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14
THE VERDICT: PREMIER LEAGUE
POTTER HAS PLENTY OF TRICKS UP HIS SLEEVE
GLENN MURRAY shouting
‘O Romeo, Romeo’ to Shane
Duffy. Lewis Dunk trying to
master the pirouette.
Goalkeeper Mat Ryan holding a
Shakespearean skull instead of a
football.
All are possibilities, as far as
Brighton’s players are
concerned. Graham Potter has
told his squad to turn up at their
training ground tomorrow to
take part in an ‘indoor activity’.
At his old club Ostersunds, Potter
was infamous for being
theatrical. Quite literally, as he
had his team take part in singing
and ballet classes before
performing Swan Lake.
In the name of team bonding,
the players also learned
reindeer husbandry and put on
their own art exhibition.‘Tuesday night is a secret,’ said
Potter, who has a degree in
leadership and emotional
intelligence. ‘They know there is
something that is happening in
the afternoon, and that’s it.
‘What we did at Ostersunds, it
was part of what the club
wanted to do, it was part of the
identity there, part of the DNA of
the club. You’ve got to
understand why you’re doing
anything. For us it is about there
being a good foundation and
how we can improve on that.’
Potter’s predecessor Chris
Hughton was sacked in what hethought was going to be a run-
of-the-mill post-season meeting.
He arrived ready to talk
signings, but left jobless.
Many fear that will come
back to bite Brighton, but
this was a positive start.
An Abdoulaye Doucoure own
goal got them going before
two substitutes completed
the scoring. Florin Andone
(right) scored with his first
touch, then £20million
signing Neal Maupay
made it 3-0.
Potter realises there is a
long road ahead. It
helps he is a great
pessimist who
prefers to look at
what might go
wrong rather than
daydream about 3-0wins such as this. ‘I don’t think
too positively,’ said the 44-year-
old. ‘It’s in my nature. You may
think about how it could go
well, but then you have to
quickly get that out of the way.
‘The players’ response to
how we want to work
has been fantastic. It
worked perfect. We
scored three goals,
kept a clean sheet,
the players deserve
credit. If you don’t
get results in my
profession, it is hard
to convince people
(of the philosophy).
‘This was a good day.
I’m sure there will be
days that aren’t so good.’
Watford appear to have
carried over their poorform from the last Premier
League season. They won just
two of their last nine games in
2018-19, and those came against
Championship-bound
Huddersfield and Fulham.
‘Many things,’ Javi Gracia said
bluntly when asked what went
wrong. ‘Maybe it is a good
wake-up call. No excuses.’
WATFORD (4-2-2-2): Foster 5; Femenia 5,
Dawson 4, Cathcart 5, Holebas 5; Capoue 5.5,
Doucoure 5; Hughes 5, Deulofeu 4.5 (Pereyra
45, 5.5); Deeney 4.5, Gray 4.5 (Success 75, 6).
Subs not used: Gomes, Janmaat, Cleverley,
Sema, Kabasele. Booked: None.
Manager: Javi Gracia 4.5.
BRIGHTON (3-4-2-1): Ryan 7; Duffy 7, Dunk 7.5,
BURN 8; Montoya 6.5, Propper 7.5, Stephens 7,
March 7 (Bernardo 90); Gross 7.5, Locadia 7
(Andone 64, 6.5); Murray 6 (Maupay 64, 6.5).
Subs not used: Button, Trossard, Webster,
Mooy. Scorers: Doucoure (og) 28,
Andone 65, Maupay 77. Booked: Dunk.
Manager: Graham Potter 7.5.
Referee: Craig Pawson 6.
Attendance: 20,245.WATFORD 0
BRIGHTON 3
KIERAN GILL at Vicarage Road
POACHER TURNED
GAME CHANGER
Sharp hails strike as ‘similar to
goals I score in garden with kids’
H
ow does he do it? How does
he always find himself in the
right place at the right time?
How on earth does Billy
Sharp keep scoring so many
goals? It is a phenomenon that
those who follow Sheffield United
have given up trying to explain.
There have been many theories put for-
ward over the years from the suggestion
that he was in fact a robot put together in
the city’s steelworks and programmed to
score goals, to the idea his brain is a super
computer that calculates the best possible
way to find the net. The latter is probably
not far from the truth.
At first glance, his goal on Saturday — his
first in the Premier League — appeared a
scrappy, typical poacher’s effort. But watch
it back and Sharp’s brilliance is clear to see.
when oli McBurnie’s scuffed shot checks in
front of him in the six-yard box, he has mil-
liseconds to react and find a path beyond
Bournemouth goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale
and defenders Chris Mepham and Steve
Cook on the line. with the outside of his left
boot, Sharp caresses the ball in mid-air,
sending it towards the bottom left corner
with the slightest of deflections from
Mepham on the way in.
And that’s without mentioning it came in
the 88th minute, six minutes after he came
off the bench and rescued a precious point
after Mepham put Bournemouth ahead.
It was his 228th league goal and his 103rd
in all competitions for his boyhood Blades.
Nobody has scored more goals in English
football since the turn of the 21st century.
Rickie Lambert is closest to him with 219
while wayne Rooney is 20 back on 208. Not
bad for ‘just a fat lad from Sheffield’ — a
description of him once made by former
United manager Sean o’Driscoll but one
Sharp now fondly attaches himself to
despite being in the best shape of his career
at the age of 33.
Saturday’s goal also confirmed his place
in a select group to have scored in all four of
England’s top divisions. ‘Maybe it waswritten in the stars,’ Sharp said. ‘All my fam-
ily were down and to get the first Sheffield
United goal in the Premier League after 12
years, it’s something I’ll never forget.’
So, what is the secret and was Saturday’s
strike the perfect example of a Sharp goal?
‘It’s a typical goal for me,’ he said. ‘I score
them in the garden when I’m with the kids.
I have to keep telling them “stay as close to
the goal as possible and as centrally as pos-
sible”, and the ball tends to come to you
and when it does you get it in the net
anyhow and that’s what happened.’
For manager Chris wilder, Sharp has
answered those who said he couldn’t make
it at the top level. ‘People talked about Billy,
can he score in the Premier League?’ he
said. ‘He’s had 10 minutes on the pitch
and scored.’
BOURNEMOUTH (3-4-3): Ramsdale 6.5; Mepham 6.5,
Cook 7, Ake 6.5; Smith 6.5, Lerma 7, Billing 7, Rico 6; King 6,
C Wilson 6 (Solanke 90min), Fraser 7. Subs not used:
Boruc, Surman, Ibe, Daniels, H Wilson, Simpson.
Scorer: Mepham 62.
Booked: Smith, Fraser.
Manager: Eddie Howe 6.
SHEFFIELD UNITED (3-5-2): Henderson 7; Basham 6.5,
Egan 6.5, O’Connell 6.5; Baldock 7, Lundstram 7
(Freeman 78), Norwood 6, Fleck 6.5, Stevens 6;
McGoldrick 6 (McBurnie 63, 7), Robinson (Sharp
82). Subs not used: Moore, Jagielka, Osborn,
Besic.
Scorer: Sharp 88.
Booked: Fleck.
Manager: Chris Wilder 7.
Referee: Kevin Friend 6.
Attendance: 10,714.1
1
Sharp 88SHEFFIELD UNITED
Mepham 62BOURNEMOUTH
TOM
FARMERY
at the Vitality StadiumMagical:
Billy Sharp
celebrates
his late
equaliser
REUTERSSHARP SHOOTER
MOST GOALS IN TOP FOUR DIVISIONS SINCE 2000:BILLY SHARP (2004- ) PL: 1, CH: 114, L1: 104, L2: 9 228RICKIE LAMBERT (2000-2017) PL: 31, CH: 31, L1: 113, L2: 44 219WAYNE ROONEY (2002- ) ALL IN PL 208JERMAIN DEFOE (2000- ) PL: 162, CH: 11, L1: 18 191JORDAN RHODES (2007- ) PL: 0, CH: 106, L1: 71, L2: 9 186