Opinion: Brighton’s next manager? ABP – Anyone But Potter!

There’s no way of sugar coating it, any potential Potter return to the club would be extremely unpopular with large sections of the Albion support.

As this is, and has been for over 20 years, an opinion column... full disclosure, I’m not a Potter fan, and can’t ever see myself being one.

And this is not an archetypal fickle football fan, handbag-clutching flounce – it is based on the facts as I see them as a supporter who’s followed the club for over half a century.

He is, to a great many Albion fans, “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, but the stats do not lie, one solitary home win at the Amex in the calendar year of 2020, three months without a win between September and Boxing Day 2021, three months without scoring at the Amex between January and April 2022, also within his tenure 11 games without a win (okay eight of them were draws) and six straight defeats only stopped by a ‘creditable’ 0-0 draw against relegation haunted Norwich.

And don’t forget Mr P still holds that ‘unwelcome’ EPL record of a failing to beat all three relegated teams, Fulham, West Brom and Sheffield Utd, home or away in season 20/21.

There is also a wide school of thought that the Albion were saved by the pandemic – with Potter’s side seemingly sleep walking towards relegation before Boris Johnson locked the country down.

Ultimately I can think of at least three separate occasions were he could have been legitimately sacked by Tony Bloom, I’ve seen numerous former Albion bosses sacked for far less.

Yet when showed unstinting loyalty by Bloom, Potter chose to jump ship when Chelsea came calling in September 2022, and decimating the infrastructure at the club in the process by taking almost his entire backroom staff to Stamford Bridge with him.

Yet now the nation’s bookmakers are indicating that all this ‘previous’ will be forgotten, like Bobby Ewing in the shower, something from a parallel universe.

If Potter returns to Brighton it will be a biggest catastrophe to beset the Albion since the Goldstone Ground was sold, it will polarise the fan base and whilst I believe it would be a short-lived tenure, the damage to our potential EPL status could put Brighton’s development as a club back a number of years.

In Tony we trust, but on the flip side he has previously made mistakes )Sami Hyypia anyone?) – I just hope one of the other candidates proves the bookies wrong and comes through on the rails in the final furlong.