Brighton star March explains the good habits that have the Seagulls flying high
Solly March began the long haul to No.1 at the Dripping Pan next to an ancient monastery, and now he's looking for an abbey ever after with Brighton.
According to Sussex legend, non-League Lewes – where the Seagulls winger made his debut in senior football – play on a site where monks from the priory next door used to pan for salt.
Brighton snapped him up as a 17-year-old, and last season was March's best yet for good habits – eight goals, eight assists.
After three goals in two games, which have helped to catapult Albion to the top of the embryonic Premier League table, he's on friar again.
Brighton take on West Ham on Saturday with genuine hope of going into the first international break at the summit – an astonishing feat for a club who came within a whisker of being relegated out of the League 26 years ago.
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And it defies logic when Albion have sold players worth in excess of £400 million – half of it stumped up by Chelsea, including Britain's richest transfer Moises Caicedo – in the last two years.
But firebrand head coach Roberto De Zerbi's exotic rebuild since replacing Graham Potter has been a revelation and March, now serving under his sixth manager at the Amex, admits the Italian has changed the way he thinks about football.
“Before him it was a little bit more basic, but he's got so many ideas and so many ways of playing,” said Brighton's second longest-serving player behind skipper Lewis Dunk.
“He believes there is always a way to beat a team - and if we don't, he shows us why, if we weren't in the right positions or we weren't making the right pass. He truly believes that we should win every game if we do things right.
The wide man has developed a taste for goals of late (MI News/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock)“At first on the (training) pitch it was slower, looking at positions, where you're meant to be and where you're not meant to be. And there were lots of meetings, having a big screen up and showing us movements in all those little details.
“The standards he sets for himself and his ambitions are so high. At first we thought, 'Wow, this guy's is a bit intense'. But everyone loves it now and buys into it and agrees with it.”
Albion average 62 per cent possession and top the xG table – whatever that means - under De Zerbi. For a local boy brought up in Seagulls heartlands, March is having the time of his life.
“It's so much more fun when you have the ball instead of chasing it,” said March, now 29. “It makes you feel so much less tired.
Roberto De Zerbi has been superb at Brighton (MI News/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock)“I’ve got a lot of friends and family friends who are Brighton fans. To see where the club has been and where it is now, it does make it a little bit extra special.
“It's the same for Dunky as well - it’s sort of in our blood and we have a lot of feelings for the club.
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“Playing in the Premier League, scoring goals, Europe – it doesn't get much better, does it?
“Before I wasn't getting in the six yard box, I wasn't making the runs in behind. But if you're getting in those positions you're going to have chances from six or seven yards out and the majority of the time you will score them. That is the main difference for me.
“The standards keep going up and you have to keep growing with them, make yourself better.”
Next week, Brighton will discover the hand they have been dealt for their maiden excursion into Europe – and our friends on the continent will discover these Seagulls don't nick your chips on the promenade, they just win football matches.
This time last year, when Potter was still in charge, March insisted Brighton were going to aim high but “we've got to be realistic – we're never going to get in the Champions League.”
De Zerbi has recalibrated the club's sense of ambition in fewer than 12 months. “The gaffer has changed the mentality massively,” said March. “We go into any game genuinely believing we can win it, instead of maybe hoping or hoping we can nick a draw away at bigger teams. How does the manager do that? It's hard to explain. It’s just believing in each other and believing in yourselves.”
March could soon earn an England call up (MI News/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock)Sooner or later, Gareth Southgate will notice March's consistency and improved end product but, for the Three Lions coach, Solly seems to be the hardest word.
And for the boy who started out at the Dripping Pan in the friars' back yard, two emphatic 4-1 wins to start the season may be much ado abbot nothing – but Brighton and Hove Albion are in danger of becoming every neutral's guilty pleasure.
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