Barely a week to go to new season
THE start is near! The League One kick-off is barely a week away. Three O'Clock at Swindon on Saturday, August 7 and our Seagulls begin their last season at Withdean before running out in their fabulous new AMEX stadium (the field previously known as Falmer!).
But that is August 2011. My season tickets have arrived for Withdean and there won't be too many regrets. How many soakings? How many plastic boxes of fairly greasy chips? And can we make it a fortress one more time so that Albion can push for the Championship?
But what of now? There were two big stories this week: the "friendlies" in the Algarve and our manager Gus Poyet committing to the Albion long-term by signing a four year contract. First the friendlies. Against Premiership Sunderland we were very very good. Poyet picked players that could well be our starting squad this season. He was rewarded with one of the best performances under his management.
Albion dominated the first half, taking the lead with a Glenn Murray penalty after a cross by Radostin Kishishev was handled by a Sunderland defender. The Premiership side only managed the draw with a last-gasp equaliser from Frazier Campbell.
Poyet played down the result in the same way that he had played down the loss to Eastbourne Borough the week before. He said "I was very happy with the first half. That's the best we have played since I have been here in terms of movement, passing and controlling the game." One impressive fact was that seven of Poyet's new signings were in the starting XI.
Two days later it was a different story. Headline – "68 minutes: Match Abandoned – Portimonense 2 Albion 0". There was a fracas resulting in the ref, a Mr Nuno Guerreiro, walking off! I believe it wasn't as exciting as it sounds. The players of the Portuguese La Liga side apparently didn't like our Ashley Barnes challenging for the ball! He made the "mistake" of putting the Portimonense keeper under pressure when clearing a back-pass. Another Barnes challenge produced a theatrical response. He then became a target for sly kicks, pushes, elbows in ribs, all in a sneaky manner.
Albion have yet to master the art of unpunished sly fouls and were often penalised for ordinary tackles. Tempers matched the heat in which they were playing. It boiled over on 68 minutes when the opposition's Ivanildo chased Barnes after a tackle and shoved him. Handbags stuff followed and everyone dashed onto the pitch. The ref didn't try to calm matters; he just walked off down the tunnel. Game over. Brighton were losing 2-0 at the time but nobody cared.
For this game Poyet made changes from the starting XI against Sunderland. Because Glenn Murray and Gordon Greer are both suspended for the opening two games of the season he brought in Adam El-Abd and the Argentinean pair Cristian Baz and Agustin Battipiedi.
The happy news story is the four-year contracts that Gus and his assistant Mauricio Taricco have signed. Gus said that he is delighted to be the man that will lead the Seagulls out in their first game at the new AMEX stadium. He will be involved in the youth set-up and will help Martin Hinshelwood getting the best young players at the club, as well as other aspects of the new stadium. And talking of the new stadium the club say that around October they will be telling us about season tickets at the AMEX. But in the meantime it is back to Withdean.
This Saturday the Seagulls complete their preparations with the final friendly (at least I hope it is friendly) against former manager Mark McGhee's Aberdeen.
Now that should be interesting!
RAY EGGLETON
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Weather for Lewes
Thursday 09 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 0 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: -5 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: South east
