Better shape, more incisive, less errors, more clinical. Barnsley huffing and puffing is no substitute for a bit more quality. Having said that the midfield in particular for me is not doing enough going forward and not reacting well enough defensively. Generally poor overall.
SKY commentator says the pressing style requires lots of running, and we can’t keep it up for ninety minutes. My question about a team of 20 odd year olds is,,,, WHY NOT??
Lack of quality is the problem, we get in good positions and constantly give the ball away, our corners are shocking everyone stood still no movement whatsoever. We're trying to polish too many turds at once, we desperately need a bit of quality adding to the team.
Liverpool can't do it for 90 mins, pressing game is slowly getting found out anyway. Long ball of the 90s, tika taka of the 2000s - teams find ways of playing against it and succeeding. Problem is we have no plan B.
If that's the best we've got, then i'm afraid we're in big trouble. Goalkeeper to blame for 2nd and 3rd (he could have got to the ball before the winger) Williams is not a footballer in anybody's world, Sibbick was ponderous and caught in possesion too many times, Cavare thinks he's Pele, when actually he's not as good as Pete from across the road. I thought Brown had gone off after 20 minutes, never got a mention. Just a shocking display by the Reds, fair play to Brentford, they deserved their win, sharper (after 20 minutes) used the ball well and made us look like a Sunday league side. Back to the drawing board.
A further concern is the impact of results/performances on the players confidence. I can see some individual skill which gives something to work with but if confidence gets shot the discipline and commitment will erode. If that happens....
Barnsley billionaire owners,get some money spent on quality or sell the club on, no point owning a football club to just go backwards every other season. Absolutely garbage
1. We are toothless up front. It is not only the poor quality of our shooting, on the odd occasion that we do shoot, but we seem to run out of ideas in the final third. 2. We constantly give the ball away in all areas of the field with casual, sloppy passing. 3. Our set pieces, especially corners, are woeful. 4. We are constantly torn apart on the break, due to pushing the line too far forward. One of their goals today was a combination of 3 and 4; i.e. the scored on the break from our corner.
Agree with those points. But these can be sorted with right tactics and training. My concern is that these points haven't suddenly come to light. Changes I would have expected by now in response to outcomes: 1. Play the game flexibly using aggressive press and simple closing down (deeper) in combination and in response to how the game is flowing. 2. Working on quick throws and developing a long thrower. The number of times we lose possession from our throws is frustrating. If the movement is right, a throw should never go directly to the opposition. 3. Putting someone tall in front of the keeper at every corner 4. The problem is more than having the defensive line too high, it's the response when its broken. As fast as you go forward you have to track back and cover wide opponents to cut out crosses. This should be drilled in training and be second nature by now. 5. More problematic for me is how we become more threatening up front with what we have - aeriel threat is non existent.
Agree Midfield was generally missing most of the game, but main reason for this was the tactics of both teams. For me biggest difference was going forward we were trying to move the ball on too quick and loosing possession. Appreciate its ‘our style’ but the team is just not good enough at the moment for this and Brentford showed how you get punished in this league. I thought at times we were also guilty of this last year, the difference being the teams we were playing weren’t good enough to punish us and we quickly won the ball back.
Aye, I agree with you about that. I thought Brentford just intercepted sloppy passes and interrupted sloppy play then counterattacked quite well. Our players weren't in good positions when they did that and we got exposed, especially by the left back position