Bruno always kept faith - playing for his best manager and that exotic 4-4-2

Bruno rates Hughton the best boss he has played for in many respects, including a calming influence and the ability to crack the whip when needed. Now he wants the Seagulls to put that to good use at the top end of the Championship.

Albion host Reading and Newcastle over the next five days.

Corresponding away fixtures were part of a three-game slide which cast doubt over their play-off or promotion hopes in early season. A draw at Reading, who themselves got off to a rather stuttering start, was followed by defeat at Newcastle.

When the Seagulls returned from the first international break and lost at home to Brentford, they were 13th in the still early league table.

Albion drew at Reading early in the season

They were eight points adrift of Huddersfield and behind teams including QPR, Nottingham Forest, Birmingham and Bristol City. Early days and all that but we were into mid-September and their current heights seemed a long way off.

For Bruno, though, that early season dip into mid-table was nothing to be alarmed about. He preferred to have a look around him and see a high-flying squad from last season which had been retained and bolstered.

The run-in will not be easy – Huddersfield’s recent surge has seen to that – but Bruno believes his early assessment has been proved correct.

He told the Argus: “With league tables, it’s not just the position, it’s also the distance.

“We obsess about where you are in the table but maybe you are 14th and two points off the play-offs.

“As for the general dynamic of the team back then, we knew how strong we could be and we knew our qualities. We knew if we did the job properly, all the parts, we would be fighting in the high positions.

“We had two defeats but it was so close. We had new players. Everything was just starting and we knew that, when everything was working, we would be up there.”

Bruno has called on experienced players to have input over the coming, potentially tense, weeks.

No one is more experienced than the former Valencia and Almeria full-back.

But life at the Amex in the last two years has been an eye-opener even for him, playing for his first English-type manager and getting used to a system we all think is second nature – good old-fashioned 4-4-2.

Hughton, pictured, is a former Republic of Ireland international but he was born, raised, educated and shaped in England and English football.

Bruno said: “Chris is my first English manager and he has his way of doing things.

“You try to pick up good things from everyone. From Chris it is how he makes the group tick, how everything is so smooth.

“When he has to be serious he can take decisions. He can always find the right way to do things.”

Previously Bruno had played for foreign head coaches and he can see the contrast.

He said: “Chris is maybe my best manager because of the way he manages everything and the way he talks to us.

“You learn a lot from him. He does more. He is on top of everything.

“It’s not just tactics, it’s personalities and players. Every player is different.

“Tactically I haven’t played in a set-up like this before but it works, especially in England.

“In Spain you normally play 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3. With Gus (Poyet) it was 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 but sometimes it depends on the players you have available. “When you have the ball you play one system, without the ball you play another.”

Mark Tomasso (Brighton Wickes store manager), Bruno and Jason Crouch (team manager) with the Kits For Kids winners from Eastbourne Town under-eights

Bruno cites Unai Emery, at Almeria and Valencia, as a big influence on his career. But he works closely with Hughton as skipper.

He said: “I have to be there with the boys and a few staff at club things. I’m enjoying it.

“Especially the experienced players try to help. Not because you know more but because you went through these things before.

“In this group we are quite happy to help and give our opinions in the right way. When you speak up about something, it is because you care about the group.”

Bruno was speaking during a special day at Albion’s training ground in Lancing for Eastbourne Town under-eights.

As winners of the Kits For Kids competition run by the EFL and Wickes, they won a full team kit as well as a tour of the training ground and a chance to meet and quiz Bruno.

That all happened one afternoon, after the rest of the first team squad had gone home from training.

As a father of two, the skipper enjoyed fielding the questions. It was all very light-hearted – but also, to those adults listening in, offered a serious reminder of the experience Albion have at their disposal.

He doesn’t go out of his way to drop names but, when asked about famous team-mates of the past, he can tell kids he played alongside David Silva, David Villa and Juan Mata.

And he can offer a good answer when asked by a wide-eyed eight-year-old whether he played against Lionel Messi. Bruno replied: “Yes. I was told ‘You are going to play left-back and you are going to mark him’. I said ‘Thank you, it’s going to be a lovely night for me’.

“But I was lucky. It was the first game after the international break and he was tired. He had come back from Argentina and we got a draw.”

How about Cristiano Ronaldo?

“Yes, very good, very strong.”

Bruno and family are well settled in Hove

Bruno is under contract only until the end of the season and does not profess to be looking further into the future.

Four-and-a-half years after nervously coaxing four-year-old son Pol into the first day at a foreign school where he did not understand a word, Bruno and wife Raquel are very settled in Hove.

Pol and younger sister Adriana know nothing else and Bruno has learned about rugby and cricket thanks to his son’s school matches.

Bruno did not hesitate in signing a new contract soon after last May’s play-off heartbreak even though The Argus understands there was the chance of a more lucrative deal in the Middle East.

So a decision over any new deal does not have to be all about money.

He said: “As a child, I moved with family quite often.

“I came here for two years and I have been here for five years. I was thinking about it the other day and I think it is the longest time I have ever lived anywhere.

“My children love it in Brighton. My family and my wife’s family are back in Barcelona and we miss them as well. We are thinking about staying but in football you never know.”