By Seagull Griggo

Pascal Gross is turning out to be one of the Premier League bargains of the season.

His assist in today’s 1-1 draw with Southampton was his fifth of the season and puts him behind only Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva (six each) in that respect.

Throw in the fact that Gross has also scored two Premier League goals – one more than both De Bruyne and Silva – and that means he has been involved in seven of the ten goals Brighton have scored this season.

It also shows two more things: that Brighton’s recruitment team need a huge pat on the back and that some casual supporters need to take a look at the bigger picture rather than turning up and expecting the Seagulls to brush aside any side in their path.

Sami Hyypia’s reign as Brighton manager will always be remembered as a dark period in the club’s recent history. However, you also have to look at the recruitment hand he was dealt. Signings like Chris O’Grady, Joe Bennett, Danny Holla and Toko Nzuzi, to name just a few, just did not work out and that contributed to Hyypia’s failings.

The recruitment team has changed significantly since then and the signings over the last two-and-a-bit signings have been largely spot-on, most notably the capture of Anthony Knockaert in January 2016.

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Brighton’s first season in the Premier League was always going to be tough but the signings made for our return to the top-flight are all contributing to a good start to the season …. Mathew Ryan, Gross, Davy Propper, Jose Izquierdo and Markus Suttner among them.

Gross is arguably the pick of the bunch so far, although I believe Ryan and Propper are not far behind. Gross is not a player who does things in a match such as an electrifying burst of pace or a great piece of skill, but he does the most important thing: he creates and he scores goals.

His style of getting the job done through hard work, willing running and clever off-the-ball movement brings me on to my second point, in that there were a couple of casual supporters around me today, one of whom seemed aghast that we weren’t beating Southampton and vociferously labelled both Gross and Propper as ‘useless’.

It was laughable on two fronts: if you watch what Gross and Propper do and you understand football, then you will see exactly what those two players bring to the team; and that Brighton have absolutely no right to be beating Southampton.

The Saints are an established, experienced Premier League side and I was happy enough with a deserved point on a day when we were not at our best. A tally of 12 points from ten games and only two defeats in our last seven matches is a decent start for a team tipped to go straight back down.

Those casual fans expecting Brighton to win every home game should think again and criticism of players does not help the team, certainly when it is a player whose contribution in terms of assists and goals is up there with some of the best names in the Premier League.

@GriggoHome