Why is it always us? Just as things seemed to be on the up, 2017 starts with a deal of uncertaintity. And that starts with the team selection for tomorrow. With the suddenness and unpleasant fallout of Chrexit we can assume that Martin won't play a part. But that's not all. The (unwarranted?) yellow that Fredericks got on Friday definitely stands despite the game being abandoned and that takes him to a total of 5 for the season. What is less clear is whether a November amnesty applies to the Championship and earlier bookings are wiped from the slate - I suspect, not. In which case he will also be out. And there's more. We know Ayite and Kebano are off to the ANC this month. What is yet to be confirmed is when. I believe they will join up with their national teams this week and fear that rules them out as well. Ayite would clearly be the biggest loss and leaves the Gaffer with a major headache as to who plays up top. I'm going worst case scenario and assume they're all out. Also that Jokanovic will start with players who have games under their belt, given the importance of this fixture: ....................Button.............. ...Odoi....Madl......Ream....Malone.. ...................McDonald......... ...........Johansen.....Sessegnon.. .....................Cairney.... ...............Aluko.......Piazon...... An alternative - BIG call - would be to bring in Humphrys instead of Sessegnon and keep the preferred shape of the team. Or Smith and given he was on the bench on Friday night that may indeed be the Gaffer's preference but I doubt if it would be by choice.
I think it's the formation that will have to change with the absent Martin. Players will have to be pulled out of their normal positions. Jokanovic has his personal favourites so I recon Piazon will be the replacement. My choice would have been Woodrow if he had not been discarded by Jokanovic and was match ready, thus being able to leave Aluko and Ayite in their preferred positions. If we are not to get a replacement for Martin then I'd like to see Smith given a run in the team, but may be not against Brighton where I think we need to try to keep our passing formation. With Ayite going to the ANC soon I guess he was going to have to change anyway, but Sessegnon is the man to step into that position.
I think the African players are still available for this round of fixtures. From what I can find it seems most players are due to meet up with their squads from around the 5th or 6th so surely thats enough time to play tomorrow then they have 3-4 days to organise meeting with their respective squads.
The man in the middle today is Stuart Attwell Attwell is a man with a history. Back in 2008 he became the youngest guy, at the age of 25, to be given a Premiership game. That same year he added a bit of notoriety for controversial decisions, amongst them the ghost goal for Reading at Watford when the ball clearly went wide of the post. He was suspended from the Premier League for two years. But he's back now, handling a smattering of matches across all the divisions. We last saw him in the Capital Cup defeat, 1-0 to Stoke at the Cottage in September 2015. He booked 3 that night; ours being Ryan Tunncliffe in the last minute of the game. So far in his 13 matches this season he's given out 43 yellows and 3 reds. His best effort was 7 yellows and 2 reds in a League 1 game between Oxford and Swindon. Last season in 44 games it was 118 yellows and 4 reds. So below average, which probably sums up his refing.
You could say the difference between the teams today were those two penalties. There was more to it than that however. Brighton have the nous when it comes to playing this League and they are so solid at the back. Unfortunately, as yet, we have neither of these attributes. Cannot fault the quality of some of our play, the skill shown by Cairney (sometimes Aluko) and the effort put in by everyone of our team. The final third (both ends) is our weakness though. And today - for the first time in a while - we lacked a game plan after scoring. Not sure if it was caution or weariness but after Piazon had put us ahead we seemed to sit back; not drop deeper but 'take the foot of the pedal'. Also when Smith was subbed we had a period of lumping the ball down the middle which made little sense since Humphrys had little chance against their towering centre backs. Guess an obvious question is, would Martin have made a difference? Personally doubt it. We tried one pass too many too often in their box; our crossing was poor; and in all the late scrambles the ball just wouldn't break in our favour. So can't see he'd have changed much if anything. All of that said we played some good football and once again dominated the game for the greater part. Disappointing result wise but by no means so far as where we are heading ... up! Final word is back to where I started, the penalties. On ours, I would never, ever let a left footed midfielder take a penalty. Don't care how many he has scored in outfield play, nor how confident he is - they inevitably make the keepers choice easy. On theirs, from where I sat (well, stood) not convinced it wasn't a flop to the floor by their player and/or a foul against one of ours.
We are running out of players to take our penalties. Martin, Cairney, Aluko, Woodrow and now Johansen have all missed penalties so far this season! Some teams don't even get awarded 5 penalties in a season nevermind miss 5. Won't be long now til we see Button running the length of the pitch to come take a penalty for us
Disappointing result today but as you've said we played well and were the better team. I don't actually remember a game all season, home or away that we were not the better team and just have not found that way to either shut up shop or be more decisive in front of goal. Smith had a difficult day with so little previous match time. He hardly won a header and looked slow. Only good thing that has cheered me up today is seeing Derby thrashed and have a man sent off.
A Five minute period of panic and collapse turned this game. As I said above before the game I didn't think Brighton were Ideal for Smith to be given Martin's role, but I thought he did well in what he does that is to occupy the Center backs, but then you have to play differently from what we did. Fulham just continued to pass, and no one was any where near Smith to get second balls, Piazon and Aluko were out wide and Smith didn't have a partner close enough to be effective. It really erks me that our manager doesn't know the capabilities of his own players. When Smith went off that freed Dunk up and he went forward and no one picked him up.
As did just about the whole Brighton team. The key for me however was a half hearted attempt of a tackle on him by Ream, allowing Dunk to pass to the Knocky guy for his shot. Back to the positives. Great to see a full house at the Cottage. The official figure was 24,300 but I couldn't see an empty seat.
I feel we got well and truly mugged yesterday. I still think we are really close to doing well. So close. I think it would have been different if Kalas was playing and I thought we looked less dangerous when Smith went off.
We did Craving. However, as said earlier, that was because for some unfathomable reason we spent 15 minutes lumping high balls down the middle. Whether a message was sent from the bench I know not, although the additional sub certainly indicated that the Gaffer wasn't happy. We then went back to playing our normal game and better got the ball wide allowing Malone and particularly Fredericks, who was now playing as a right winger, to get behind them. Unfortunately both had a poor night so far as crossing goes.
The other point about the game was really how cynical/clever Brighton were. Piazon had taken a beating up until the goal and Brighton seemed to be get away with a number of challenges on and off the ball. I've said it before that I think we are a bit naive and want to play things properly like gentlemen! Was it a penalty late on int he second half. GJ seemed to think so. The fact we would probably have missed it is another matter entirely.
And another point, what about our bench. Know the Gaffer's choices were limited by unavailability for a variety of reasons but isn't it something to have three teenagers champing at the bit to get on: Stevie Humphrys - 19 Tayo Edun - 18 Ryan Sessegnon - 16 And yes, Craving it ought to have been a penalty. Would we have scored? For sure - young Humphrys would have slammed it home no bother.
