Suttner Adapting Well To English Game

Brighton & Hove Albion defender Markus Suttner feels he is adapting well to the English game and is enjoying the battle for the left-back berth with Gaetan Bong.

Suttner feels he now has good overall experience of playing football in different countries, but believes he can still develop the attacking side of his game.  

He said, “I think the first weeks saw me adapting to the league and trying to improve, it’s a much different league to Germany and Austria but I feel as though I am improving all of the time.

“We have good competition on the left-hand side of the pitch between myself and Gaetan [Bong], and in the last few matches I feel as though I have done well.

“But I think I can improve of course – especially offensive – I’ve had a few assists and goals in previous seasons at previous clubs so hopefully they come soon.”

The Austrian was asked about his previous experience of battling relegation with Ingolstadt, but admits there few similarities to the situation this season with Albion.
 
“The situations are not comparable because we had a bad start at FC Ingolstadt 04. Here everything is possible, we are in the middle of a lot of teams who are close together.

“We can only focus on ourselves and our own performances, and then we can pick up the points we need.

“We don’t think about the bottom end of the table because we have good quality and enough games to make sure we have a good season.”

The defender reiterated Albion’s need to improve in their ability to deal with set-piece situations, and feels the side can take lessons from the 2-0 defeat to the Blues on Boxing Day.

“We have to be confident on the ball – we had a good period with the ball in the first half there and we can be confident in the final third.

“We remember how they scored both goals [on Boxing Day], and we have to be alert on our set-pieces this time around.

“We worked hard on those, after last weekend at West Brom. It may not look that way but we do a lot of work and pay a lot of attention to these types of situations.

“We want to change that, and I don’t think it’s a real weakness we just have to concentrate to make it better.”