Brighton 3-3 Wolves: Verdict Thread

[Johnny75]

I have to say also - there’s been a lot of talk of the blockers not working for the third goal - but there’s a limit to the amount of blocking you can do without it just being a penalty. He ran about 10 yards to get his head on the ball, you can’t block someone for ten yards.

my view is that Kilman went with the wrong man (Dunk is the danger for Brighton, not Webster), and we were very naive not to have anyone at all defending the back half of the goal.

I just thought we were really poorly set up for the goal.

Our set pieces in general have been very poorly conceived, set up and defended.

I thought complete man marking or zonal marking was not used anymore but we seem to be going full zonal which is suicidal.

Bar his goal yesterday Saiss had a very poor game, he was at fault for 2 goals, both crosses and that is something he should be very good at. With our lack of height in the squad we can’t afford a key set piece player to have a duff game defensively.

 

[Tony Towner]

I have to say also - there’s been a lot of talk of the blockers not working for the third goal - but there’s a limit to the amount of blocking you can do without it just being a penalty. He ran about 10 yards to get his head on the ball, you can’t block someone for ten yards.

my view is that Kilman went with the wrong man (Dunk is the danger for Brighton, not Webster), and we were very naive not to have anyone at all defending the back half of the goal.

I just thought we were really poorly set up for the goal.

You don't need to block for 10 yards, you need to stop that original run at the edge of the box for half a second, that's all it takes for him not to be there when the ball comes over.

 

[prawnking]

It’s now easy to say we should have had a more experienced replacement for Raul available, but in pre season the conversation was that it’s almost impossible to get someone as backup to Raul as he never got injured and had played almost every minute of the previous two seasons.

I think the 'it's impossible to get someone' is just something that was doing the rounds on here as an easy answer to transfer criticism. Certainly not my opinion.

You don't have to have a like for like, but at least someone decent and ready. We have those elsewhere in the squad for other players. Why would we not have it for our best and most important player?

 

[Johnny75]

You don't need to block for 10 yards, you need to stop that original run at the edge of the box for half a second, that's all it takes for him not to be there when the ball comes over.

You can’t do that with a deep cross, it spends too much time in the air where Dunk can pick his run. The block needs to be when he is jumping and that needs a free CB to make that challenge.

 

[Tony Towner]

You can’t do that with a deep cross, it spends too much time in the air where Dunk can pick his run. The block needs to be when he is jumping and that needs a free CB to make that challenge.

If that's the case then we are going to continue to be screwed by that big thundering run, so need to at least pick up their biggest couple of threats man to man

 

[Johnny75]

I think the 'it's impossible to get someone' is just something that was doing the rounds on here as an easy answer to transfer criticism. Certainly not my opinion.

You don't have to have a like for like, but at least someone decent and ready. We have those elsewhere in the squad for other players. Why would we not have it for our best and most important player?

It is extremely difficult to buy players at PL level of sufficient quality, let alone to be back up.

That’s a fact otherwise everybody would do it. As far as I can tell there’s only 4 (Liverpool, Spurs, Chelsea, Utd) teams that have that option. Everybody else has a marked drop off in quality after their top striker goes and in some cases no backup at all.

 

[PuntsWolf]

You don't need to block for 10 yards, you need to stop that original run at the edge of the box for half a second, that's all it takes for him not to be there when the ball comes over.

And lose momentum so it’s basically two standing jumps. Even if the Attacker wins it it’s difficult to direct with any conviction and actually score. Odds are in the slim chance he does win it, it goes over, wide or slowly towards goal for the keeper to deal with.

 

[prawnking]

It is extremely difficult to buy players at PL level of sufficient quality, let alone to be back up.

That’s a fact otherwise everybody would do it. As far as I can tell there’s only 4 (Liverpool, Spurs, Chelsea, Utd) teams that have that option. Everybody else has a marked drop off in quality after their top striker goes and in some cases no backup at all.

In a multi-million pound sports industry lots of things are going to be difficult.

I accept building a quality squad takes time, we had pretty much no replacement for Doc when he was here, and we're pretty screwed if Rui is out for any length of time too.

But I'm happy for a marked drop off in quality compared to what we have now, which is a lad who looks completely unready for this role and out of his depth (as much as I support him).

The thing you're saying is almost impossible to do is exactly the thing we're being forced to do from a position of desperation this month

 

[Tony Towner]

It is extremely difficult to buy players at PL level of sufficient quality, let alone to be back up.

That’s a fact otherwise everybody would do it. As far as I can tell there’s only 4 (Liverpool, Spurs, Chelsea, Utd) teams that have that option. Everybody else has a marked drop off in quality after their top striker goes and in some cases no backup at all.

I think it all depends on what level of drop off you are prepared to accept and how much you are prepared to pay. Going to an extreme would a Charlie Austin/Robson Kanu/insert another over the hill journeyman who you hope will never play, be better than where we are currently at with Fabio?

 

[Del Woppio]

It didn't need to be a back up - jota wasn't a back up, but somebody capable of playing multiple positions, wide or centrally. We had a zero net spend in the summer, and we've left ourselves short, ultimately.

 

[PuntsWolf]

It is extremely difficult to buy players at PL level of sufficient quality, let alone to be back up.

That’s a fact otherwise everybody would do it. As far as I can tell there’s only 4 (Liverpool, Spurs, Chelsea, Utd) teams that have that option. Everybody else has a marked drop off in quality after their top striker goes and in some cases no backup at all.

But define “sufficient quality”.

I think it all depends on what level of drop off you are prepared to accept and how much you are prepared to pay. Going to an extreme would a Charlie Austin/Robson Kanu/insert another over the hill journeyman who you hope will never play, be better than where we are currently at with Fabio?

As I’m posting you’ve beat me to it again TT. At the moment Fabio is not the answer. DW will keep telling me Nelson Oliviera isn’t very good. But he’s a player in the similar mould to Raul who was cheap and available (financial elements are largely irrelevant when you’re spending £35m on an entirely unproven 18 year old). He would at least allow the rest of the team to function without us looking like we’re carrying an 18 year old.

 

[prawnking]

I think it could easily be levelled as a flaw of the 'potential' focus of our transfer strategy.

Resources (not just financial) go on players for two or three seasons hence, and we can easily come up short in the here and now

 

[Charlie Wolf]

I agree that the champions will end up with a lower total than normal. The last 3 seasons the champions have ended up with a crazy total. However, you arent going to need 44 points or more to stay up. There is some absolute rubbish down there. I'd be amazed if Sheffield United and Albion got 44 points between them

It’s a fair point on Sheffield Utd and the Albion, and agree there’s still some rubbish, my fear is who will fill the third relegation spot?

Fulham, Burnley Brighton et al.? All are capable of putting a run together of 3 or 4 wins and scratching 40 points then all of a sudden we’re looking over our shoulder.

Just think it’s a mad season

 

[redvictor]

A bit better balance to here this morning! Pretty much all valid points from everyone. I do we think we have had some shit luck in at least 3 of the last games. Not things like the penalty or the corner last night. I mean rub of the green shit luck. Just times when you win the ball back and the ball just runs away from us to one of their players. That has happened a lot turning a possible attack to nothing, or a good piece of defending to nothing. Adding it in to the mix of all the other things we all know has/is happening it makes a perfect storm against us.
Nuno getting his head right would help, 1 striker of quality would make a huge difference, along with the return of our first choice players would turn it around i'm sure of it.

 

[Parkins left foot]

Knew I made the right decision to go and watch 'Get Carter' instead of remaining on here

Somewhat bleak film but no more than I expected this to descend into.

Ye 1st half we got a bit lucky, but were in control - yes Moutinho made a mistake to let them back into the game seconds into the 2nd, get the feeling that we are asking too much of him in game time in quick succession due to the lack of options.
Compounded then by the wrong subs which is down to Nuno, but listening to him he seems to indicate that he knows that.

We performed well the last 2 seasons as we had a settled consistent system and few injuries - we are trying to evolve and maybe needed to though possibly have accelerated that too quickly & compounded by the loss of a significant number of the more experienced players & are having to rely on the kids. Realistically there are only a couple of PL clubs that have the depth to cover that.

 

[PuntsWolf]

The argument for going with Fabio Silva as sole back up was dependent on him having the ability contribute, whether that he for 15 mins in a game or from the start as a one off.

From his early substitute appearances he didn’t look ready. But then when he’s thrust in he has a really good 60 mins against Arsenal. But that has definitely been the exception.

Im not sure how posters on here knew/felt comfortable that he was good enough when there was literally no evidence to go off as he’s played such little first team football. Would appear so far that the trust/confidence was misplaced.

 

[Charlie Wolf]

Can I just raise a lighthearted moment from last night that was bloody frustrating at the time and summed us up

We conceded a corner in injury time and dealt with it quite well, I think it was Neto and RAN who brought the ball away and both had a brain fart and left the fucking ball behind ...just inside our box.....FAAARRRK! was the language, as the Brighton player picked up the loose ball which we managed to scramble away

I do see the funny side now as it looked like a scene from a Keystone Cops movie at the time, but in a wider and more frustrating context these are the individual errors that we are making regularly at the moment

My heart can’t take much more

 

[exfan]

A bit better balance to here this morning! Pretty much all valid points from everyone. I do we think we have had some shit luck in at least 3 of the last games. Not things like the penalty or the corner last night. I mean rub of the green shit luck. Just times when you win the ball back and the ball just runs away from us to one of their players. That has happened a lot turning a possible attack to nothing, or a good piece of defending to nothing. Adding it in to the mix of all the other things we all know has/is happening it makes a perfect storm against us.
Nuno getting his head right would help, 1 striker of quality would make a huge difference, along with the return of our first choice players would turn it around i'm sure of it.

I think there is a lot of truth in this. I do however think that we need more than just a striker, we need players who are more attack minded, You can not change players whose first thought is safety first into players who are attack minded. Our whole outlook till now has been not to get beat and try to win on the break to change this will need different players or mindset

 

[prawnking]

I think there is a lot of truth in this. I do however think that we need more than just a striker, we need players who are more attack minded, You can not change players whose first thought is safety first into players who are attack minded. Our whole outlook till now has been not to get beat and try to win on the break to change this will need different players or mindset

I think the safety first element is more of a Nuno thing than an individual player thing.

I think there's lots of mixed messages and confusion this season.

We want to dominate matches more so we buy a bunch of talented fledglings just learning their craft? I'd have thought a big money midfield signing would have been first priority?

But we're still playing Neves and Moutinho, or at best trying to crowbar Donk in there

 

[sycophantia]

I think there is a lot of truth in this. I do however think that we need more than just a striker, we need players who are more attack minded, You can not change players whose first thought is safety first into players who are attack minded. Our whole outlook till now has been not to get beat and try to win on the break to change this will need different players or mindset

think this is a good point. I know a few on here hate the 'Neves and Moutinho can't play together' mantra but I think its valid if we're trying to be a more attack minded team and rely less on a counter attack style.