Brighton manager Graham Potter says his new signings need to learn to 'deal with failure' as club prepares for opening day game against Manchester United

Graham Potter is hoping his new signings can adapt to ‘dealing with failure’ quickly as Brighton and Hove Albion begin preparations for the start of their Premier League campaign against Manchester United this weekend.
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The Seagulls have added Deniz Undav, Kaoru Mitoma and Julio Enciso to their first team squad this summer – with the latter winning the Paraguayan Primera División for Libertad and the former two finishing top of the Belgian Pro League whilst playing for Royale Union Saint-Gilloise last season.

Despite achieving their highest finish in the top-flight in the 2021/2022 campaign, Albion failed to win 26 of their 38 league matches.

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Potter told the Athletic : “You’ve got young players that aren’t used to that [not winning]. If you think about where we recruit our players from, sometimes they’re from leagues where they’re used to success.

Brighton Manager Graham Potter during the pre-season friendly match between Brighton & Hove Albion and RCD Espanyol at The Amex Stadium (Photo by Charlie Crowhurst/Getty Images)Brighton Manager Graham Potter during the pre-season friendly match between Brighton & Hove Albion and RCD Espanyol at The Amex Stadium (Photo by Charlie Crowhurst/Getty Images)
Brighton Manager Graham Potter during the pre-season friendly match between Brighton & Hove Albion and RCD Espanyol at The Amex Stadium (Photo by Charlie Crowhurst/Getty Images)

“The challenge of the Premier League is you don’t have as much success. How do you deal with that? How you deal with failure is the challenge. The more you come through it, the more you understand it’s part of life at the very top, then hopefully you can deal with it better.”

Brighton rounded off this pre-season schedule with a convincing 5-1 win against Espanyol at the Amex Stadium on Saturday (July 30).

A hat-trick from Leo Trossard and goals from Adam Webster and Lewis Dunk helped secure the victory for the South Coast side.

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Reflecting on pre-season, Potter told The Athletic: “I’m happy as I can be with this pre-season. In terms of how we are performing, how we are acting every day and in games, we had a tricky game against Estoril on not the greatest pitch in the world and not the most awe-inspiring environment, but the attitude was spot-on from the players.

“It’s good when you have that, the humility to just get on with your work, do their best, push each other and work for each other.”

Potter’s side now look ahead to starting their Premier League campaign against Manchester United this Sunday (August 7) at Old Trafford.

Last season, Albion took 13 points from the first six fixtures via victories against Burnley, Watford, Brentford and Leicester, plus a draw at Crystal Palace.

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However, this season Brighton face a much tougher start in their first six games.

Following their trip to Manchester – the Seagulls play Newcastle, Leeds and Leicester at home whilst also travelling to West Ham and Fulham.

Potter said of the opening fixtures: “We started off well last season. Probably the fixtures were kind to us in terms of the teams we played.

“But this year not so kind, the year before wasn’t so kind either.

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“But like anything in the Premier League, there are no easy ones. You’ve got to be ready to compete and to try and get points against anybody.

“We’ve proved that but, still, I don’t take any game for granted and no game should be totally out of our reach. We just need to focus on us, preparing as well as we can, and then we’ll see.”

Brighton finished last season with a 3-1 at home against West Ham, despite being 1-0 at half time, to claim their record-breaking ninth place finish.

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Potter said to The Athletic: “I think at half-time (against West Ham) we were 13th. That’s fine, we enjoyed it, there’s a lot of really good things that came with it, but you don’t get anything in this league for what you do last year, last week or last month.

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“We have to start again, fight for points, we have to earn them, but they’re a good group of lads. They’ll be ready and they’ll try their best.

“We’ve got some exciting players and guys that are ready to go again and take some steps forward, so it should be interesting.”