Potter: Hard to explain Brighton's record-breaking season

Graham Potter is a thinker. Aside from being a highly-rated Premier League manager, he is an academic with a degree in social sciences and a masters in leadership and emotional intelligence.

The 46-year-old is articulate in conveying his ideas on how football should be played, shown by the way his stylish Brighton side have performed in an over-achieving season.

But there is one thing, when it comes to talking about Brighton's campaign, that Potter can't quite explain with an eloquent answer.

The Seagulls have already set club-bests for points and wins with three games to play and will also suffer their fewest defeats. Having never finished above the bottom six, they are currently ninth, set for a club-record finish, potentially inside the top-10 having never previously finished there.

And yet this historic season has seen the sale of centre-backs Ben White and Dan Burn, issues with Covid and injuries, and likely fewer goals scored than when they were worrying about relegation before finishing 16th last term. How does Potter explain such a change of fortunes in tougher circumstances?

"It's a tricky one," he tells Sky Sports ahead of facing Manchester United, live on Sky Sports. "I'm asked a lot, 'Why's this? Why's that?' You want to give some clever, coach answer but sometimes it's just 'football' and part of why we love the game. Sometimes you can't explain things.

"We ended up with 41 points last year but performance-wise we were so much better than that. This year has been really tough to analyse to a certain extent. We've had lots of Covid and injuries which would normally derail you, but we've managed it really well. The players have been incredible for that, as a group they've found solutions.

"We've had really