Pep Guardiola’s men lie in wait for the Seagulls today in the team’s fourth Premier League game of the campaign, and the midfielder emphasised the importance of having confidence ahead of the contest.
He said, “You have to believe, we know how tough it will be, but we’ve been doing a lot of work this week.
“We have a clear plan and we see it as a good opportunity to test ourselves, we’ve spent a lot of time preparing for how we want to play.
“When you’re still getting that message every single day throughout the season, then of course it creates a mentality of wanting to take those ideas on board.
“The high press and that sort of style is what we all want to do, it presents us with more opportunities to win the ball back off the opposition.”
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Graham Potter’s men have four points on the board from their opening three league matches so far this term, and Stephens reflected on the side’s fortunes – he believes the team deserve more given their performances to date.
“We’ll approach it in a way where we want to go and put on a performance. It will be a tough test but one we’ll learn from either way,” he continued.
“We want an encouraging result – we know how hard it will be, but we have a plan in place where we want to go and win the game.
“I think our performances so far this year have deserved more than we’ve got, for sure – circumstances in games obviously change though which always alters things, but performance-wise I’d say we deserve more than we’ve got on the board so far."
Stephens also spoke about the change in style that the team have adopted under the new head coach, speaking about his relationship with Davy Propper in the centre of the field and how both their respective roles have altered as a result.
“The style has changed so far this year, and everyone can see that, different managers have different ideas they want to get across which involves different roles for different players.
“This season I’m playing in a flat midfield two, which means both myself and Davy do the same amount of work in either direction on the field.
“That’s helped me going forward because we press teams higher up, you have to be braver to do that because at times it might leave the defenders exposed a little bit more.
“We want to be brave and go and win games, so that’s the style of play we need to adopt."