Future Real Madrid manager Big Sam

The Albion welcome Championship royalty on Monday as West Ham United, currently on loan from the Premier League, visit the Amex.

It is arguably as easy to dislike West Ham this year as it has been in the past to dislike Leeds United with their arrogance and “too good for this league” attitude.

Firstly they have big Sam Allardyce in the dugout one of the most unlikable managers around. His hoof ball style will have won him few fans outside of Bolton and Blackburn and he even had the arrogance to suggest his management style is more suited to a big club.

“I would be more suited to Inter Milan or Real Madrid,” the former Bolton and Newcastle manager said back in 2010, while still in charge at Blackburn. “It wouldn’t be a problem for me to manage those clubs because I would win the double or the league every time.

“Give me Manchester United or Chelsea and I would do the same, it wouldn’t be a problem. It’s not a problem to take me into the higher reaches of the Champions League or Premier League and would make my job a lot easier in winning it.”

Well let’s see how England’s finest manager does this year with a squad full of Premiership players and a massive wage budget in the relative ease of the  Championship. The potential signing of El-Hadji Diouf is also going down like a lead balloon with the Hammers fans and would add massively to the unlikeable tag.

Another reason to dislike the Londoners comes in the board room with the loveable pair David Sullivan and David Gold run the club. With ticket prices ranging from £32-£47 (yes that’s right £47 to watch Championship football) with away fans expected to pay just £32. Well Kevin Noland’s reported £55,000 a week salary isn’t going to pay itself is it?

The whole Olympic Stadium saga is another source of annoyance for the general footballing public and seemingly a large majority of West Ham supporters. Brighton fans know only too well that playing football in an athletic stadium is a depressing experience. 

Olympic Stadium

It’s not as if Upton Park is a problem anyway surely? Room for expansion on one side and one of the few all- seater stadiums with a decent atmosphere. Why move?

Ok they want to generate more money but there are no guarantees the West Ham fans will come in their droves if the stadium is soulless and the football isn’t great (see above under Sam Allardyce…)

Leyton Orient are rightly outraged by the proposed move which would see West Ham rocking up less than a mile from Brisbane Road home. It would surely putting their very existence in doubt with floating fans wooed away by the bright lights of West Ham who will expect to be a Premier League side once more when they move in.

I fully expect a tough game on Monday but would love it…. JUST LOVE IT if Gus’s beautiful game overcomes big Sam’s long ball game of chance.

Admittedly some of our games have been moved due to issues  beyond the club’s control such as University open days (Hull) and Lewes bonfire night (Barnsley) but with West Ham at home being moved to a Monday night Albion fans wont taste a traditional Saturday 3pm kick off until Coventry on the 26^th of November

This is a problem many Premier League fans have had to deal with for years since Rupert Murdoch’s Sky TV brought a flood of money into the game.  Until this season Albion fans haven’t really had to worry about being involved in such shenanigans but if the success is to continue on the pitch we could soon find ourselves the main feature on FORD SUPER SUNDAY as BRIGHTON take on…. Bolton.

Thankfully games are moved a little less frequently in the Championship and generally only effect sides at the right end of the table. Playing against the Championships bigger clubs like Leeds and West Ham
obviously adding to the appeal for Sky but right now we are a club in demand.

The very thought of having a game live on Sky a few years ago was a novelty and something we looked forward to but now after 2 games in 3 days it’s become more of a nuisance. Is the money really worth the risk of missing out on vital league points because of TV scheduling? Hopefully thanks to Gus’s shrewd management this won’t be a problem.

On the way home from work earlier this week Talksport were debating in their own special way if reaching the Premier League was all it’s made out to be. On one side every fan wants their club to be successful and reaching the top division is as good as it gets. But with that success would come high ticket prices, over-paid disconnected players and games regularly moved to be screened on TV.

Personally having never experience such footballing heights  I would love it. Just to be in the position where I’m even considering it to be a potential problem is almost enough. 15 years ago I was standing on the old crumbling terraces watching Albion in the basement division and the bright lights of the Premier League seemed a long way off. Today they don’t seem so far away.

I mentioned in my last blog that these are heady days for Albion supporters but the arrival of Vicente really does reinforce this.  

I will have to hold my hand up and admit that until last week Vicente wasn’t really on my radar. I may have unwittingly seen him play at some point but in all honesty I couldn’t name many Spanish footballers beyond the obvious stars. So when the transfer story first broke I did what most football fans do in this situation and typed his name into Wikipedia.

On the face of it I was expecting someone similar to Fransico Sandaza to pop up. A non-descript Spanish reserve team player with potential. Instead up popped a former Spanish international who had won the Spanish league and cup titles along with European success in UEFA cup and Super Cup along with regular Champions league experience. Real Madrid, no less, bid 36 million euros for the winger back in 2004!

The 30 year old may not be joining the Seagulls in his prime but none the less the Albion have pulled off a major transfer coup and once again in the face of stiff opposition from the likes of Leicester, Torino and Celtic. A player with such experience and talent could have joined almost any club at our level and many of a higher standing but once again Gus Poyet has worked his magic.

Had a player of Vicente’s quality not joined us during the transfer window I don’t think anyone would have been worried. In fact an attacking midfielder wasn’t really a position we were desperately looking to fill but when a good player becomes available it would be foolish to turn the opportunity down. The squad today is as strong as it’s ever been in my Albion supporting lifetime and you get the feeling this is just the start.

Most Albion fans would have started the season dreaming that promotion was an outside possibility. It may still be just that but on the evidence of what we have seen so far that dream might not be as far-fetched as it first seemed.

In the 3 previous games the Albion achieved maximum points without really playing to their full potential against arguably three poor sides. Cardiff on the other hand have been tipped by many to be amongst the Championship front runners and had started this season impressively including a 1-0 win away to West Ham.

So the Seagulls rode into the Welsh capital hopeful but perhaps not expecting to come away with all 3 points. But not only did we come away with the 3 points but we put in the sort of performance which had the 800 or so travelling Albion fans thinking hard about when they have witnessed better from the Seagulls in recent years. After last season that is saying something.

Ok so maybe Cardiff aren’t all that? Or maybe we caught them on a bad night? You could of course argue that point about almost ever side we have ever beaten. From where I sat Cardiff were just outclassed by the brand of football we have become accustomed to over the last season and a half thanks to Gus Poyet.

Ashley Barnes fired in a brilliant 25 yard low drive to give Albion the first half lead and the former Plymouth striker added to his tally with a penalty after Mackail-Smith ran onto another ball most strikers wouldn’t have even bothered to chase down. And finally new boy Will Hoskins marked his Albion debut from the bench with a well taken third goal for the Seagulls. The ref took pity on the home side with a late penalty which was converted by Peter Whittingham.

Brighton fans at Cardiff. We’re flipping brilliant

A massive factor in the win was the performance of Albion’s record signing Craig Mackail-Smith. He may not have added to his goal tally but his performance was nothing short of sensational. If Glenn Murray (dirty Palace bastard) was dubbed the lower league Berbatov by some fans then Mackail-Smith must be the Championships equivalent of Carlos Tevez. Brighton have never spent a better £2.5 million pounds on a player…. Oh wait we’ve never spent £2.5 million on anyone before. These truly are heady days.

This was my first visit to Cardiff since the 1-1 draw at Ninian Park when Bobby Zamora scored to equalise and my word how things have changed! For away fans a trip to Ninian Park was reason enough to check your life insurance and last will and testament were in order but I’m pleased to say things have changed since they have moved into the new stadium. I’m sure some of the knuckle dragging supporters still attend City games but thankfully I didn’t come across any this time around!

As any Albion fan who visited the Welsh capital for the play off final in 2004 will know the City is a great place to visit with some great pubs on offer. The pre match beers at Zerodegrees microbrewery were not only delicious but incredibly cheap thanks to happy hour. I would highly recommend this to any away fans planning on visiting Cardiff in the coming weeks.

One place worth avoiding on the other hand is “The Chippy” a fast food outlet near the Walkabout. Fine if you’re after chips but if you want some fine Turkish cuisine then avoid at all costs. Salad with a Kebab?? Garlic Mayonnaise??? The man behind the counter looked at us as if we were asking for caviar or quails’ eggs. But not even a rubbish Kebab could take the gloss off what will go down in my books as one of the finest Albion away trips ever.

Don’t get me wrong I’m as happy as the next Albion fan but you have to realise there are many stronger teams in the Championship than Portsmouth and Doncaster.

Yesterday’s fine 1-0 win against South Coast rivals Portsmouth is a good sign though that Albion are still able to battle away from home and get results when the opposition aren’t willing to match them in footballing terms.

Pompey were intent on disrupting Albion’s usual style of play and appeared to target the inform Will Buckley before his inevitable departure due to injury. But the Seagulls dug in and continued from last year when away from home they picked up results without necessarily playing at their best.

For those who take notice at this early stage, and who could blame the Albion fans of doing just that right now, the Albion are 2^nd in the table and in the unusual position of actually being behind Southampton.

The Carling Cup draw has been kind to the Seagulls with Premiership Sunderland set to visit the Amex a week on Tuesday.

For just £24-£32 Albion fans can enjoy watching some of the Premiership finest reserve team players in the 2^nd round of a much maligned cup completion. It seems like a very poor decision by the club following a decent attendance for the Gillingham game with ticket prices at a much more reasonable level. Ok the opposition is better this time around but for the average Albion season ticket holder this will be the most they have ever spent on an Albion home ticket. Hopefully the attendance won’t be affected too badly but it will be interesting to see.

The Seagulls face one of their toughest test yet this coming Wednesday when they travel to one of the pre season favourites Cardiff City. If we make it 4 wins from 4 then people really will start to get carried away.

Pre match the atmosphere around town was buzzing. Not since the late 80’s/early 90’s have over 20,000 people watched an Albion home game.

Having heard about the free flags I was worried that it would create a bit of a plastic atmosphere but I was certainly proved wrong. The Amex was a sea of colour and noise as kick off approached with the big screens playing a montage of historic Albion moments mixed in with an aerial shot approaching the stadium.

By a stroke of luck as the montage finished Doncaster hadn’t arrived in the tunnel which allowed the PA to fall silent and let the fans fill the gap with the sort of noise a generation of Albion fans will never have witnessed at a home game.

As Sussex by the sea rang out over the PA and Gordon Greer lead out the team for the first time there wasn’t a dry eye in the house as 14 years of waiting finally came to an end.

In the build up to the game Gus Poyet had made it clear it was no longer about the new stadium and the most important thing for the players was starting off our first Championship season since 2006 with 3 points.

And for long periods it didn’t seem like that would happen after Doncaster took a first half lead when Billy Sharp finished off a counter attacking move after Gary Dicker dallied on the ball in midfield.

The Seagulls came back in the second half and were rewarded for their pressure when Will Buckley wrote his name into the Albion history books by grabbing the first Albion goal at the Amex followed by the dramatic late winner 8 minutes into injury time.

You have to feel a bit for our visitors who not only lost in the last minute but also left Sussex with both key strikers Billy Sharp and James Hayter injured.

For any Albion fan who thought the Championship would be an easy ride yesterdays game should provide a good reality check even though we won. Doncaster are a decent side but not one you would expect to be challenging at the right end of the Championship but they provide a stern test for the Seagulls and could easily have spoilt our big day if injures had not taken their toll.

Leaving the ground open for fans to mingle in the concourse bars post match is proving to be a master stoke by the club with the beer flowing long after the final whistle had gone. Fans of both clubs were mingling happily in the North Stand while our friends Southampton dispatched an average looking Leeds side on the TV’s.

Up next at the Amex our old landlords Gillingham pay us a visit in the first round of the Carling Cup this coming Tuesday. Gus is promising to take the competition more seriously this year and with the first evening game at the Amex a decent crowd by Carling Cup standards should be on hand. Having tasted the first competitive action at the Amex even a lowly cup game in a competition viewed by most as pointless can’t come quickly enough!

Walking off Falmer station amongst a swarming crowd of Brighton fans it felt as if we had reached the play off finals again rather than a pre season friendly. On the average journey to Withdean over the years you would almost be surprised to find out a football match is actually happening in the area.

Albion fans no longer have to feel embarrassed by association with the club and our old ram shackled home. To those not in the know Brighton must have seemed like a joke club playing in front of 6,000 fans in a ground more suited to hammer throwing than Championship football.

That potential that us die hard Brighton fans have been harping on about for years is finally there for all to see. 18,000 season ticket sales will guarantee the Amex is rammed for the coming season and under the guidance of Gus Poyet things are looking very good on the pitch.

“Little Brightonand Hove Albion” are finally back to where they belong.

Having attended the Sussex senior cup final a few weeks previous the contrast between the 2 occasions was massive. A near full stadium created the sort of atmosphere which had the hairs on the back of your neck standing up. I can only imagine what it will be like when the result on the pitch actually matters when things get underway next Saturday against Doncaster Rovers.

Pre season friendlies are often boring affairs and I presume most Spurs fans would have felt that way about this game. The Albion put in an impressive performance in the first half and apart from a shocking last few minutes they had passed a Premiership side off the park. Ok maybe Spurs didn’t even get out of second gear but it’s hard to not get a little bit carried away about our prospects in the Championship next year.

Our flowing passing football will light up the vast Amex pitch in the weeks ahead and with the summer arrivals of Kazenga Lua Lua and Craig Mackail-Smith it has just underlined the club’s ambitions to not just make up the numbers next season.

Defensive cock ups have been a bit of a theme in pre season and all 3 Spurs goals had a comedy element to them. No more so than the 3rd which was handed on a plate to Jake Livermore by Albion’s 2nd choice keeper Peter Brezovan. Let’s hope we have got them out of the way now before the real stuff begins.

The excitement in the build up to Saturday’s game was more than justified by the day itself. I’m counting down the days until Saturday’s league opener when for the first time a capacity 22,500 crowd will descend on our brilliant new home. This week can’t go fast enough as far as I’m concerned!

Although some good questions were asked you could help but cringe at other questions which left an overriding negative feeling to the event overall.

The more cringeworthy moments must have made Martin Perry and his colleague wonder why they had bothered to build us a new home!

The most cringe worthy question of all must have been the gentlemen who asked Gus, without a hint of sarcasm in his voice, when we can expect the big name striker he promised to arrive?

 Perhaps the gentleman in question was on holiday when Craig Mackail-Smith was signed for a club record fee? Thankfully Gus was on top form and had the crowd eating out of his hands as usual and responded that the club was still in the market for players in all positions and asked for patience.

When anyone at these forums begins their questions with “My names X, I’m from X and I’ve been a supporter of the clubs for 6 billion years” you know instantly that an idiotic question is on the way and yesterday was no exception.

This time the question was aimed at much loved chief executive Ken Brown about the club’s new loyalty system. The gentlemen was unhappy that supporters who have travelled far and wide to watch the Albion away over the past couple of years are going to be behind season ticket holders in the queue for tickets now. The way he casually dropped in Hartlepool away on a Tuesday to confirm his status as a super fan to back up his point was a masterstroke.

There was always going to be some fans upset by the new loyalty system but I have to agree with Ken that the lifeblood of the club is always the season ticket holders. The club didn’t have the technology or the man power over the past few years to track people’s purchases. Surely it would be unfair to reward those who have purchased away tickets in the past without making everyone aware loyalty points were being awarded?

Personally I don’t envisage our away support growing dramatically just because we have 18,000 season ticket holders so panic over away tickets in most cases won’t be justified. Those without loyalty points are most likely just going to have to wait a bit longer before they get their chance to purchase tickets and if they act quickly they won’t miss out. We should get a good idea if this is true with the imminent sale of the Portsmouth tickets.

One way I would personally like to see the loyalty system improved would be to award different points for different away games. I.e. the less attractive away games, such as long distance midweek games, or unattractive home cup draws being awarded more points than the more attractive games.

Three separate questions were asked about disabled access to the stadium which you could tell was an emotive issue on both sides. The number of disabled parking spaces and the fact the club are charging for these seemed to be the main issues.

Clearly some work is still to be done here whether it be improving the communication with disabled groups or changing the clubs policy. An unfortunate turn of phrase from Martin Perry in describing some fans as “ordinary” was pounced upon by one female fan but I gather that Martin stayed behind to discuss some of the issues raised and hopefully they are now being looked into.

The more positive information to come out of the evening included the clubs plans to increase the capacity of the stadium by 8,000 seats as soon as possible along with building the new training ground in time of the 2013-14 season.

Perhaps for future events a screening process for questions needs to be implemented. That’s not to say people with issues should be silenced but perhaps a public forum isn’t the best place for personal gripes with the club to be aired.

According to last Thursday’s Argus Gus Poyet is keen to bring the lanky defender in providing he can get an Italian passport so a work permit will not be required.

So what do we know about Raffa?

Not a great amount. A Google search doesn’t bring up much info on him other than a show real video on youtube presumably put together by his agent.

Raffa on youtube

Impressive stuff reminiscent of Rio Ferdinand I think you’ll agree.

If you cast your minds back you may recall another South American flair signing in 2005 when Argentinean Federico Turienzo arrived for just £150,000 after 1 game on trial against Lewes and a video put together by his agent. Let’s hope things pan out differently this time….

 So onto Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Wessex League Premier Division outfit Winchester. Guy Butters non league side play at the equitant level of the Sussex Country League Division 1 and provided a young Albion side a decent run out.

Albion development squad were without Steve Cook, Grant Hall, Toby Agdestein and Yaser Kasim who were all in Portugal with the first team squad and as a result lacked a bit of cutting edge, but it was good to see Gus’s passing philosophy was still on show.

If coming from Brazil isn’t enough to convince Gus to sign him up then on the evidence of this performance Raffa would be a good signing. Good on the ball, aggressive in the tackle and good in the air.

The only negatives to his performance seemed to be his inability to communicate with his team mates which left him standing around pointing at times. He also left the defence a bit open with a 50 yard run forward from the back which although exciting to watch could prove costly in more important games. 

A good signing for the development squad and someone who under Gus and the clubs coaches will only improve.

On the surface this doesn’t seem like bad news. It’s only been in the past 5 years that the football league followed the Premiership’s example of upping the subs bench from 5-7.

But where this is really going to hurt clubs like the Albion is in progressing young players into the first team picture. Clubs could afford
to include a few younger players on the bench with 7 subs but with the shift in rules a greater emphasis will be put on experienced players who can cover more than one position.

A point which has clearly not passed Gus Poyet by. The Albion manager noting upon the arrival of Romain Vincelot that the Frenchman could
cover a number of positions which could be important if the change went through.

So for the likes of Jake Caskey-Forster or Yaser Kasim and other promising young Albion prospects their route into the first team has just got that little bit harder.

So the question is who will actually benefit from the change? Well I would guess the clubs lower down the scale in League Two and to
a less extent League One. The cost of taking an extra 2 or 3 players to away games would mount up over the course of a season. It does beg the question why no just bring the rule in for those leagues though?

The FA Cup and Carling Cup will remain at 7 subs.