I didn't see the game, but this rush to make Whittaker a scapegoat isn't appealing. He was asked to play a role for which he wasn't suited and it sounds as if he failed. But it seems to me that if anyone deserves criticism for this, it is Neil. I grant he had to put someone there, but it didn't make much sense to put a player who was already under fire from the supporters and whose confidence might therefore be low. Also, wasn't there a more creative solution available to the lack of midfielders? I saw someone suggest a 4-1-4-1, with Johnson in the holding position. I know he doesn't do that role as well as Tettey, but it seems a more logical band-aid to me than putting a defender in a two-man midfield. Oh well, water under the bridge now and the top two is looking unattainable (and even the play-offs are looking hard work).
Looking back now, although Whittaker did have a poor game there probably wasn't any other fit player who could have done a better job. It's not like the holding midfield would have had a lot of cover although admittedly Lafferty does backtrack and try to win the ball and Jerome also comes back to defend when necessary. There will always be scapegoats after we lose be it Whittaker or Grabban and although the former was directly at fault for one of the goals it would be very unfair to say we lost because of him.
I suspect the logic was "if it ain't broke don't fix it", so Neil was trying to keep things as similar to last week as possible, only making the enforced change. Within that framework, Whitaker was really the only option available to Neil. I'd suggested a possible 4-1-4-1 lineup elsewhere, but equally it's hard to learn about a team, and for the team to learn a new system, if you keep changing it up. I'd be very surprised if we don't have O'Neil or Tettey back next week, and hopefully the rest of the team will be more comfortable with Neil's system for having played that way this weekend. That's the logic anyway, but personally I think there's much more wrong with the tactics than simply one player in an unfamiliar role. Scapegoating is easy, so it's always going to happen when there's a problem.
Not sure Neil had much choice if he didn't want to change the format much. Also we don't know how late in the preparation some of the injuries occured. I get what you're saying about confidence, but the alternative was to have him on the bench, which wouldn't have helped his confidence either, although for me this is where he would spend most of his time if everyone was fit. I've seen many comments suggesting that the decision to play Whittaker in midfield demonstrates Neil doesn't have a clue and is not up to the job, which is nonsense. Maybe if Neil had being working with the team a bit longer, he would have had the confidence to mix the format up a bit. For me 4-1-4-1 with Johnson holding would have been a better choice and I would have liked to see McGrandles play at least one half. Trouble is we have the benefit of hindsight. It's not as though we got smashed and without the penalty we could have got a draw, which would have been 7 points from 9, (against 2 top 6 teams & an ex premiership team) which everyone would have been happy with a couple of weeks ago.
I'd say it was more to do with his general performances at the club. He's just a bit of a liability who has never been good enough.
Should have played wes instead of whittaker and a proper winger instead of lafferty. Then hoped we out scored them. At least he would have been able to keep the ball better. Don't blame whittaker at all.
Whittaker wasn't the main problem. We committed far too many players forward without any plan for dealing with Brentford's excellent counter-attacking. Whittaker did lose the ball leading to the first goal, but he lost it on the edge of their penalty area. Where was the defence in the 3/4 of the pitch that counter-attack had to cover? Non-existent is where it was. Faulty tactics from an ill-prepared team. I fear we're going to miss Phelan's nous big-time.
