Brighton - The verdict

[northstandmark]

We’ve won 6 games this season. This was our possession in each:-

Villa (A) 1-2 37%
Everton (H) 40%
Southampton (A) 35%
Man Utd (H) 43%
Chelsea (A) 33%
Brighton (H) 34%

Now before we leap to the conclusion that we should avoid possession at all costs, we need to bear in mind we’ve had a similar lack of the ball in some of our defeats. We also need to realise that there’s a difference between conceding possession through tactical choice or from not being good enough to keep it.

The thing is, this isn’t new. We know we are a better team when teams leave space in behind and we can break quickly. The challenge is how to approach games against sides who will let us have the ball via their tactical choice.

Fortunately for us, the only fixture where a team will likely do that is Newcastle at home. We also have Burnley coming up soon but I suspect they will play on the front foot at Turf Moor.

There is definitely a template there where we can pick up something in all but 2 of our remaining fixtures. To do this we need to tighten up defensively but also press selectively and aggressively when the ball is there to be won like last night.

The way to beat this is by mixing it up. Periods of short passing, then periods of more direct balls to the forwards. Wide men switching between playing wide and then playing narrow. We've always done these things when at our best, and they disrupt the opposition pressing shape creating gaps. It needs confidence though, players lacking in confidence don't try these things. We did this a bit last night, but we can do it better.

For all their traits, Lerma and Billing as a central midfield aren't going to be racking up 100s of passes over a game. They have a job: to tackle, to cover ground, to make life hard for the opposition. That's great. But if we want a ball playing midfield we want a Cook or Surman in there. All depends on what Eddie prioritises. Right now he wants a big engine room.

We're also unlikely to dominate possession with a 2 man midfield up against 3 man midfields. To manage it. you need to have the opposition totally pinned back, which we did for short periods in both halves last night.

A confident front man / men make a huge difference. If they can make the ball stick with them, then it drags our whole team up the pitch and brings more passing options into the game. As we know Callum and Solanke have struggled this season, and that's a big reason why our possession stats are low. If they can grow and build from last night, then our possession will increase.

All areas we can hopefully use this base to improve on.

 

[NWCherries98]

Fraser is a player that’s actually been putting in the most effort for a while now. The games just haven’t been panning out very well for the team recently. Was nice to hear the wee man chants again.

 

[Kenya Cherrie]

'The' 30 minute opener seems to have generated a lot of mixed thoughts on here... I too thought the first 5-10 minus we started quite bright... Fraser set the tone for the rest of his night and we looked like we had arrived at the party, at last... However, BHA grew into the game and had a spell of about 20 mins controlled possession, and we quite simply were crap... at everything again.

However, there is a great article on The Athletic that analyses our game plan this season and how we set up so compact and narrow, to make ourselves hard to play through... make teams play around us, give them possession, and the idea being, we intercept play and break (which incidentally we're close to the top of the PL for interceptions)... We all know this hasn't really worked too well this season and teams are still able to play through us and we don't break in number or with pace...

Last night for around 50 minutes in the middle of the game, this all changed though... I think it started with the NS and surrounding areas becoming quite vocal at Billing and Franno for wanting the ball inside the box from Ramsdale, but not really doing anything with it... We ended up going long... Rico hit the side netting, which followed by a few quick shots at goal... The crowd got up, and then Harry's goal went in... I don't think we f*cked around with it from the GK at all after that... Better!!!!

That spell saw us press, hustle, pass with confidence, chase everything, shoot, SCORE, and just generally look like a team that shouldn't be where we're at... It was good to see and the crowd played a massive part in that...

However, The BHA goal showed just how on a knife edge our confidence is... We went from being at the top of our game, full of confidence to almost seeing us go back into our shells again for the last 7 or 8 mins... Sinking deeper and deeper and beginning to think... "surely we can't through away a 3 goal lead". The defining moment was BHA's failure to do anything with a free kick into the box on about 87 minutes... Had they got something from that, I reckon we'd have drawn 3-3 in the end... But it didn't, and we won...

Onto Arsenal which for me is a free hit... Lets be as strong as poss and keep this ride rolling...

Great performance on and off the field... Haven't seen DC so behind the team in a long time...

"That spell saw us press, hustle, pass with confidence, chase everything,"
This is what we have been missing. The 1st 30 min we didn't press, we let them run up the field passing as they want, it isn't rocket science.
The only player who presses them is Lerma, Billing needs to copy him more often, push up the arses of players, make them make mistakes. so that we can win the ball back and start an attack. it changed when we scored the 1st goal. we started to pressure them on the ball.
After the 3rd goal we went back to laying off them again and then conceded. We were lucky they didn't bring on Murray, a big mistake from their manager.

 

[SteveJonesLegend]

It's 'all' about confidence... Until we had the spell of several shots at goal that invariably lead to us scoring, we looked nervous still... I've always believed just one goal and we'd explode through the roof... and we did for about 50 minutes...

At the moment, for us, that first goal is crucial...

 

[Tinpot Club]

The way to beat this is by mixing it up. Periods of short passing, then periods of more direct balls to the forwards. Wide men switching between playing wide and then playing narrow. We've always done these things when at our best, and they disrupt the opposition pressing shape creating gaps. It needs confidence though, players lacking in confidence don't try these things. We did this a bit last night, but we can do it better.

You are spot on but there is 2 problems with this

1) This relies on players making decisions for themselves which they haven’t always got right
2) We overcoach players as to when they should go long or short, wide or narrow, press or retreat and we have “notegate” all over again.

However, we do have highly paid,extremely talented professional footballers. This sport has been there life for at least 15 years. By now they should have developed the necessary football instinct. Eddie’s job right now is not to be overly precise with his tactical demands but ask players to trust these instincts, something which as you say comes with confidence.

 

[thegazzyb]

Eddie’s job right now is not to be overly precise with his tactical demands but ask players to trust these instincts, something which as you say comes with confidence.

I'm hoping the penny has dropped and Eddie has come to realise that his coaching and emphasis on safety first has led to the situation we found ourselves in. I think to a certain extent we may have coached the flair and enthusiasm for just playing football out of the players. They even looked hacked off when they were playing. His last few interviews have emphasised bravery, lack of fear and enjoyment of the game, which is something we've not heard before. No sooner does he start talking like that and the performances improve ( Norwich away and last night ).
For somebody as studious as Eddie it might have taken him a while to realise how much of football depends on what's in the players minds compared to how much of it can be taught on the training pitch.
I think he's on the right track now and hopefully the players will begin to express themselves more, get back to playing with a smile on their faces and ease us back towards safety.

 

[richnrg]

For somebody as studious as Eddie it might have taken him a while to realise how much of football depends on what's in the players minds compared to how much of it can be taught on the training pitch.

whatever our faults have been, I don't think that Eddie not being aware of the psychological side of things is one of them - it's been one of his major focuses throughout his coaching career.

 

[redharry]

"That spell saw us press, hustle, pass with confidence, chase everything,"
This is what we have been missing. The 1st 30 min we didn't press, we let them run up the field passing as they want, it isn't rocket science.
The only player who presses them is Lerma, Billing needs to copy him more often, push up the arses of players, make them make mistakes. so that we can win the ball back and start an attack. it changed when we scored the 1st goal. we started to pressure them on the ball.
After the 3rd goal we went back to laying off them again and then conceded. We were lucky they didn't bring on Murray, a big mistake from their manager.

WTF would Murray have done, they weren't getting anything into our box, all they had was long distance shooting.
At 3-0 the order was simple, close ranks and take the 3 points - job done.

 

[thegazzyb]

whatever our faults have been, I don't think that Eddie not being aware of the psychological side of things is one of them - it's been one of his major focuses throughout his coaching career.

I think maybe he wasn't aware that his coaching could have a negative effect on the psyche of his players, not that he was unaware of the importance of the mental aspect in general. That is the point I was making although admittedly I didn't express it very precisely in my original post .

I think if you are an enthusiastic coach and enjoy being on the training ground it is a trap you can easily fall into. Whilst coaching is important, you bought the players you have because they have specific attributes going for them. Because little of the training is done one on one I think it would be easy to coach these attributes which define the player out of the individuals if you are not very careful. Although you want the team to be a team, you also want the individuals to remain who they are within that team, otherwise you could have signed any old player.
Hopefully we are now putting a bit more focus on the individuals and giving them the feeling that it is ok to express yourself with the ball from time to time and that trusting your instincts is allowed.

 

[redharry]

It's 'all' about confidence... Until we had the spell of several shots at goal that invariably lead to us scoring, we looked nervous still... I've always believed just one goal and we'd explode through the roof... and we did for about 50 minutes...

At the moment, for us, that first goal is crucial...

Same would have happened at Norwich, we weren't that bad at all early on and could have taken the lead with a couple of half chances. The goal and manner of it knocked us back again, if we had scored first we would have seen the same effect as the Brighton game.

 

[SteveJonesLegend]

Same would have happened at Norwich, we weren't that bad at all early on and could have taken the lead with a couple of half chances. The goal and manner of it knocked us back again, if we had scored first we would have seen the same effect as the Brighton game.

Which is why I think Arsenal needs to be a strong side to gain more momentum... We need to shake that "if they score first its game over" attitude and the only way of doing that is to keep winning and build that confidence again...

I know Eddie will change some positions, but hopefully not too many...

 

[SlowDownDerek]

Same would have happened at Norwich, we weren't that bad at all early on and could have taken the lead with a couple of half chances. The goal and manner of it knocked us back again, if we had scored first we would have seen the same effect as the Brighton game.

You could say the same about the Watford game. It was 50/50 until we gifted them the goal. Fine lines at this level. We just need to win more of these 50/50s.

 

[Sorry Roger]

Not sure it is true to claim little of the training is done one on one. I expect every player is analysed to the nth degree and then gets specific feedback, points to work on, defined roles/style in training matches, relevant gym exercises and so on.

Granted you don’t see that in the training videos and photos but that isn’t to say it doesn’t happen.

 

[redharry]

You could say the same about the Watford game. It was 50/50 until we gifted them the goal. Fine lines at this level. We just need to win more of these 50/50s.

It is fine lines, the games that really annoy me are the likes of Burnley where we should have kept tight and just taken the 0-0 and Palace where a 0-0 again would have been a decent result. 2 extra points and two of our rivals with 2 points less.

 

[SlowDownDerek]

It is fine lines, the games that really annoy me are the likes of Burnley where we should have kept tight and just taken the 0-0 and Palace where a 0-0 again would have been a decent result. 2 extra points and two of our rivals with 2 points less.

We clearly have issues with crumbling confidence once we concede. Even last night we seemed to lose confidence after conceding. You could argue that we were unlucky at West Ham because, although we weren't playing well we hadn't given them loads of gilt edged chances until they got very lucky with their opener.

That said we need to not be so fragile in confidence terms. We've got enough in our squad to turn it around but too much of it relies on luck for my liking. We don't look like out playing anyone atm. Hopefully we'll get a boost from last night, although I remember saying that after Chelsea.

 

[Jules]

Vitally important that the fans keep going. They’re either the twelfth man... or take it down to 10. Easy to say and hard to do sometimes when things aren’t going well I know, but it looked like everyone kept going last night even though there were some nervy moments

 

[Garbo]

...after last night's effort from the team, it must have re-ignited some confidence and given the players a bit more belief?...yest I know it was only Brighton but to see our team rise after the first thirty minutes of attrition and nonthingness (apart from Brighton having the ball and not really penetrating too much)...was important. I do hope that we can take that energy and fight forward to next PL game and beyond. Ryan Fraser was chasing and cutting out balls, as well as making some bursting runs down the wing and I for one thought that with him and Smith on the other flank we looked more like our old selves...I also like Rambo going long for the majority of his goal kicks, which Solanke did get his head to fairly often...

There is no doubt that Harry Wilson is a bit of a 'luxury' player? in terms of his attacking and dead ball abilities he is class...but the tracking back and defensive positioning is an area for him to improve.

Billing is what in the 80's would be described an 'enigmatic midfielder' we see it as a more aloof and languid style which when you compare him to the gritty and battling Lerma he comes off worse in how his influence in games comes across..but his second half performance of being more of a presence was better IMO and he grew into the game. I do think he plays better when we are on top or ahead rather than when we are losing or struggling to connect passes.

Callum Wilson has definitely lost some pace (probably not surprising given his knee ops) and to compensate this is getting caught offside more often by trying to get alongside the defenders, when previously he could get past them with his pace.

I can't wait to get Josh King back and hopefully before April/May David Brookes..

I have given up on Stanislas tbh as he can't seem to sustain any real period of fitness.

With Kelly coming back to fitness we have someone who can play LB or CB and I would like to see him alongside Ake in that position in the cup game, I would also hope that Danjuma, Surridge, Kilkenny and Dobre been given starts to 'beef up' our reserves in the capaign to stay up over the next few months.

 

[thegazzyb]

For me the best thing about yesterday was that it gives Eddie plenty of ammunition to throw at the players. I’ll bet he shows them the video of the game, the first 30 minutes and then the rest. Then he can say “Did I change anything ? Did I make a substitution ? Did I change the formation ? No I didn’t. Where did the change come from ? It came from you, from here ( touches head ) and here ( touches chest )”.
There’s not really a lot in there which the players can disagree with. Hopefully it will open their eyes to what has been going wrong and they’ll be aware and can avoid it happening again in the future. There is a massive lesson to be learned from last nights game and if the players can take it onboard Eddie’s job should become a whole lot easier from here on in !

 

[Bitzer]

Assuming that we are going to mix our game up a bit more in future. I'd like to see Billing push further up the pitch towards Callum when Rambo is taking goal kicks. Nothing wrong with a flick on for Callum or Fraser. Yes it's route 1 and I wouldn't want to see us relying on it all the time but nothing wrong with mixing it up a bit.

 

[Bitzer]

After we played out from the back a couple of times last night Brighton pushed right up on us to stop it happening. When Rambo kicked it long for the first time they were pushed up and he dinked it in to midfield and from then on their players didn't really know if they should push up to our penalty area to stop us playing out ,or to drop back in case he kicked it longer. Occassionally Ake and Francis would drop right back as though they were going to receive a goal kick to feet either side of the area, Brighton pushed up and Rambo hit it long. It's just about not being predictable which has been our problem for the last few months. If the opposition drop deep expecting us to go long , play out from the back.