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Graham Potter focused on creating his own legacy at Brighton

Crystal Palace host Brighton at Selhurst Park, live on Monday Night Football; coverage starts at 7pm with kick-off at 7.45pm

Ben Grounds

Monday 16 December 2019 18:45, UK

As you enter the American Express Elite Performance Centre, a look up at the stripped-back white wall on the right offers words of motivation for those passing through Brighton's training complex.

"Improve yourself every day. If you put in the hard work, the results will come. You are making progress if each mistake you make is a new one."

Echoes of Jose Mourinho's unveiling at Tottenham, but if you speak to any fan from this part of the south coast, they will tell you there's something special happening at Brighton, a club on the pulse and ready for the next decade.

After all, it's not often you come across a Premier League manager with a bachelor's degree in social sciences let alone a Masters in leadership and emotional intelligence. But the man in charge here has forged a career in management that breaks free from the conventional route taken by most of his contemporaries.

"When I think of my playing career, I tend to try to block it out, almost like it was a different person," Graham Potter tells Sky Sports.

"Everyone's path is so different; the MA was part of my path to get here, and it was part of my education and part of my life experience. It allowed me to put some reference on the experiences that I've had and theory around the subjectivity which helps.

"But I've been on a long journey to Sweden and had different experiences, and it's all part of the journey to get here."

There were one or two eyebrows raised when the Seagulls replaced Chris Hughton with a manager with no Premier League experience having survived a serious flirt with relegation last season.

There aren't any now.

The 44-year-old Englishman has left such an impression that he was offered a two-year extension at the Amex Stadium just six months into his initial four-year contract.

"It was surprising. I was humbled and excited by it," he says with a broad smile. "Obviously, I was delighted to commit my future to the club. Stability is something we can use to go forward, but we know we haven't achieved anything yet.

"We know the football world, regardless of contracts. Things change, so you have to carry on improving and you have to carry on getting results. Nothing changes in that regard, but it's still nice to have the support."

Reflecting on his meteoric rise, Potter reveals he watched videos and read books on the game's great thinkers and those he admired as he embarked on his career - but he is focused on doing things his way.

"At the time, Pep Guardiola was developing the Barcelona team," Potter recalls from his period coaching alongside his Masters at Leeds Metropolitan University.

"He had a fantastic side with [Lionel] Messi, Xavi and [Andres] Iniesta. That was of real interest, and I was friends with Graeme Jones so I used to follow him and Roberto Martinez when they went through Swansea and Wigan.

"Then, once you're at a club, you're always just trying to work with the players in your squad, to see how you can improve and develop your own methods to be useful for the players you're working with.

"There's no point imitating or copying anyone else. You've got to find your own way and you've got to try to adapt your way to the players that you have."

A wise head on young shoulders, Potter has come a long way over the past decade. Indeed, as another approaches, there are few who can rival his rise from taking over as manager at Ostersund in December 2010 while they were in the Swedish fourth tier.

Within the space of five seasons, he had taken his team up to the top division, improving their position by 42 places. He was named Swedish manager of the year in 2016 and 2017, before memorably beating Arsenal at the Emirates 2-1 in the Europa League despite his side going out 4-2 on aggregate.

His impact acknowledged back home, a move to Swansea duly materialised, and after impressively steering a club undergoing a transition following relegation to 10th in the Championship, he earned his move to the south coast.

While Potter was enjoying his fairytale in the north of Sweden, Brighton were living their own.

The £30m training ground at Lancing is a million miles away from the 12 years the club spent without a home, the fortnightly trek to Gillingham's Priestfield Stadium before the Withdean Stadium days - an athletics track accumulating debt.

Now, academy scholars in socks and sliders pass by a decorator adding a fresh blue coat to a spot outside the auditorium. Attention to detail runs from top to bottom. It is the morning after the first team's Christmas party but the crisp thud of footballs hitting gloves beyond the high fences surrounding this vast complex on Marsh Barn Lane tells you it's business as usual.

"Brighton already feels like home," Potter says, dressed in his now familiar attire of the navy club tracksuit. "The welcome we had coming here as a family was amazing. I've moved from Sweden to Wales and onto England in the space of two years.

"There's been lots of upheaval, but we're settled here and the club's amazing. I'm really happy here. We've just got the small matter of trying to win points in the Premier League. That's the challenge but it's what we're all here for."

Potter is more than happy to play his part in shifting the perceived insularity about English managers. It is a route Roy Hodgson went down much earlier, of course, starting his managerial career with Halmstad in 1976, a year after Potter was born.

It was back in the 1970s where Crystal Palace's fierce rivalry with Brighton dates back, rooted in a dispute between former managers Terry Venables and Alan Mullery. As Potter prepares to sample the occasion for the first time, both he and Hodgson share the common ground of seeing life from a different perspective in Scandinavia.

Speaking in 2015, he had said he was "embarrassed" by the comparisons being made with the esteemed Palace boss, but they will stand shoulder to shoulder on Monday night. Hodgson brings a wealth of experience, but Potter is on the right path to emulating the 72-year-old's longevity within the game.

"I only have to look personally over the past decade and it's amazing, really," Potter adds, looking ahead to the how the game may evolve over the next 10 years. "It goes so quick, and yet you do so much.

"The way the game is going, I think everything will just be focused towards improving the speed. The pace and precision of the game will be so much more defined.

"Social media has exploded, while the tactical information out there and ideas will be so fluid and so available to everybody that it's going to be even more competitive.

"But at the same time, it's still football, and that's why the game is so popular and why everyone is so interested in it as fundamentally it doesn't change too much. It's still the same game with the same challenges.

"As a manager, you will still have to understand the game fundamentally and if you can get these one or two per cent differences of course that can help, but if you don't know the game to start with, you're in trouble."

Assisted by Billy Reid, first team coach Bjorn Hamberg, who was also at Ostersund and Swansea, and goalkeeping coach Ben Roberts, Potter remains grounded. Having his office located opposite Dan Ashworth's, the club's technical director, allows for daily conversations. Everything is in place for Brighton to become an established Premier League member.

Tony Bloom, the club's chairman and billionaire who made his first fortune on the poker tables, felt obliged to make the difficult decision of parting company with Hughton at the end of last season.

But having appeared from the outside to be sleepwalking towards relegation last season before their late rally, everything is now pointing towards that being a gamble to have paid off, with Brighton's 2-1 victory at Arsenal earlier this month the first time in 17 attempts they had won away to one of traditional top six.

"We're trying to create our own history," says Potter. "When the club first came up into the Premier League, it was about securing that first win, then a first away win, then the first home win against the top six and then the first away win against the top six.

"It's all part of the journey we're on as a club, and it's exciting for us. It felt good because we played well and felt we deserved to win. We played well away against Liverpool and got nothing, and we feel we've been taking steps forward.

"Like anything, you need the results as it is that [more than performances] that gives you the belief that you're on the right path. The challenge is always to try to continue with that.

"Crystal Palace aren't going to give us anything because we played well against Arsenal. It's a new game, but it certainly gave us the belief that we're on the right path.

"The club has set out the vision. It wants to be a top 10 Premier League club, and I think it's great to have values and an understanding of what we're trying to achieve. But from a head coach perspective, I think you need to leave that bigger stuff to the club.

"My job is to try to help the players improve, learn from the games we've played and try to get better as a team and not worry about what may happen further down the road. Whether that's at the end of the season in the table or in six years' time even because things change in football very quickly.

"Regardless of contract lengths, you've just got to focus on the next day, the next training session and the next match. The key is to keep things very simple."

Focusing on doing the basics well has paid dividends. As the season approaches the midway point, the Seagulls have claimed 19 points from 16 games - only twice in club's top division history (21 points in 1981/82 and last season) have they taken more from the same number of fixtures.

Brighton's Premier League ascent


Average per game	2017/18	PL rank	2018/19	PL rank	2019/20	PL rank
Possession	43%	17th	41%	17th	55%	7th
Passing accuracy	75%	13th	75%	16th	82%	7th
% passes short	81%	17th	81%	17th	89%	7th
Successful passes	289	13th	278	17th	419	7th
Touches in opp. box	17	16th	16	20th	23	9th
Chances created in open play	6.1	15th	5.8	19th	8.2	8th

The January transfer window is fast approaching but Potter says he is only concerned with getting the maximum out of those already on the club's books - and he has wasted little time in adapting his players to his methods.

His Swansea team dominated opponents with the ball, the fourth highest for possession in the Championship last season (57) while no team completed more passes per 90 minutes (451). Assisted by Billy Reid, first team coach Bjorn Hamberg, who was also at Ostersund and Swansea, and goalkeeping coach Ben Roberts, Potter carries with him a philosophy that is intricate and offensive, and Brighton are now reaping the rewards.

The Seagulls are averaging 55 per cent possession compared to 41 per cent last season and completing almost double the number of passes (418 compared to 278). The advanced Premier League metrics drills home their improvement off the ball, as a high pressing team who find ways of stopping the opposition before they find their rhythm.

The Brighton boss admits seeing football and life through a different lens has benefited him enormously on his journey - he left England at the age of 36 "thinking the world was as it is here" - but after four managerial casualties over the space of 17 days, Potter hasn't lost sight of how his profession is ultimately judged.

"It's a start," he adds. "We've been really happy with the response we've had from the players and the supporters. The support we've had from the club has been amazing. We've done some things well and other things not so well and we need to improve. That's where we're at I would say.

"The attitude and the daily work of the guys has been really good and we've just tried to build on the foundation that was here originally while changing things towards how we want to play - but we've still got a lot more to do as well."

With his stripped-back approach, Potter can work his magic for many more years to come.

How to follow Crystal Palace vs Brighton

Crystal Palace vs Brighton is live on Monday Night Football from 7pm; kick-off 7.45pm. Sky Sports customers can watch in-game clips in the live match blog on the Sky Sports website and app.

Highlights will also be published on the Sky Sports digital platforms and the Sky Sports Football YouTube channel shortly after the final whistle.

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