Graham Potter says he would be happy to keep his current squad for the rest of the season.
Graham Potter said ” I’ve said before, from my perspective I’m happy with the group, I’m happy with everybody. If nothing happens with this group and we work between now and the end of the season, I am totally fine with that. But I understand it is not totally my decision. At this time of year, people link people with different clubs. Maybe an agent wants to move somebody somewhere so maybe what they do is link a player with a club and the club they are going to maybe has to pay a little bit more because Brighton are interested.”
It was a contrasting statement made by the manager as he defended his team’s loss against Everton with a lack of quality.
Graham Potter said “We tried, we put a lot into the game. The effort was there and we hit the bar but we didn’t do enough to get that goal. The difference was a great finish and we were not able to execute that today. We stepped up in the second half, I thought we were a bit better. You want to come away with something but we haven’t and we have to dust ourselves off. At 1-0 they’re happy to hang on with that. You have to take the positives, it wasn’t all bad but if you don’t get points you have to do better. We have to be at our maximum – effort wise today we were there but we lacked the quality.”
Unusually for Graham Potter, he had set his team up with a strange defensive formation with Lewis Dunk looking very uncomfortable on the left side of the defense against Everton.
One of the few positives to emerge was the performance of Bernardo. The Brazilian left-sided player started the match at left-wing back, then moved into central midfield, before finishing in his more regular position of left back. Bernardo was back in the team largely due to the shoulder injury sustained by Dan Burn against Chelsea. The 24-year-old competed well in an intense match at Goodison Park and now looks set to play a key role in Albion’s crucial upcoming fixtures against lowly Aston Villa, Bournemouth, West Ham and Watford as Burn continues his recovery.
Bernardo said “It was very frustrating for me at the start of the season,” said Bernardo. “Especially because of the injury and it is not a nice feeling when you are side-lined and you see them doing well, but you are not part of it – at least you feel like you are not part of it. Now I am fit and I hope I get my opportunity to save my season and leave the season with the feeling that I did something good. Till now I haven’t played much so I want to make as much of my opportunity as possible.”
