Man of the match - Brentford (A)

[legendaryswan]

Tom Lees for me only player in an Owls shirt that looked anything like passionate for the cause.

The rest picked up wages way above what they deserve as theyve done for too long.

Thanks for that legacy Mr C.maybe youd like to try selling me an over inflated championship return season ticket come august.

Good Luck pal!

[Whitecap Owl]

rules on game day

i always hide sharp objects before the game 

 

i also hide bricks - tvs cost money you know 

 

as for mom ... are you having a laugh 

[WC1Owl]

Didn't see last week's game as I was having Sky problems.

 

Would have strongly preferred not to have seen last night's game.

 

The form under Thommo overall gives us a chance, but we can't afford to go on another Pulis-like run. But that doesn't seem that unlikely to happen. But I don't know that appointing a manager for 15 games is going to change much.

 

Silver lining: with a massive cleaning of the decks at the end of the season, it will actually be much easier to put together a decent new-look L1 squad than a Champ squad. If we stay up, expect next season to be very, very tough.

[Ante's Bubbly]

I could not give any points after the game I was so annoyed with them.

 

It was always going to be a tough game and in general play it was difficult to separate the two teams, but in the build up play and especially in the final third, Brentford showed their class and clinical cynical side when stopping us from breaking and when making their own breaks. 

 

I thought that the team turned out was a strange setup and that although the defenders battled well and did their best we totally lost the game in midfield. Reach played out of position yet again and yet again we got a mediocre midfielder rather than an excellent left winger, although Reach did have one of the best quality pass rates of any player on the field he is just not suited to playing in midfield and was not found often enough by Bannan, Hutchinson, or anybody else for that matter. The Brentford midfield worked much harder and more efficiently than our midfield,although Bannan's passing was also good, Hutchinson's passing was one of the worst and quite frankly a liability at this level when all he could do was lash at the ball and hope for the best, which is the way that his tackling went to and as for his placement and marking, this was by far his worst game. If he had stopped one of their moves by being in the right place to make a cynical tackle like a couple of those made by the Brentford team we would have been ok, but having a hard man that can only tackle players within a small radius makes him a nailed on defender in my books, he does not have the ability, the sense or the thought patterns of a proper defensive midfield players, but if players bring the ball towards him he has a much better chance. Similarly with Reach, he can run and carry the ball, but was shutdown by their midfield who made so many good tackles that he would have been far better challenging their fullback on the wing where he naturally knows when to make runs and give Bannan another option.

 

For me it was not down to the players themselves, neither of them are natural fits for the positions they were squeezed into and against a strong well drilled opposition midfield, we had two very mediocre midfield players in Reach and Hutchinson, instead of a decent defender alongside Tom Lees and an excellent left winger/wingback, in front of Penney.

 

It really looked last night as though poor Mr Thompson was trying to keep the wrong people happy last night because two players up front against Brentford would have been ok if the midfield had performed better, because Penney and Harris were able to pose a threat and when Bashiru came on, he too took sensible positions and made some good powerful runs, although a cynical tackle stopped him altogether. (This did not change the game, but it really annoyed us, because when you compare the ball winning interception that Shaw got his first booking for in the last game, and the excellent ball winning tackle that the ref deemed worthy of his second yellow, the  cynical professional tackle that took out Bashiru, which was dangerous, nowhere near the ball and the second such foul of the game from Brentford, you wonder why a red was not given. Their player effectively stopped us from breaking and removed a young player from the game injuring him without making a valid attempt to win the ball! We were similarly annoyed earlier in the second half when a Brentford player (Canos?) kicked the ball away after a foul without punishment, when they had been stopping us from taking quick free kicks, after cynical professional fouls and were obviously intent on time wasting, but he had already been booked and Brentford players were only booked, when it would have been awkward not to book them.)

 

It is easy to look at where we went wrong and suggest things we could have done better, but there are two, or three, really big issues that one coach after another has messed up and most fans are in agreement: Reach is a left winger/wingback, play him in those positions, or not at all unless the opposition is poor. Hutchinson is a defender, he does not have any of the attributes required for a defensive midfielder, unless again the opposition is weak. Playing two up front to keep the owner happy is pointless when we are playing teams that can so easily starve them of any service whatsoever and the two players playing in the striker positions are not both strikers! Pretend strikers are not good enough at this level anymore. at one time you might be able to get away with it for the odd game, but not all season. Too many of our coaches have papered over the holes left by our pathetic recruitment set-up. The recruitment and contract side, as Thompson and other coaches have often stated, is not any part of their job, but their job is to get the best ot of the players. So do not play the wrong players in the wrong positions. If Chansiri wants to see two strikers, tell him you will play two strikers when we have two strikers and until then, players will be put in their most effective positions. We have only one striker, so play only one striker and make sure the players behind him support him better than we have been doing and get up to have a shot. Tom Lees, Bannan and Palmer looked the most likely players to score because we only got players up for corners, or if somebody ran at them resulting in shots from Bannan (our only shot on target) and a skewed effort after a good run from Palmer, who scores once every nine years!

 

There are plenty more tough games to come, but hopefully we will come out on top of enough to stay up, although on recent showings we need to go back to basics.

 

Wildsmith 6

Palmer 5

Lees 7

Urhogide 5

Harris 5

Hutchinson 4

Reach 4

Bannan 5

Penney 5

Rhodes 6 -     Worked hard and did what he could with very, very poor service

Kachunga 6 - Worked hard and did what he could with very poor service

Bashiru 6 -     Would have liked to see him in the role that Reach had played in

Brown 6 -      Got on the ball, tackled & made a couple of good passes in his short stint

Paterson 5 - Did not have time to do much

Pelupessy -  Not on the pitch for long enough to judge would have preferred to see him on much                             sooner, snapping back at the cynical Brentford players

    

 

 

[Yorkowl.74]

Coach driver did a couple of good reactive left hand bends.

[wexowl]

15 hours ago, Bulgaria said:

Lee's. Gave it his all.

 

Hutchinson will be our player/ Manager next year in league one.

 

 

Well now there's a thought ....hmmmmm.

[Tommy Crawshaw]

Come on.....who voted for Kachunga? 

 

[Daizan10]

16 hours ago, OwlBiSeeinThi said:

Sick of the long ball to no one.

THIS!!!

[Daizan10]

I fear another Chansiri mistake (not appointing a proper manager) could do for us this season. One to add to his list of reasons why I'm a terrible football club owner. 

[FreshOwl]

Their 2nd goal was criminal 

 

Two simple passes through the middle and they’re in 

 

Bannan does absolutely nothing to close down the first ball player, and leaves Urhoghide completely screwed