by Brum Royal »
06 Jan 2014 10:27
Hopefully not too much repetition here but a few thoughts from me.
1. Very similar to the Forest game, we come up against a side who pass the ball and they cut us to shreds. Brighton got in between our midfield 4 and back 4 too often and had time and space to pick passes through us, combined with a faster paced passing game at times to manouevre our players out of the way to create space for them to play in. We try to pass the ball, knock in round the back four a couple of times, panic, then lump it in the vague vicinity of a forward (ALF mostly on Saturday) and expect him to chase it down, control it, beat four players and score all whilst being man marked by big units of defenders. The weather may not have helped out pretty football, but Brighton still passed it round well and made a mockery of us.
2. Linked to the above. We lack any real protection for the back four. There's no one sitting in between the midfield and defence to break up the opposition attacks, like Ledge used to do in the Championship season. Brighton got their tricky players in behind the midfield and running at the back four on far too many occasions.
3. When we do try and pass the ball, we do it far too slowly, and there never really seems to be many options for the man on the ball to pass to (which also slows the moves down). This is even more evident at throw ins where there basically only ever seems to be one option for the thrower to chuck it to. The one occasion in the first half we worked the ball from back to front we did so with pace and energy and we got it from box to box.
4. There is no width to the team. The two wide midfielders cut inside too often, relying on the full backs to provide the width. When Gunter is playing fullback the right side kind of works, but we don't have an equivalent on the left wing at the moment, as Kelly is too defensive minded. If you look back at the successful seasons we've had great full back and winger combinations, and we've got at teams and put lots of crosses into the box and provided service for the forwards. This team just doesn't do that, until we start to chase the game in the last 15-20 mins. Again on Saturday, we only really had width when Drenthe came on to the right wing and worked well with Gunter, but more so on the left wing where Obita looked really good at left full back at put some good crosses in and combined well with Williams.
5. I like the fact that Brighton open up their North Stand concourse (home end) after the game and anyone is welcome in there. We were meeting some Brighton supporting friends after the game and were able to go in there for a drink and a chat whilst waiting for the traffic to die down.
