Blue is still the colour – albeit with white stripes – but now Brighton & Hove Albion is the name. The example of two of his former Chelsea team-mates helped Gustavo Poyet, named on Monday as the new manager of Brighton, to decide that he was ready for his first managerial post.

“When I left my last job as assistant manager at Spurs, I made a decision to become a manager,” Poyet said. “And I knew it was time when I went to watch two friends from Chelsea, Gianfranco Zola [the manager of West Ham United] and Roberto Di Matteo [of West Bromwich Albion], taking training.”

Poyet, the former Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and Uruguay midfield player, had previously been assistant to Dennis Wise at Swindon Town and Leeds United and Juande Ramos at Tottenham, and is in the process of completing his Uefa Pro Licence. He has signed a contract with the League One club until the end of the 2010-11 season and will be assisted by Mauricio Taricco, his former team-mate at White Hart Lane

“I think it was a good decision to be an assistant first, to see the inside of the job, and Dennis and Juande were complete opposites,” Poyet said. “But I want to make decisions, have my team play my way, and – if possible – enjoy winning. I didn’t apply for every job. I need to have a good feeling, and I think this is the perfect place to start.”

But as starts go, his could not be more challenging. He will celebrate his 42nd birthday on Sunday by taking charge of his new team for the first time away to Southampton, with Leeds United, Norwich City and Charlton Athletic the next league opponents for a team that has conceded 11 goals in its past four matches and is outside the bottom four only on goal difference.

“It’s a difficult start, but the thing I miss about playing is the games against top teams, so I’ll be more than happy to manage the team in those games,” he said. “It looks like everyone knows what the problem is. I need to make an impact, and although we might get one or two loan players, we’ve got to accept that we’re playing in this division with these players.

“Football is simpler than some managers try to make it. You play with one football. If you have it, it’s a little bit easier. But it’s too easy to say you’re going to play fantastic football and then have to play a different way.”

Poyet becomes the twelfth full-time Brighton manager since the club left the Goldstone Ground in 1997, and his contract takes him up to the opening of their new stadium at Falmer in August 2011, when the club hope to be celebrating promotion back to the Coca-Cola Championship. Tony Bloom, the Brighton chairman, said that too much should not be read into the finishing date of the contract, and that he hoped Poyet would be at the club a lot longer.

“Everything I’ve done as a player and assistant has been about winning games, so this is another challenge – to get the team where everyone at Brighton wants it to be,” Poyet said. “I have to accept that responsibility. That’s the goal of the club and I agree with it. The club and the city wants to go places and I want to be part of it.”