Marked for Robert Parker
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad13 Apr 2037
Robert Parker breaks a bone — 17 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 17 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad13 Apr 2037
Diego Coppola was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad13 Apr 2037
Babis Kostoulas falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Boardroom13 Apr 2037
Brighton still without a manager
12 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
Squad13 Apr 2037
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Josh Hamilton, and the manager let it.
Market13 Apr 2037
The name of Babis Kostoulas keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Brighton say nothing, which says plenty.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Boardroom6 Apr 2037
the manager is out at Brighton
Four paragraphs on the club website, none of them about football. The board thanked him, wished him well, and had the search under way before the page went up.
Squad6 Apr 2037
A one-man rearguard from Joe Duncan
There were 10 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Match1 Apr 2037
Arsenal ended it 1‑2. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Match4 Apr 2037
Sheffield will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Brighton were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Boardroom6 Apr 2037
A stranger takes charge at Brighton
The coaching staff has emptied out entirely and there was nobody internal to promote, so the club has appointed a name almost none of its supporters will recognise. Clubs recover from this; none of them enjoy explaining it.
Boardroom6 Apr 2037
Crisis meeting at Brighton
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Squad6 Apr 2037
Robert Parker breaks a bone — 24 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 24 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings6 Apr 2037
Diego Coppola, 33, rolls back the years — 9.60
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.60 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Boardroom6 Apr 2037
“Somebody picks the team on Saturday. This week it is me, and that is as far as I have thought.” No promises were made in either direction, which is how these usually begin.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Boardroom30 Mar 2037
Pressure builds in the Brighton boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Player ratings30 Mar 2037
Two goals and a mark of 9.41 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad30 Mar 2037
A one-man rearguard from Joe Duncan
There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad30 Mar 2037
Robert Parker breaks a bone — 31 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 31 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad30 Mar 2037
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Brighton may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad30 Mar 2037
Diego Coppola was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Market30 Mar 2037
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Matthew Robinson will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Brighton the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match28 Mar 2037
A 2‑1 win over West Ham United, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings30 Mar 2037
Shots: 11, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad23 Mar 2037
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad23 Mar 2037
A fracture rules Robert Parker out for 39 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Brighton will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad23 Mar 2037
13 goals and a season average of 7.74. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad23 Mar 2037
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Brighton may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings23 Mar 2037
Yankuba Minteh was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.49. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Player ratings23 Mar 2037
Tyler Silsby was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.13. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Match21 Mar 2037
Three points for Brighton, 2‑1 the final word against Arsenal in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Market23 Mar 2037
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Yankuba Minteh’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Player ratings23 Mar 2037
The chances came and went for Evan Ferguson
11 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Mar 2037
A fracture rules Robert Parker out for 48 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Brighton will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad16 Mar 2037
12 goals and a season average of 7.70. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad16 Mar 2037
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Brighton this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Mar 2037
Words at Brighton training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Evan Ferguson is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Player ratings16 Mar 2037
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.86, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings16 Mar 2037
Shots: 11, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Mar 2037
Robert Parker breaks a bone — 56 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 56 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings9 Mar 2037
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 7.50, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings9 Mar 2037
Age has not caught Diego Coppola yet — 9.01
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.01 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad9 Mar 2037
A season average of 7.55 with 13 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad9 Mar 2037
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Brighton this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Mar 2037
Words at Brighton training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Babis Kostoulas is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Player ratings9 Mar 2037
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match7 Mar 2037
It finished 3‑1, and it was Babis Kostoulas’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Brighton.
Match7 Mar 2037
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Bournemouth tried to reorganise, Brighton did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.