How Do We Challenge?

[wong989]

Scouting, recruitment and development  to compete with the best at it right now. We need value signings who can develop to displace players in areas we aren’t at elite level. Need value signings to replace Joelintons. Need more technical players who can develop athletically rather than vice versa. With PSR in place we need to consistently find undervalued young talent, like Minteh, and improve grassroots development and scouting, more Anderson’s and Mileys coming through. Only way i see bar cartel changes 

[Superior Acuña]

Last season if we’d won the 5 home games we lost to mid table teams, plus one away defeat (eg Fulham or Brentford), we’d have been level with Liverpool. 
 

Three of them and we’d have been second. 

 

 

Edited November 1, 2025 by Superior Acuña

[Terrymac1966]

40 minutes ago, Superior Acuña said:

Last season if we’d won the 5 home games we lost to mid table teams, plus one away defeat (eg Fulham or Brentford), we’d have been level with Liverpool. 
 

Three of them and we’d have been second. 

 

 

 

If me grandma had balls etc....

[Superior Acuña]

2 hours ago, Terrymac1966 said:

If me grandma had balls etc....

I direct you to the title of the thread. 
 

That was the difference and it didn’t necessitate beating the top team more than we did, it could be done by winning more consistent against midtable teams. 

[wfmk2]

Need to go back to shithousery. It defined us as a team and a club when we dabbled in it after Howe came in. Galvanised us.

[The College Dropout]

I think we’re a long way from competing at the very top. We are cup team good imo. 

[Erikse]

12 hours ago, Superior Acuña said:

I direct you to the title of the thread. 
 

That was the difference and it didn’t necessitate beating the top team more than we did, it could be done by winning more consistent against midtable teams. 

 

We're not going to win 12/12 against the bottom 6 every season like we did last season, though. We have already drawn against Leeds, for instance.

[buzza]

We have a great manager, needs the Best in class management team around him. With that and a little bit of luck here and there we should be a permanent top 5 give club within 3-5 years.

Only problem I see in the short term is our wage structure, losing players and innability to attract top players

 

 

Edited November 2, 2025 by buzza

[RUHRLYASLEEVESUP]

Lolz man

[La Parka]

Spunking 100m on Elanga and Ramsay didn't help like 😂 

 

Think we need to accept we will be in and out of Europe and up and down the table. European seasons we will be shit. Out of Europe we push. 

[JT24]

Start winning away from home might help. 

[Miggys First Goal]

We don’t. 

[Elric]

How do we challenge?

 

Not like this

[TRC]

Let’s close this thread until we can beat teams like West Ham, Leeds and Brighton.

[The Butcher]

Stop signing expensive "PL proven" shite would be a start.

[The College Dropout]

18 hours ago, The College Dropout said:

I think we’re a long way from competing at the very top. We are cup team good imo. 

Yep. Cup team good.  
 

Too many average players to be anywhere near challenging. 

[Yorkie]

16 hours ago, The Butcher said:

Stop signing expensive "PL proven" shite would be a start.

 

Which of the wingers imported from abroad this summer seemed like a more certain investment than the one we got from the PL, who had 30+ PL goal contributions in the last two seasons? Obviously you have to discount anyone signed by the ESL 6, so that leaves us with the likes of Pino, Kevin, Ndoye. Who would you have preferred?

 

Signing goals from the PL is quite clearly the best approach when PSR leaves absolutely no margin for error. It guarantees nothing, of course, but you take the approach if you can. That's why Madueke, Outtara, Grealish, Dibling, Mbeumo, Kudus, Garnacho, Sancho, and Elanga all moved within the league this summer. It's not some wild approach only we have decided to employ. 

 

The jury is out on Elanga. He's had a bad start in the league, but then few have had a good one.

[Dr.Spaceman]

It's not the Elanga fee that irks me (although I would have expected a £55m pound player to be able to trap a bag of cement or at least try and take his man on after he's subbed in on the 75th minute) it's the fact that his style of play is pretty much the opposite of what we were doing, and we've seemingly not adapted our style to suit his, but then why would we.

[Roids]

the lack of technical ability in our forward line (bar Wolte) is a big reason for the downfall, been fortunate he hit the ground running otherwise things could look much worse

 

doesn't help that both our highly technical fullbacks are injured which severely exposes their limitations as they often carried the load and supported the midfield

 

we'll improve once they both return both ideally I'd love for one of the Gordon & Elanga to be sold and replaced with someone of adequate quality

 

 

Edited November 3, 2025 by Roids

[Holmesy]

The rules have been set up to stop us from doing exactly that so it won't be easy.

This is going to go down like a shit sandwich but I think we would have to swap Eddie for a proven world-class winner - an Ancelotti-type. As much as we love him, Eddie doesn't have the pulling power of some of the bigger names and he can be stubborn and one-dimensional.

Attracting top talent goes hand-in-hand with the above. We've signed some cracking players but the cream of the crop consistently turn us down.

Alongside attracting top talent (not just from the PL) we also need to adopt a higher risk profile when it comes to squad development. A data-driven Tony Bloom model would enable us to unearth hidden gems who we can either keep or sell on for good money. 

Develop the commercial side of the business - we're playing catchup here but we need someone who thinks big and outside the box. TB rents out his data team to other sporting clubs, which goes directly into Brighton's P&L. It's a very smart move. We need that kind of thinking

[stozo]

28 minutes ago, Holmesy said:

The rules have been set up to stop us from doing exactly that so it won't be easy.

This is going to go down like a shit sandwich but I think we would have to swap Eddie for a proven world-class winner - an Ancelotti-type. As much as we love him, Eddie doesn't have the pulling power of some of the bigger names and he can be stubborn and one-dimensional.

Attracting top talent goes hand-in-hand with the above. We've signed some cracking players but the cream of the crop consistently turn us down.

Alongside attracting top talent (not just from the PL) we also need to adopt a higher risk profile when it comes to squad development. A data-driven Tony Bloom model would enable us to unearth hidden gems who we can either keep or sell on for good money. 

Develop the commercial side of the business - we're playing catchup here but we need someone who thinks big and outside the box. TB rents out his data team to other sporting clubs, which goes directly into Brighton's P&L. It's a very smart move. We need that kind of thinking

Don't know where to start with this one. But the bit about Bloom renting out the data and it going into Brighton's P&L is not true. Jamestown Analytics is the company that is an offshoot of Bloom's Starlizard and works with other clubs (e.g. Hearts) but the revenue from those commercial deals does not go to Brighton. 

[MagPar]

29 minutes ago, Holmesy said:

The rules have been set up to stop us from doing exactly that so it won't be easy.

This is going to go down like a shit sandwich but I think we would have to swap Eddie for a proven world-class winner - an Ancelotti-type. As much as we love him, Eddie doesn't have the pulling power of some of the bigger names and he can be stubborn and one-dimensional.

Attracting top talent goes hand-in-hand with the above. We've signed some cracking players but the cream of the crop consistently turn us down.

Alongside attracting top talent (not just from the PL) we also need to adopt a higher risk profile when it comes to squad development. A data-driven Tony Bloom model would enable us to unearth hidden gems who we can either keep or sell on for good money. 

Develop the commercial side of the business - we're playing catchup here but we need someone who thinks big and outside the box. TB rents out his data team to other sporting clubs, which goes directly into Brighton's P&L. It's a very smart move. We need that kind of thinking

Ancelotti would have the same problems as Eddie, PSR and the inability to spend as freely as we'd like. 

 

If Eddie was to leave for whatever reason, I think we'd start going downhill, he's that important to the club.

[Holmesy]

9 minutes ago, stozo said:

Don't know where to start with this one. But the bit about Bloom renting out the data and it going into Brighton's P&L is not true. Jamestown Analytics is the company that is an offshoot of Bloom's Starlizard and works with other clubs (e.g. Hearts) but the revenue from those commercial deals does not go to Brighton. 

Ah, fair enough. I stand corrected

[stozo]

I think the honest answer to how we challenge is process and patience. You need a process for making the right decisions across every area (commercial, academy, recruitment etc.) and then you need that patience to see those results through to fruition. Getting lucky aside, there is no 2-3 year route to the top - we've got to keep incrementally improving across every area of the club. The most difficult bit of that, as we saw in the summer, will be player trading. Within the next 5 years it is very unlikely we'll be able to compete with the super clubs on wages and therefore when we get a player who is genuinely elite and wants the mega wages, we will have to sell them. That will be tough to swallow but the model has to be to re-invest the money wisely and keep improving. From what we've seen this year, I'd say the signs on that are encouraging. 

[heero]

We need more quality.  Its a better squad now but when Kraft is playing you know there's some areas that need quality back up