Adam Webster admits he doubted himself when he first mixed with elite company.
Adam Webster recalled: “I was in the England set-up from Portsmouth in League One and League Two and I was actually on loan at Aldershot when I got called up. So I was playing in the Conference when I played in one of the tournaments we had for the Under-19s. I’m on loan in the Conference and there’s Ruben Loftus-Cheek from Chelsea, for example. Players from Man United, Chelsea, Arsenal. You are naturally going to doubt yourself whether you should be there or not. Or I certainly did, anyway. It was just part and parcel of where I was at the time. I’ve proven that I can play in the Premier League and I relish the games we play against the top six clubs. I feel like I’ve always done well against teams like that. That would be no different if I go to England. Obviously it would be a step up again but I think I’m ready for that challenge and it’s one that I’d relish.”
Webster has been hindered by injury at times this season but believes Albion’s set-up has helped him be more effective when he has been out there. An array of stats backs that up – as does praise from an expert.
Adam Webster said: “Obviously, Carragher gave me a shout-out before the Palace game. I watched the game when I got in, so I saw it then. It was nice for me to see. A lot of it comes from the manager. The structure we have for each game allows me to break the lines with passes and everyone is in the right positions. I think last year we struggled a bit where our structure wasn’t right and it didn’t allow us to play the way the gaffer wanted us to play. Just small details. It can only be a couple of yards different for a midfielder to be a little bit higher or a striker to be a little bit deeper that allows me to find them through the lines. That’s a big part of how we play.”
Like Albion, Webster has come up through the divisions. It’s not long ago he was getting a hard time from fans at his first club Portsmouth as he played out of position at full-back. Perhaps significantly, he cites one of the biggest influences on his career as Paul Hardyman, the Pompey coach who himself came in for criticism as a local boy playing at left-back in the 1980s.
Adam Webster added: “I didn’t actually play centre-back until I was about 20. Before then, probably from 18 to 20 so a good two or three seasons, I was playing right-back, left-back. Obviously I came through at Portsmouth but even that wasn’t a help to me because the fans used to get on me and when you’re young you used to read stuff and it used to affect me quite a bit, I’ll be honest. It wasn’t so much like when I first went on to the pitch, it was if I made a bad pass or had a dodgy ten minutes and then I’d lose my confidence during the game. So it was hard to come back from that but then, when I finally established myself as a centre-back, which is obviously my main position and always has been, I think I grew in confidence from that and I could show the fans exactly why I could do it in that position. That helped me to overcome it. But it probably didn’t change until I was 20, 21, when I was in the team, I was playing well in a more successful team, we were winning more games. My confidence grew from there really. I’ve come a long way from playing in the League Two and in the Conference with Aldershot.”
Webster has calculated he was on the bench almost 100 times for Pompey as a youngster. He did not have to wait quite so long to make an Albion impact, although progress has not been in a straight line.
Adam Webster said: “When I first signed for Brighton, I was on the bench for three games and then I got in the team and I started really well and then sort of didn’t go through a great patch. We were also struggling at the time. I think it was probably from just after Christmas to March time we were struggling, we hadn’t won that whole time so the team weren’t doing well and I wasn’t playing that well. Then Covid happened and the lockdown happened and gave us a chance to take a step back and take a break from it all. And then when we were off, we’re all working so hard, we were probably the fittest we’ve ever been in that period off. We came back obviously we beat Arsenal the first game, and then we didn’t really look back from then and last year I felt like had a really good season. I’ve not really looked back.”
