won so many times already. Giving yourself over to something in this way and behaving emotionally is the very reason people get into football in the first place. It makes you feel things - and if your manager feels them as if he is one of you then what a thing that is.

The world is a place where things like ‘poise’, ‘balance’ and ‘calmness’ are valued way above human reactionism. And in certain circumstances that’s fine, but when you have a collective emotional commitment to a successful and common cause, it tends to bring the best out of everyone.

We can enjoy having this test with our numerical targets essentially achieved. But even if we beat one of the greatest teams of the modern era, it’ll be just another step on the journey.

Ed Woodhouse / @edwardwoodhouse

Bring on the champions

Tonight, we get to celebrate the achievements of a team full of superstars, one that’s rewriting history, one that pundits are running out of superlatives to describe them as. Tonight, we celebrate Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club getting to Europe.

As one of the most influential managers in the last 20 years said “achieving Europe with Brighton is a bigger achievement than winning the league with a ‘big club’.”

Roberto De Zerbi is right, obviously. You just need to look at tonight’s opponents, the team that makes winning the league look like they’re popping to the shops for a packet of Rich Tea.

On Sunday, both clubs achieved something. Man City met their expectations for the season by winning the league. We had our minds blown and judging by the scenes in videos from the Gin Tub, had one hell of a party. You’d expect the winner tonight to be the team that’s the least hungover.

The truth is though that winning everything (**ahem** except the Champions League **ahem**) has become the norm for both Man City as a club, and for their fans. I remember a similar set up during the Covid years where before the match Pep sung the praises of what we were doing on the South Coast, with an unnamed former employee at the helm.

City had just won the league and visited Falmer to face an Albion side that had nothing to play for. The result? A special 3-2 victory for the good guys. Pep seemingly lost his sense of goodwill after the game as he appears to only dish out praise when he expects three points.

Hopefully, we can anticipate more of the same tonight, but with one crucial difference. We have achieved something incredible this season and we want to celebrate that. Having won the league five times in the last six seasons, the feeling City fans have is nothing new. For us though, everything is new.

From 92nd in the Football League to 6th in the Premier League. From £1,000 and a set of kits for a striker (legend) to over £30 million for a striker (definitely will be a legend). From Withdean to the Westfalenstadion, via Windsor Park.

We’re seemingly living in a dream, a state of life where you have to pinch yourself to remember we’re actually living it. The raw emotion and buzz of the last few days has made us rush to discover the teams we could potentially face in Europe, dreaming of seeing our boys in blue and white running out in either Dublin, or Athens, next May.

We’ve certainly been through the mill over the last 30 years, and frankly we deserve to enjoy this moment. So, tonight we can sing loud and be proud about the magic that’s happened on the pitch and give everyone a last home game of the season to remember.

We aren’t like Man City, nor do we ever want to be. Anyone can buy success, we’ve done it the hard way.

From near oblivion to big European nights, we’re the real champions here.

Tom Hylands / @tomhylands

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