It’s a balancing act “teams like Brighton” face every season. In fact, it probably applies to about two-thirds of the top-flight these days. Almost five years on from Albion’s promotion, Potter was asked last week about when the time comes to look further forward. Or is Prem life always a matter of survival, then take it from there?
Graham Potter replied: “My instinct would be to say you have to do both. You have to understand the strength of the Premier League and know that if you have a few things go against you – injuries, or especially with Covid, the challenges we have had – you can miss players for a number of games and things can start to go against you. The priority and the focus and the respect should be towards staying in the Premier League. But, as I’ve always said, I think you need to be ambitious as well. Supporters want to come to the game believing they can win. I think that is what we try to do here. Then you have to take all the decisions along the way in terms of developing your club, in terms of short-term, long-term, medium-term. Do you accept a bid, for example, for Ben White? You see the playing style develop in young players, which means you can increase the value of your club so it puts you in a position where you have got more resources to compete in what is financially a very competitive situation. So respect to the competition to say you need to stay in the competition. But then ambition and strategy to try to punch above your weight. Because that’s ultimately what we are trying to do.”
All of which, of course, underlines why Tony Bloom made a bold statement just ahead of Potter’s first Premier League match in charge, back in August 2019. He told a fans forum at the Amex that Albion’s long-term goal was to become a top-ten club.
