There is a particular cry that echoes around modern football. It goes something like this: “I simply DO NOT recognise this club anymore.” And if you lean in, squint a bit and scroll long enough, you will soon find modern football fans on social media banging that very drum about Brighton manager Fabian Hurzeler with similar levels of anger to a man who has just seen someone park slightly over the line of a parking space in a supermarket car park.
Hurzeler you see is not doing football properly. Or at least not the way some Brighton fans would do it. If they were also 32, spoke four languages and had led a Premier League team to an eighth place finish in their first season in charge.
Instead, they offer us the full rolling buffet of contemporary fan grievance. One popular theme runs along the lines of: “Hurzeler is out of his depth. No plan. No identity.”
What makes these fans distinct is not that they dislike a manager. Disliking managers is the bedrock of football culture.
It is their certainty and definitiveness. The absolute, unshakeable conviction that not only is Hurzeler wrong, but that his wrongness is so obvious it should be visible from space.
There is no curiosity here. No patience. No sense that football might be a complex, evolving thing. Just the spoilt certainty of someone who has grown up in an era where clubs are entertainment products and managers are easily interchangeable.
If the new one does not immediately improve performance, revert to previous version and leave a one-star review. Here they go again about whoever replaces Hurzeler: “We’re regressing under this guy. Anyone with eyes can see it.”
Anyone with eyes. Always the eyes. Never the data, the context, the opposition, the fact that football matches are still played by fallible humans in the rain rather than a spreadsheet in a lab.
You see many of these Brighton fans complain when someone dares to counter their derision with actual solid facts – like Hurzeler having a points per game record comparable to his predecessor Roberto De Zerbi.
De Zerbi is still seen by a god amongst plenty of this group. The one that got away. The one Paul Barber ignorantly and stubbornly got rid of.
Rather than the one who had an incredibly good season as Brighton manager. One less so good season. And would fall out with a brick wall if he spent enough time with it.
These type of football fans would happily sack a manager at half-time, then be complaining about instability by the end of the game.
They want the romance of the old game, the success of the new one, and the right to be furious at both simultaneously.
Neither do they want a discussion or deal in nuance. Every game is a must win, every club must be as ambitious as Barcelona.
They fear people who talk about realistic expectations. Ambition and realism are mutually exclusive concepts. Ambition is for winners, realism is for losers.
None of this is to say Hurzeler does not deserve criticism from Brighton fans. He is not without fault and has not had a perfect reign in charge of the club.
But it is important to be fair and reasonable when discussing his faults, rather than hot-headed and stubborn about our views.
Former BBC Radio Sussex Fans’ Phone In host Ian Hart brilliantly outlined in his column for Sussex World this week some of the criticisms levelled at Hurzeler in the wake of defeat Fulham.
The piece included the lack of acknowledgement from the manager of the away end at full time. Harty wrote: “For Hurzeler not to properly acknowledge the travelling support, well that is unacceptable – let us hope Craven Cottage is the last time it happens.”
Legendary Albion fan Paul Samrah raised the point on the Fans’ Phone In post-Fulham. And I wholeheartedly agree. Hurzeler can do better there.
But some of the other topics spoken about over the airwaves I find myself less inclined to agree with. In particular, Warren Aspinall and his recent hobby horse that Hurzeler is working with the strongest ever Brighton squad.
I would say the one which qualified for Europe with a midfield pairing consisting of a World Cup winner and a future British transfer record holder was better.
And do not get ex-Albion boss Chris Cattlin started on how good the Brighton teams of the 1980s were, as I remember him furiously insisting in an interview with The Albion Roar a few years back.
Cattlin against Aspinall in a fiery debate over the best Albion squad of all time? Each to their own, as the saying goes.
At least on the Phone In and in discussions between fans on the terraces, there is a mutual discussion. A respectful back-and-forth. A sharing of views and a common ground to be found.
On social media, it just seems like a competition to be the most outraged. To be the person amongst Brighton fans who called it right all along when it comes to Hurzeler being out of his depth.
Football is of course a game of opinions. But the thing about opinions is they are not static or black and white. They are fluid, complex and and often contradictory. And if we are honest, often subsequently proven wrong. To some degree at least.
We can be disappointed the Albion have failed to take the chances that have arisen this (and last) season. Those missed opportunities could well once again cost us European football. At the same time, we can also accept things are going very well overall.
The club and Brighton fans can of course be ambitious and strive for higher standards, like Europe or even winning a major trophy. But we can also accept the Premier League is incredibly and increasingly competitive.
It is even possible the Albion finishing “merely” in mid table of the the top flight of English football is something to celebrate. Not the ultimate achievement we wanted, but a creditable one nonetheless.
The thing is, that sort of aforementioned modern football fan attitude is not necessarily typical. Those that carry it out are just very loud.
Permanently dissatisfied, theatrically certain, and absolutely convinced that the club owes them joy on demand. “This is a club that is in a different place now” they cry.
And that is right. The stadium we watch football in now has a roof to keep us dry for starters. Maybe the odd Withdean soaking would keep some of our more demanding fans feet on the ground? Those that actually attend matches, that is.
Harty also referenced in his column a Hurzeler in or out poll posted online in the aftermath of the Fulham defeat.
He wrote: “With nearly 30,000 regulars at Amex be they season ticket holders or match-by-match spectators, those 509 votes cast for Hurzeler out are less than two percent of the larger fan base. So is that really a true indication of the overall opinion of the Albion support?”
Whereas in the past 509 votes was nearly 10 percent of the Withdean crowd. Now in a world of global broadcasting deals and Brighton fans from Tokyo to South America, you have to increase the 30,000 Amex regulars tenfold to get a true indicator of the number of people with an interest in the club’s fortunes.
509 wanting Hurzeler to be sacked is a drop in the ocean. The people who tend to voice their opinions the loudest are often the most passionate rather than necessarily the most representative.
If Hurzeler succeeds, many will say it was inevitable and overdue. If he fails, they will say they called it all along.
Either way, the social media feed rolls on and the football continues to have the absolute nerve to not be exactly how a few people think it should be.
And with no voice to answer to, they get louder and more stubbornly polemic by the day.
Phil – The Tweeting Seagull @Tweetingseagull