| First hour good, last half hour bad. 08:45 - Jan 17 with 1668 views | itfcjoe |
Struggled to get into the game for the first 20 minutes but whilst they had all the ball we kept them pretty easily at arms length and by half time had easily become the more dangerous team in the game.
3 presentable chances with the Broadhead, Delap and Omari shots....Burns away 3-4 times down the right and putting good balls into the box with no luck (or Chaplin/Szmodics to sniff one out) and generally were causing them problems.
You could see they tweaked it a bit at half time and Joao Pedro (boooooo) was tasked to drop in deep and drag Woolfie around so that we couldn't settle defensively and that's an assignment he struggled with physically as gave Pedro room to run off him.
First goal a frustration, we were messing about in the corner with the ball, Cajuste turning back into trouble when it had to go and reset and ended up giving away the throw (was it btw? not checked) and then Greaves doesn't quite make the clearance and the ball goes through Walton (who may still have been dazed).
But from then on they totally suffocated us, and we just could not play out through the press at all, and if we tried to go long it came straight back. Was really impressive from them but it killed us. Delap was on a yellow and being careful, Omari looked knackered and Broadhead just drifted so far out of the game which isn't unusual.
With O'Shea at RB, as good a defender as he is, he isn't going to help you play through the press - could maybe have put Godfrey or Johnson on for Woolf and switched O'Shea to centre as felt he'd have dealt with Pedro better and it would have offered us more on the ball
Overall I think the last half hour will cloud the judgement and make it out to be a poor performance, when for the first hour it wasn't at all. We'd totally limited them and looked dangerous - but when we go behind it's hard to get back in to it currently.
A few random thoughts in no particular order
- GK. It was worrying how Walton looked in short passing game, and at set pieces they were all over him and he didn't get near any. For me overall he's a downgrade from Muric, but if people don't want Muric, do we need to go to the market?
- Phillips. Just not sure he does enough to disrupt and subsequently dictate things. Am desperate for him to find old self but don't think he will.
- Ref. Same one at Forest away, consistent but lets way too much go for us as we can't compete with these established PL sides without a bit of help. Webster should have been booked early for foul on Omari, Veltman should have been booked earlier, it changes the game if they are on yellows when Delap is rampaging at them as they can't commit like they continued to. Not a biased ref, but one who doesn't suit us.
- Subs. Not quite sure we got them right, don't understand why we put Taylor into 10 first rather than just getting Clarke on and then felt last 2 were a bit late. |  |
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| Agree with all that except Muric on 08:51 - Jan 17 with 1596 views | Dyland |
Walton didn't have his best game lasrt night but his distribution this season has been better. Muric is seriously good when reacting and saving or dealing with balls into the box, but given time to think when he has the ball he's awful. I'm not just saying that to be a tvat, he really is slow and even then makes silly decisions. It's a conundrum.
Agree re Phillips... it just ain't gonna happen, is it? Maybe he's still getting up to speed but man it feels like a slooow journey. |  |
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| First hour good, last half hour bad. on 08:55 - Jan 17 with 1560 views | nodge_blue |
What worries me is how bad we consistently are at getting possession and retaining it. We seem unable to play through decent presses and struggle to get it back. Though the low block probably doesn’t help. Until we can just be in the game more I fear we will struggle.
Second half we were barely getting out of our own half. It was a really painful watch.
I said in another thread I’m really feeling we have paid a lot of money now for tiny upgrades. We would have been better getting two fifty million quid players. I’m sure last years team plus delap would be sitting on roughly the same points. |  |
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| Agree with all that except Muric on 09:01 - Jan 17 with 1492 views | Mercian |
| Agree with all that except Muric on 08:51 - Jan 17 by Dyland |
Walton didn't have his best game lasrt night but his distribution this season has been better. Muric is seriously good when reacting and saving or dealing with balls into the box, but given time to think when he has the ball he's awful. I'm not just saying that to be a tvat, he really is slow and even then makes silly decisions. It's a conundrum.
Agree re Phillips... it just ain't gonna happen, is it? Maybe he's still getting up to speed but man it feels like a slooow journey. |
Dealing with balls in the box is more important than good distribution. In The Championship you have Dwight Gayle and Ashley Barnes against the keeper so mistakes can be made. In The Prem Halaand or Isak are lurking. They are not so forgiving. [Post edited 17 Jan 9:02]
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| First hour good, last half hour bad. on 09:06 - Jan 17 with 1436 views | portmanking |
Phillips is finished at this level. That's the main takeaway for me. Last night was his chance to stake a claim for Morsy's starting berth and he couldn't have looked any more disinterested. To me, it looks like he's lost the fire in the belly and, although those Football Insider reports on his fitness were inflammatory, you have to say there may be something in them since he just doesn't cover the pitch anywhere near well enough.
If there's a break clause and we can buy Ben Sheaf instead, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Although I know Sheaf is currently sidelined for some time which probably puts paid to that one. [Post edited 17 Jan 9:07]
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| First hour good, last half hour bad. on 09:10 - Jan 17 with 1387 views | Steve_M |
Yes, pretty much how I saw it too. A really bad first goal when there wasn't much int he game and then Brighton were very good at shutting the game down. The lack of options to replace Omari & Broadhead was pretty telling too, thought the former looked rusty but not totally surprising.
Walton has been good in the other games he has played but really wasnt last night. Not sure if their first goal nicked off Leif's foot too, only seen it on a phone and it looked like it might have done.
The biggest concern for me was how much we looked like it was all over at 1-0, yes Brighton were good, but the lack of belief we could get back into the game was palpable. Going to be an effort to get back up again for Sunday but we need to. |  |
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| First hour good, last half hour bad. on 09:40 - Jan 17 with 1226 views | oldbeardy |
Good summary. While there are some downsides to his game, I also felt we missed Morsy's ability to be available to take the ball, get by his marker and play a positive ball to get us going forward (or at least into space). Without that we couldn't manage the press or get any momentum. Phillips doesn't do that. Admittedly didn't see a huge amount of that when he, Morsy, did come on but by then we looked deflated. The poor first goal completely changed things of course and our game plan was then out of the window. Although we did create some good situations with Burns, we continue to struggle to turn them into proper goal scoring opportunities. In some ways that is the biggest frustration. The decent PL teams do better - but then they have been able to build over several seasons at this level. | | | |
| First hour good, last half hour bad. on 09:47 - Jan 17 with 1162 views | RobTheMonk |
Burns was our best attacking outlet. We lost his direct running when he went off.
Hutch is a 95% excellent player, but lets himself down with that final ball at times.
I'm fast forwarding to the summer here, but regardless of which division we're in, we're going to need a complete midfield revamp. |  | | |
| Agreed (n/t) on 09:56 - Jan 17 with 1103 views | Dyland |
| Agree with all that except Muric on 09:01 - Jan 17 by Mercian |
Dealing with balls in the box is more important than good distribution. In The Championship you have Dwight Gayle and Ashley Barnes against the keeper so mistakes can be made. In The Prem Halaand or Isak are lurking. They are not so forgiving. [Post edited 17 Jan 9:02]
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| First hour good, last half hour bad. on 10:02 - Jan 17 with 1073 views | pointofblue |
I was surprised he didn't take Woolfenden off for Godfrey when we switched to a back four. He hadn't had a bad game up to that point but looks more comfortable in a three. Though it's not entirely fair to say he was an issue from 1-0 onwards as I don't think anyone came out with any credit from that point. | |
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| First hour good, last half hour bad. on 10:05 - Jan 17 with 1035 views | The_Flashing_Smile |
Agree on everything but especially Phillips. I'd send him back (if we could) and free up that squad place for someone else. He's alright... but you'd want a bit more than "alright".
With the keeper I'm undecided. It's only one iffy game from Walton so I think you stick with him. I take your points on Muric but you just can't ignore those ricks... and if he came back in and made more, then where do you go? I'm not sure we have the FFP wriggle room to get a top class keeper AND striker, and I think we need the striker more. |  |
| Trust the process. Trust Phil. |
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| First hour good, last half hour bad. on 10:11 - Jan 17 with 993 views | ZapatasMoustache |
| First hour good, last half hour bad. on 09:47 - Jan 17 by RobTheMonk |
Burns was our best attacking outlet. We lost his direct running when he went off.
Hutch is a 95% excellent player, but lets himself down with that final ball at times.
I'm fast forwarding to the summer here, but regardless of which division we're in, we're going to need a complete midfield revamp. |
Burns was consistently getting in great positions free of his marker and made some good direct runs, but his final ball was generally miles away from our attackers in the box - partly that's because (as someone else pointed out) we don't have a Chaplin lurking on the D. He needs to pick people out though. Separately there was also a really frustrating moment when Davis hit a good free kick (his previous one was dreadful), O'Shea put a perfect header back across the box, and there was literally nobody within five yards of the penalty spot. We're not making enough chances to be this wasteful of the opportunities we do get. |  | | |
| First hour good, last half hour bad. on 12:05 - Jan 17 with 842 views | LankHenners |
If the game had kept going as it was at the hour mark and petered out to a 0-0 I think both teams would have said fair enough but as has been said the really disappointing thing was how our confidence/belief completely dropped once the first goal went in. Plus it seemed to give them a shot in the arm and it was a non-contest from thereon.
Think the GK debate has been done but fwiw the main issue with Walton last night is that his kicking is just not up to scratch. Compare to Verbruggen who was much more assured and able to knock the ball over our midfield into spaces from someone like Pedro to get on and get them going. Walton on the other hand as you say looked uncomfortable with them pressing so high for the short ball, and doesn't have the quality for those chipped measured balls so going long just meant whacking it up to their backline for Delap or Burns to try and make a nuisance of which more often than not didn't happen.
Phillips always looks like he needs a proper run of starts but is he going to get that? Unlikely.
Broadhead's a funny one for me - has a dedicated fan club on here and can do some lovely things with the ball but there's a reason we brought in two players (now three) for his position. Just doesn't do enough off the ball for me - too slow and gets breezed past too easily and as you say when the going gets tough can just disappear from proceedings completely.
On the whole, and it's been said many times, for us to get a positive result against good Prem teams (which is all of them let's be honest), everyone pretty much needs to be on an 8/10, with our main danger men on a 9 and properly involved. When that doesn't happen we're always likely to find it tough and that happened last night.
Our 'new' set up works well up to a point but and is ideal when we go ahead but the balance isn't quite there for us to cause more of a sustained threat. Think it's the right way to go and just have to hope we can get the first goal in games or that we can wrestle more control against teams who aren't as capable as Brighton. Reckon the table will still look about the same after the next two matches so hopefully by then we'll have a a couple more recruits and can really go again from the Southampton game onwards. |  |
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