Michael Madl has duly received his one match ban so that should ease the Gaffer's selection decisions a tad. Scotty Parker still being poorly however will not. After Saturday his biggest decision is which system to play. His preferred 4-2-3-1 has failed to break down Cardiff and now Birmingham - Burton will adopt a similar style to those two and having gone 4 games unbeaten they know what they're doing. So, should the boss switch to a conventional 4-4-2 OR really set us up to be battle ready in midfield and go 4-1-4-1? Note I've abandoned the idea of him playing 3 at the back - he's declared his position, as have players Malone and Kalas, that "our way" is playing football from the back. Two ponderables then remain. Firstly, which system will avoid the narrowness of our play in midfield that makes it easy for the opposition to 'throttle' any real forward attacking play? Secondly, and now we're getting to the players themselves, which system best enables players to be in positions that best suits them. On Saturday for instance the Gaffer seemed hell bent on throwing in all his attacking midfielders at the same time with the result that none of them really knew their expected role. Personally I'd like to see him go 4-1-4-1; that second '4' being Kebano, Cairney, Jozabed and Aluko. But that's not what he'll do. Instead it will be as you were, but with a slightly more measured approach. One because he needs to be sure Odoi gets better supporting cover than he did on Saturday. Two because he will want to rotate bearing in mind the matches ahead. Nonetheless there are only one or two debatable positions. Despite having an okay game does he replace Malone with Sessegnon? Think he will. Does he give Johansen another chance? Nope - McDonald wasn't comfortable with Stefan 'wandering' and believe that as much as anything was why he came off early. Will he persist in Smith starting? No point really since nobody seems to want or is capable of putting in crosses (against B'ham anyway). So reckon the Gaffer will start with: ......................Button.................. ...Odoi....Kalas....Sigurdsson....Sessegnon.. ...............McDonald.....Tunnicliffe.... .....Kebano....Cairney....Aluko... ..................Martin.... That should still give him plenty of midfield attack on the bench - in Ayite, LVC and Jozabed - if he wants to tinker during the game.
Slavi said in an interview he preferred a close passing possession game the problem is 75% plus is played in our own half, in a very short time the opposition can sus this form of play and when broken down it then becomes a direct line to our goal, yes keep possession but much wider using all of the pitch and not just our own half. Burton will not be a push over. a neat team with enthusiasm in abundance, me thinks a close game.
We were rightly confident on Saturday that we were going to win but I think a little too confident. It just didn't go right for us, we gave the ball away too easily and didn't threaten or scare Birmingham one bit. Burton as you say will be tough but hopefully the players will want to put right Saturday's defeat and we come out strong from the off. I saw a facebook clip of the players before they came out on he pitch with someone making the comment that they looked cocky. I think there's something in that. We didn't have the same fight and intensity. The BBC had a good positive fact to end on in the pre-match build up to the Burton game - The Whites have kept as many clean sheets in their last seven league games (3) as they managed in their 47 prior to that.
The man in the middle tonight is Tim Robinson please log in to view this image Mr Robinson ref'd our walloping of Qpr 3-1 at Loftus Road last February, Booking Burn and Ohara, and our nervy tail saving 2-1 win over MK Dons at the Cttage in April when Nando, Stearman and Dembele were booked. He has a curious way of demonstrating his authority on the pitch; being very picky on small things like placement of the ball at freekicks and throw-ins but letting blatant fouls go under the guise of 'allowing play to flow'. Not that his sporadic pulling up of people stops him giving out cards. In 7 games so far this season he's dished out 28 yellows and 1 red. Last season he covered 43 matches, managing 149 yellows and 9 reds. Woe betide anyone who challenges his imagined status! And may be worth keeping an eye on his side kick lino, Mr Breakspeare. Being euphemistic - a bit of a bozo!
Very frustrated once again 70 + possession,but ware does it get us,as I said on a previous post this type of play is soon overcome by just lying in wait and once again evident as in last Saturdays game . There is developing a scenario as of previous seasons that we lack any plan B, lets hope that Slavi is not a one trick pony eventually metamorphosing into a one trick donkey.
First half - 64% possession and not a shot on goal. Sure there was some nice football but the only threat was a Sessegnon pass across the goal mouth that was narrowly missed by Martin who came sliding in. Second half - right at the start Burton moved their right back to a forward midfield role and we never noticed. Consequently they pushed us back and three times had a spare man on the edge of our box. Nobody noticed and on the third occasion their free man passed the ball into the net. Burton kept that shape, albeit moving deeper, but nobody noticed. Well not until the hour when the Gaffer must have done since he brought on Smith to partner Martin up top. But nobody noticed. In the next 15 minutes there was not one cross into the box. Well the Gaffer must have seen something again because he made a double substitution; Ayite for Martin and Jozabed for McDonald. We did then lump balls at Smith but incredibly with five attacking midfielders nobody was ever within 15 yards of him. Consequently when he did win a header it fell calmly to the opposition; when he didn't win a header he invariably gave away a foul. Sorry if all this sounds terribly negative. That's probably because that's the imprinpt the team left on me. My main complaint is for the forward three - Cairney, Kebano and Aluko (four if you add Ayite later on). Almost every time instead of making a forward run they came back looking for the ball; meaning that 99.9% of the time they had their back to goal and were easy to block. On the occasions when they managed to get free, they invariably cut inside to the congested midfield and got stuck. No exceptions, they were all guilty but Cairney more than most. Why oh why did he always seem to need that extra touch before thinking of having a go. There was one exception actually, someone I hadn't expected to see - Scotty Parker. Ran his bloody socks off for 96 minutes and the only player on our side preared to run forward with and without the ball. Says something when a 35 year old is the only candidate for MOTM. Oh okay a bit of credit for young Sessegnon. Not just for being in the right place and calmly saving our bacon in the 93rd minute but also because he had a very decent game.
A frustrated message to Slavi Stop passing around to much in our own half When in the oppositions area shoot dont try and walk it in Use our wingers to run and take on the opposition not passing it backwards My M O T M Sigurdsson ( who we will possibly loose in Jan )
Share your frustration rosc, but can't see where your MOTM choice comes from. He never won one aerial challenge against their baldy guy. Also he was slap bang in among your candidates for passing around in our own half.
Ah, okay it was young Sessegnon you meant rosc. In which case you do indeed have a valid case. He wasn't sorely stretched defensively last night but when necessary he coped. Going forward he linked well with Kebano and Aluko - making a number of overlap runs that took defenders away and giving either of that pair options. That neither took advantage wasn't his fault. In fact on reflection, that was an area where there was a stark contrast and in both halves. On the left side, we continually stretched the Burton defence. On the right side, we had a lot of tippy-tappy stuff that allowed them to gang up on one of ours and push them into a mistake. Haven't checked but I think last night's goal may well make Sessegnon our top scorer so far. Still believe Captain Scotty was our stand out player though.
First half created a lot of chances, should have gone in at least 2-0 up, but no end product. We have the same problem as last season with lots of slow possession that allow the opponents to get back and defend in numbers. It's possible that this tactic will work more when we play away when we tend to break and pass at speed more. After 6 games opponent managers have been able to study our tactics so SJ has to mix it up a bit, with our possession football from the back, we've seen Birmingham press our back 4 and put them under pressure, and we've seen Burton withdrew into a 9 man defence hard to break down.
Teams will come to CC and be negative. We need a plan to combat that. I thought Burton were very anti football for most parts of the game except for 5 minutes at the start of the second half where they decided to rock up to the party.
The referee was shambolic last night, completely lost control of the game in the face of time wasting from Burton. There was a ten minute period where all I remember is the Burton keeper taking goal kick after goal kick at 45-60 seconds per time. Not ignoring that we were very poor, but I was delighted that Burton were rewarded with conceding a late equaliser. I felt Slavisa let the game drift last night particularly in the twenty minutes after the Burton goal. There was no urgency until the end, when suddenly we followed up on Smith's headers and really started to actually run at/past the Burton players. Chris Martin was pretty woeful in his home debut and should have been replaced at half time, although I think he'll be fine once he gets up to match fitness. Cairney was the main frustration. Why on earth did he need to take four touches each time? Burton were clearly aware of how one footed Cairney is and just forced him onto his right all the time (with the result of the loss of all momentum). Very disappointing evening of anti-football. So bad I went for a drink after the game at The Eight Bells to recuperate, ended up having several and nearly missed the last train home!
He did try to do that last night SuperBri. The players have to shoulder a large part of the blame. As I mentioned in my match comments above, none of our lot took a blind bit of notice to his changes nor the critical one that Clough made for Burton at half time. And as Surlyc says too many, well specifically Cairney, wanted too many touches. Add to that we seemed to be back to playing as individuals not as a team. Not all them and not all the time but way too many too often. Small example - numerous time in the second half Odoi had the ball on the right and 4 Burton guys converged on him while not one of ours moved to help. Nobody ran beyond, behind, in among them. Honestly they stood motionless. One thing SJ has to do however if play people in their correct positions. Second half against B'ham he had Kebano right mid and Cairney in the middle and they were a threat. Last night he started Kebano on the left and Cairney on the right. Result - no threat.
The Burton keeper was so good at the time wasting that even our fans thought he deserved a Thunderclap
