05 March 2021

Graham Potter set on turning performances into points to stop Brighton slide

05 March 2021

Brighton boss Graham Potter is convinced his side’s performances will eventually turn into points.

The Seagulls have been sucked back towards the relegation battle after defeats against Crystal Palace and West Brom.

They were beaten by arch-rivals Palace despite having 25 shots and lost a chaotic match at the Hawthorns in which they missed two penalties and had Lewis Dunk’s free-kick controversially ruled out by referee Lee Mason.

But Potter knows they cannot afford to feel sorry for themselves and said: “It’s hard to say, ‘we’ll play badly and win’.

“It’s hard to say that as a coach, you want to try and improve and get better. No matter how we do it, we’re all doing the same thing, which is to try to win the game.

“As I understand it in football, there’s no right or wrong way of doing it, whether the focus is on the amount of passes, whether it’s long ball, whether it’s set-plays, the challenges are you’ve got to make your choice work.

“At the moment we’re playing well, but we haven’t managed to turn those performances into the points that we need and that’s where we have to work.

“That’s why football is so great, that’s why we love it so much. In most sports the better team wins, but in football the better team doesn’t always win.

“You also know the fundamentals in the games are you have to score one more goal than the opponent and we haven’t done that for the last three matches.

“I don’t think you can say, ‘if we do this, then our results are going to improve’. It’s not as simple as that, we have to try our way and work with the players, and do something we believe in.”

The Seagulls host Leicester on Saturday evening but will be without Tariq Lamptey after the full-back suffered an injury setback.

The best videos delivered daily

Watch the stories that matter, right from your inbox