Whittaker will no doubt be the scape-goat yet again, but he was no worse than the others. This was a pathetic performance by players who either don't understand or don't agree with what the manager wants them to do. Brentford were organised, we weren't; Brentford played fluent passes to move the ball into the danger area, we didn't; Brentford broke with precision, we just broke. I could go on, but there seems little point. Forget about promotion folks.
I was actually rather apprehensive about this game today because I could see the Budgies getting to within 4 points of us!
Those are all reasonable suggestions, but: Garrido would be hopelessly short of match fitness, Hoolahan gives the ball away too much and is definitely not a defensive midfielder, and McGrandles is far too inexperienced to be played out of position in such an important game. Bennett is a reasonable suggestion but again, he would have been out of position and is not a defensive player. It had to be a defensive player to compensate for the sheer lack of balance (that couldn't be helped).
Agreed, Brentford were the best side to play at Carrow Road since Liverpool. Note also, their excellent pressing game and the fact they always closed our players down in groups of three. They clearly have outstanding fitness.
We have been very measured given the circumstances! There is no point us telling you how ****e you were as you know it only too well.
Fair call rich, but there was a hell of a lot of baiting going on, giving it big, even a prediction of winning the league by 4 points. All because we lost? And then there was carrabuh!
Dont blame Whittaker, he was told to play out of position, ( my worry there is the bad call from the manager when he could have done something more creative using Wes to take the link up play forward and nailing Johnson in front of the back 4) , the mid field will fix when we get one of the four injury / suspension back, my problem was with the back 4 they looked like a Sunday team after a long Saturday night, thought Olsson did ok going forward but as a defence it was woeful and thankfully John R saved us from embarrassment. Not even thinking about a top 6 finish at moment just want us to get back to playing good football consistently
Thinking about it, perhaps today would actually have been the opportunity for Neil to use this 4-1-4-1 system he apparently rigidly stuck to at Hamilton. As Jarold points out, give Johnson a super disciplined role in front of the back 4, then Redmond, Hoolahan, McGrandles or Bennett, and Lafferty behind a lone striker. It doesn't escape the fact we'd have been outnumbered in the middle of the park, but perhaps the combination of Hoolahan and McGrandles could have covered some of the work of the missing DM, probably to the same extent Whittaker did anyway. We'd at least have had a creative edge then. Beyond personnel though, the real issue was the way we committed men forward in suicidal numbers, and that can only have come from management as we've never done it before. When either fullback went forward, Whittaker should have been plugging that gap they left. As someone used to playing on either side of a back 4, he's perfect for that. But unless he truly had the worst game of his life, that wasn't what he was told to do. Instead he played more as an attempted box-to-box midfielder, leaving us with a back 3 or sometimes 2 (again, fullbacks seemed unaware of each other), which was easy for Brentford to cut through as our CBs aren't blessed with pace. For the first goal, by the time the ball hit the net we only had 3 outfield players with the play, and one of those was Lafferty. There's no way a team should be able to break on us and take both fullbacks and both DMs completely out of the game. To me, today can only be blamed on poor tactics, as well as a reasonable Brentford performance. And that's a worry going forwards.
Today perfectly illustrates why we won't be promoted this season, baring a distinct sea change in terms of attitude. Not one of those Brentford players is a better footballer than their equivalent number in our side (bar Pritchard and Whittaker but to be fair that's not his position), but they played as a team, fought for each other and for their manager and played out of their skins. City, as they have all season, had no structure - just a bunch of individuals who have not been moulded into a unit. And until that happens we will stutter and splutter our way through the remaining games. Because we have good individuals they sometimes produce some magic and in this division it's often good enough for three points, but it won't be good enough for promotion. I think the new manager will completely change the playing staff in the summer bar three or four and get a group who bond properly. The last two managers didn't do it.
