Brighton have Brazil's World Cup No 9 and my glass is very much half full – opinion

Glass half empty or half full? So when the Premier League fixtures came out in mid June, if someone had picked out the Southampton game and said, ‘come the end of November, a win for the Albion at home, would see them go second in the Premier League,’ albeit for 24 hours, every Albion fan on the planet would have snapped their hand off.

It would have probably been more unlikely if the person said ‘it would coincide with Manchester City losing three league games on the bounce!’

The win at Bournemouth last weekend was yet another twist and turn in this amazing season. Yet again Joao Pedro put in a performance that not only sees fans almost running out of superlatives but also contemplating that the time is fast approaching that the legend that is Mark Lawrenson loses his pole position, in my eyes at least, in the accolade of being the greatest player to ever pull on an Albion shirt.

And regular readers will know how long I’ve championed Lawro in this category. But Pedro, now back from injury, just oozes class at almost every turn, and seems to get better every week.

Clearly he’s going to have the odd off week, but if he can stay injury free, that’s only going to be few and far between. Not only potentially the greatest player but without doubt already one of the most exciting ever.

Come the next World Cup in America, Canada and Mexico, I’ve no doubt he will be the Brazilian Number nine, something Albion fans could have only dreamt about when we made that horrendous journey to Gillingham every other week, for two long years!

But glass half empty? The home games against Ipswich, Nottingham Forest and Wolves still grind, even though they really shouldn’t. Granted those six dropped points would now see the Albion comfortably in second place snapping at Liverpool’s heels.

And whilst the runaway train at Anfield is already giving many football fans a dreaded sense of inevitability regarding the title, the other 19 teams are playing out a fascinating campaign.

Yes the Albion did drop points against Ipswich, but the same Ipswich who later went and won at Spurs and got a very creditable draw against Manchester United at the weekend.

Wolves, arguably nicked a point at the Amex, yet won emphatically at Fulham on Saturday, basically it’s still what we’ve known from the outset, it’s the greatest league on the planet, and on their day anyone can beat anyone.

Consistency is the key, and whilst some of the football Fabian Hurzeler’s team have served up in the first 12 games has been some of the best ever witnessed by the Brighton fanbase in the 123 year history of the club, at times there have clearly been inconsistencies.

Eradicate those, and we can all dare to dream about another footballing sortie to the European mainland. That said, if ever there was a banana skin, the apparently hapless Southampton could be it. Surely not? Exactly, glass very much half full.