By Tim Hodges from The Amex Press Briefing.
Gus Poyet said this morning that he thinks with ten games to play this season, the Albion have a great chance of making the frame for the play-offs and that confidence is high.
He did offer a note of caution though, saying anyone can have a bad run and was he mindful that some clubs, including Birmingham have a game in hand on the Seagulls.
Poyet revealed, that the players trained at Withdean yesterday, but, he thought sadly the pitch there was awful, and that they won’t be training there again. He did however say Lancing have been excellent in helping the Albion find alternative training facilities, when required.
Poyet commented on his concerns re lack of reserve team fixtures, bemoaning the fact that other clubs are always changing and cancelling fixtures at the last minute.
He said he would prefer a proper competitive reserve team tournement, which the players could take more seriously than the odd friendly here and there. This would allow the boss to perhaps select development squad players, in the first team squad more often , as they would be better prepared. Training is similar, but not the same as regular matches.
The Albion told Brighton and Hove news that he prefers to play games Saturday to Saturday, and would prefer to play less games, and have less teams in the Championship.
He also reaveled to Brighton and Hove news, that it was a hard decsion to drop Craig Mackail-Smith to the bench against Portsmouth, but CMS knows the reasons, and there are no problems.
Poyet will pick the best team to beat Blackpool and he could be tempted to pick, Vicente, Matt Sparrow or Ryan Harley to start. But it was all dependent on how he approaches the game. He did concede however, that Blackpool present a different proposition, and they are not a typical Championship team.
He praised Ian Holloway and his achievements with the Seasider’s, and gave the Blackpool boss credit for doing things his own way.
