Brentford (H) | Post-Match Thread

[Ghostofmerlin]

Looking at the lineup pre match I considered it it as being the best 11 bar Walker missing.

Ederson made a few good saves in the early stages and that was a warning before the goal.

For some reason it just did not work out with many stray or delayed passes. Brentford played to their strengths and took advantage of our off day.

No Dias. When he doesn’t play, it’s a problem.

 

[City & Blue Brazil]

My theory why pep didn’t use subs was cos he could see like everybody else that half the team didn’t want to be on the pitch .. and didn’t want to give them a get out clause by taking them off which is what they wanted.. he’s not gonna sub a lad who didn’t have that attitude

Bollocks ludicrous decision to stick with starting eleven until late on.

 

[tolmie's hairdoo]

Halland job was to score goals and he scored non, so should we all slag him?

Haaland never saw the ball, Akanji saw plenty of it, he just decided to ignore it.

 

[Len Rum]

Too many players had an off day ( World Cup?).
Needed Alvarez on much earlier and Grealish to replace Gundogan who had a poor game.
Very poor in game management from Pep.
Defending dreadful for their first goal. Not seen a replay but looked like two free headers from my position in the ground.
Not for the first time a casual sloppy beginning as well. Could have been two down.
Plus a shitload of other bad stuff too painful to go on about.

 

[LongsightM13]

Somebody else mentioned that we have games like this at home most seasons. It's shit but we're usually celebrating at the end.

A bit more of an excuse this time as well with the World cup coming up.

Exactly that, we always have that weird game every season when they apparently don’t give a flying fuck, on the pitch or on the bench
Zero subs after watching an hour of that gutless shite was absolute fucking nonsense
They were outfought, outplayed and outcoached. Fair play to Brentford and Frank

 

[Brewster's millions]

I think this is ‘living in the moment’ commentary more than anything else. This is actually our best start to a season since 2018.

You say we’ve gone backwards but we started the last two seasons before this one with worse performances and worse results. It was only around Christmas that we began to find our feet, go top, and start to build a gap.

We now have the identical number of points (32) after 14 games than we did last season, albeit with slightly better goal difference, so I would say that the raw numbers are essentially the same as the comparable point of last year. However, after 14 games last season we had already played Spurs, Chelsea, United and Liverpool, critically all away from home.

The fixture list has been far more favourable to us so far this season and as such if we are to repeat our tendency to score more points after Christmas, we’ll have to do it with a more difficult run of fixtures. Also, you could arguably attribute our tendency for slow starts in previous seasons to the impact of international tournaments and the demands these placed on our players. Again, if we have a similar hangover from the WC, then it will be another factor challenging our usual outperformance during the second half of the season.

However my belief that we’ve gone backwards this season is less to do with the statistics and more to do with the nature of our performances and the balance of the squad.

We look more vulnerable at the back in my opinion - Dias in particular has underperformed while Cancelo has become increasingly erratic - and Zinchenko’s departure has been a significant loss. Zinchenko could also be very inconsistent and he wasn’t a natural defender. But his departure has been a key negative and Guardiola clearly doesn’t trust Gomez to defend properly given how he’s tried to shoehorn Akanji and Stones into the full back positions. We don’t look a cohesive unit at the back.

In midfield, I think Rodri’s level has dropped from last year - albeit from a very high point - and the balance also seems slightly off. Guardiola, for whatever reason, persists in playing Bernado out wide even though he’s much less effective out there. Up front, we haven’t been able to provide Haaland with a consistent level of service and we look short of options on the wings and overly reliant on one or two players.

Overall, given the addition of a player as good as Haaland, I think we have gone slightly backwards and I don’t think we can necessarily expect a big improvement in the second half of the season just because we’ve done it in previous seasons.

 

[WestGorton]

The breakaway has been our Achilles Heel for years. Spurs... Dippers....Chumps League final..... today etc. Don't play to draw but don't throw it away. Keystone Cops at the back today.

 

[LongsightM13]

Too many players had an off day ( World Cup?).
Needed Alvarez on much earlier and Grealish to replace Gundogan who had a poor game.
Very poor in game management from Pep.
Defending dreadful for their first goal. Not seen a replay but looked like two free headers from my position in the ground.
Not for the first time a casual sloppy beginning as well. Could have been two down.
Plus a shitload of other bad stuff too painful to go on about.

Pep had a fucking shocker, should have been 3-0 at half time and he waits until 85mins before deigning to admit he had been done

 

[hobbsisablue]

Yes, I'm not talking about the crosses but battling for the ball when it's played long to him.

What battling with the 3 defenders that are around him?

 

[SamTheGuru]

The breakaway has been our Achilles Heel for years. Spurs... Dippers....Chumps League final..... today etc. Don't play to draw but don't throw it away. Keystone Cops at the back today.

While I agree with you, I think it is a bit more complex than that. It seems that when there is an overwhelming feeling of anxiety we fall to bits. There were 10 minutes left today and there was no reason to panic at all. We would not normally fall to bits at the 80-85 minute mark so why did we do it at 88 minutes today knowing there were 12 minutes left to play?