The trouble is, Russ believes that the style creates “more positive outcomes than negative”. So far it’s cost us two goals, and we’ve not scored any. So right now, I’m afraid that doesn’t stack up. Fernandes for Will is a must. At half time please. Still something in this game for us, and it’s lovely having Ramsdale back there.
And let's not ignore the fact they are playing the same way we are. Possession football that is supposed to transition quickly into attack. Theirs works. But they also aren't all that good - so this is going to be one hell of a long season if we don't start to adapt.
Those are the two subs I'd make too but can't see him making two HT changes. Surely Will has to go off at a minimum though.
Still think it was better than last week going forward. We've created 3 chances for a start and at least one should have gone in.
I still find it baffling that people thought after having a good season last year that Armstrong would suddenly become PL standard. He's not and never will be.
When you get a half chance to counterattack, having someone who runs faster than a dump truck would certainly be favourable.
Every time a midfielder or attacker receives the ball they have their back to the Brentford goal. In contrast pretty much every pass to a Brentford striker is in front of him to run onto at pace, putting our back line under immense pressure, plus they have players breaking their necks to run beyond our defence for the cross field pass. Their fan on TSP said that their weakness was the ball between the CB and FB yet our slow build up allows them to sit back and shut down the space behind them. Smallbone has been awful and THB hasn’t been great and has a silly yellow card which could prove costly if we go to a back four and keep him on.
