Brentford (H) | Post-Match Thread

nellyonthewing said:
The height of our Season was half time against the rags. Today was the low. We need to come back strong after the WC or fall away..
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I think the World Cup has a lot to do with this, I could be wrong but I think we have more players going than any other PL club. What bothers me more is the burn out after the tournament. Ally to that the fact that our title contenders, Arsenal, have no CL in the latter part of the season, this league has suddenly got more difficult.
 
Big Jonjo said:
Awful performance and result today, not the first bad performance/result under Peps reign and I'm sure it won't be the last. Peps record with City however is pretty impressive. I like many of you get frustrated with Pep in certain games, especially ones like today and Champions League final etc., but let's not forget that we have the best manager in world football, guiding us to our most successful period in our history. Games like today and to be fair a number of other games this season highlight some frailties in our squad, however previous squads have not been without fault and those seasons haven't turned out too badly. I can understand fans frustrations and I too was very frustrated watching that and watching Pep do nothing to change it, however, every season has blips like these...it's time to stand behind the team and give Pep and the boys our full support for the second half of the season.
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I don't think we have frailties in our squad. Pep had players on the bench that could've changed the dynamic. For some reason he wouldn't.
I thought we we're plodding and easy to read by Brentford. Our players didn't want to get injured and they all had their minds on Qatar. I think they thought all they had to do today was show up.
But they didn't.
 
It was a dogs dinner today and it's been coming for a while really.

Normally I would say I've seen this game before where we have 25 shots and score no goals, but they have 1 chance and 1 goal. In truth Brentford could've had a few more. Ederson saved us really.

My gripe before the game was that our defence was another one picked at random. John Stones is not, and never will be, a decent right back. He is a world class central defender and one of the few who is happy to bring the ball out of defence. Playing him out of position is ludicrous. Given Lewis had played decently when picked, why not give him a go against Brentford as a reward?

We just don't have a settled back 4 at all, especially in the middle. For me, Stones and Dias should play as often as possible as they are our best defensive pairing. We also need a right footed right back and a left footed left back. If your right footed right back is injured (Walker) you don't shuffle the entire defence around - you drop your reserve right back in.

You all know my views on Cancelo - good going forward but a useless defender. Today he was useless attacking and that's his game. I don't think Gomez is good enough to be honest, we NEED a competent left back. Cancelo is so inconsistent it's untrue. I genuinely don't see this world class full back at all. He would be gone in summer if I was the manager - we need someone who can defend at left back.

I honestly don't know what Pep was watching today. Foden offered nothing, Cancelo offered nothing, KdB was off, Gundogan wasn't on his game and whilst Bernardo toiled, he wasn't getting much out of anyone. Why didn't we see changes? Honestly, we wouldn't have scored another today if we'd still been playing now - we were up against a very well drilled defence and had no idea on how to break it down.

Sometimes I wish we'd sit deep for a bit and invite the busparkers to come out. Haaland had no room today and struggled to find any space and it's no surprise that KdB couldn't pick him out. If we just sat back for a bit to draw them out, we could hit teams on the counter. However, we're so frightened of losing the ball, we break slowly and our first thought is to pass it back to whoever is behind us which allows the opposition to regroup. It's very frustrating.

Part of me thinks that every year under Pep we've had one poor game which normally acts as a catalyst for a huge winning run. I hope that game was today.

It's a disappointing way to end the first part of the season.
 
Sulaiman14 said:
I don’t know about that.. We still have to see Arsenal after the World Cup and under huge pressure in January and February
I just have a feeling that they have already peaked, and a decline is coming.
If the continue with their form, then yes our games vs Arsenal would potentially decide the title
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The delayed fixture against them could be key. The postponement of it as allowed them (by virtue of good performances) to gain an advantage. I have a feeling that without it we would have beaten them and would be going into this break ahead in the table. We now have a situation where we will probably play both fixtures close to each other and that will advantage which ever team is in form/fresher at that point in the season.
 
Bill Walker said:
I don't think we have frailties in our squad. Pep had players on the bench that could've changed the dynamic. For some reason he wouldn't.
I thought we we're plodding and easy to read by Brentford. Our players didn't want to get injured and they all had their minds on Qatar. I think they thought all they had to do today was show up.
But they didn't.
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