Potter reflects on Austria so far

The Seagulls will conclude their six days abroad with a game against FC Liefering on Saturday afternoon, and the new boss reviewed both the trip as a whole and his impressions of his new group of players. 

He said, “We had a good travel day on Sunday and then the boys trained well on Monday, the first day was about settling in.

"We had a big day on Tuesday and went out for a meal, there was some singing and karaoke too and it was good for the lads just to enjoy each other's company.

"It's a really important part of the season for that, fundamentally they are a good group, they all want to play - you can sense that. The process now is to understand them all as best we can. 

"We are trying to properly assess the group, but it's been really positive. They work really well, try their best every day.

"They are an honest bunch of lads and I really enjoy working with them, their application in training has been really good. We will get into things more and more as the week goes on, but it's been positive."

Potter also spoke about the attacking options he has at his disposal ahead of the new campaign, and he highlighted the importance of giving everyone a chance as preparations for the new season continue to take shape over the coming weeks.

"There's Glenn Murray, Florin Andone, Jurgen Locadia, Alireza Jahanbakhsh, and some young guys coming up, Aaron Connolly and Jan Mlakaar have been with the group so far too,” he continued.

"There are guys there with quality that maybe want to take the next step, it would be fair to say probably haven't shown all that they can yet and so you need to assess where they are at and why haven't they quite done what they would like to have done.

"Only when you have those answers can you say we need to do this or we need to do that, I think as a coach you have to think that there is more to come from those here and that's how I've always worked.

"Sometimes the easy solution is you look elsewhere but just spending money doesn't guarantee you are going to improve or get better, I think the first point of call is to try to help them improve and take a step forward.”