[Albion] Brighton & Hove Albion vs Brentford *** Official Match Thread ***

[Leosayer]

Enjoyed a rare visit to the Amex this evening tonight despite performances and damp and cold.

We played pretty well but given the number of times we were in their penalty area it should have been 3:0 at least.
Pervis leaving gaping holes at the back was a continuous worry. Pedro was ineffective, Enciso hoofing it repeatedly at the goal but somehow managing to keep it out - Van Hecke was impressive - I said at half time, if I were a GK, I would be happy to have VH in front of me.

Right tactic - to come out fighting and pressing hard with a high defensive line in the hope of an early goal and to prevent Brentford getting an early momentum but I thought it was very risky and said so 5 minutes before we got caught with our pants down and Brentford countered - lucky in the offside VAR decision and they were caught in the offside trap.

Poor second half.

Can’t believe we did’t bring on Fergie given the desperately awful finishing tonight - he seriously wouldn’t have done worse but has the innate talent of a natural striker that could have resulted in him just pulling it out of the bag.

Really missed having Welbz at the front - Rutter shines with Welbeck, Rutter doesn’t without him.

Glad I went if only to see Solly get a standing ovation to finally get back on the pitch after a brutal 14 months absence and see him make an attempt on goal cutting inside from his old No 7 position despite coming on at RB. It’s going to take weeks for him to manage 90 mins but what a great start.

You mean fergie that was injured and not on the bench?

 

[Winker]

You mean fergie that was injured and not on the bench?

How can he be injured when he hasn't played? Or do you mean 'injured' in a January transfer window kind of way?

 

[Zeberdi]

You mean fergie that was injured and not on the bench?

Tbh honest, I couldn’t see the bench from the East Stand, nor could I remember who was named when I had checked several hours earlier - I think the only name I remembered for sure was March.

Is Fergie injured? When did that happen?

Sorry it’s been a heavily imbibed few days and my brain is broken

It does explain why he wasn’t brought on though

 

[Han Solo]

How can he be injured when he hasn't played? Or do you mean 'injured' in a January transfer window kind of way?

Well he's a professional footballer so he attends training sessions..

 

[Sarisbury Seagull]

I’d have certainly been interested to see what RDZ would have made with these playing resources

He’d have simultaneously been moaning they’re too young and trying to sell them to a big club because we are just Brighton.

 

[maltaseagull]

Brentford had one point away from home all season. They're clearly not a decent side away from home, or haven't been, until rocking up at the Amex of course

Pretty much the same with any team below us in the table
Our coach needs to develop a strategy to deal with it.

Maybe the plan is to reduce the chance of this happening by having fewer teams below us.
If so, the process is working.

 

[lovelyboy]

Awful result. We really are bang average without Welbz

 

[Han Solo]

I would genuinely love to see Potter coaching these players, he is a much better manager than FH is currently. Flame away, I know I am in a very small minority

I'd love it in theory to but so much would have to go catastrophically wrong that its not worth it.

Of course people, even quite a number of his doubters (though they wouldn't admit it), understands that Potter is a good manager who would technically be a good choice to school this set of players at this stage. That's why people still talk about him years after leaving: if he'd been shit, no one would be arsed still being hurt by him moving.

Sure, if we'd get relegated and off to a shit start in the Championship, 90% of his the "Potter is bad and evil"-people would think "mm ok fine give him the job". But that ain't happening and a lot of these players wouldn't be here.

So better just try to help the manager and the lads get past this form dip and keep moving forward. This season was always going to be seriously bumpy no matter the manager so its really difficult to assess his job and qualities at this point. In a few months I guess it will be a bit clearer where we are, who Hurz is and where we're going with him.

 

[Garry Nelson's Left Foot]

Good first half, frustrating second.

It was all a bit Pottery wasn't it?

 

[Flounce]

GP came to us from Swansea, he had management experience in British football before he was appointed, and he got 18 months before he meaningfully turned things around in a way that was reliably getting results.

I agree with you that our squad has largely higher potential than the squad GP had to work with (possibly Caicedo and Ali Mac excluded) but we have bought a whole bunch of young prospects to turn into PL players, players don’t arrive PL ready.

We’re asking this coach to turn young players from potential PL players to established PL players, and do it while building a successful team and integrating a lot of new faces. For me, he deserves our respect. We’re going to lose and draw football matches along the way.

I’m not saying anyone has to (or should) enjoy that, just that a bit of patience and a bit of balance is needed.

You are right of course. I am mostly really enjoying games but getting very frustrated with our current inability to score enough and when we do how easily we are undone. For some reason I found last night the most frustrating game of the season. Daft really when you consider we have let two two goal leads slip in the very late stages. Maybe I was convinced that this was the game we’d turn things around and get back on a rather ambitious and unrealistic track, as you have said, this is a project and nowhere near completion yet. Patience IS required but very hard to have it during and immediately after a game..

 

[HalfaSeatOn]

Well my expectations have changed to being more realistic. It’s another point towards safety. It would have been very surprising if FH didn’t need a first season, at least, to bed in to the EPL.

 

[zefarelly]

But we have better players now…I think. Or maybe we should be looking long term and just suck this frustration up. When have we had better attacking players?

We have good players agreed, but they're all kids learning, as is the manager, its very similar to the first year of Gpot . . . Remember it took him over 2 years to get it to click . . .same for all the young players, who we cashed in on.

 

[SweatyMexican]

It’s decision making for me. Players holding onto the ball for too long, very few triangles and working for each other.

Really great players, but unless Danny is up top our front 4 find it hard to gel.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

Good first half, frustrating second.

It was all a bit Pottery wasn't it?

A lot of people have remarked on a potteresque performance.

I didn't see it like that.
My recollections of Potter, is a much slower build up, trying to pass through packed defences,

That wasn't what I saw.
We were far more attacking than we were in the Potter home draw period.

Last night was the first game where we were decent in both halves of teh game.
Certainly not as good in the second, but we were still the better team in terms of the game.

Enciso puts one of his two big chances away in the first half, we would have done them by 3 or 4.
But having moaned at the rest of the squad for not shooting, I'm not going to criticise him.

Positives:
Solly
Clean Sheet
Intensity
O'Riley
Decent Atmosphere for large periods.
Solly
Brentford singing Shall we sing a song for you, in one of the few quieter moments in the first half.
North stand singing Solly, Solly March to Ayari whilst hew was warming up.
No obvious injuries
Solly

 

[Uh_huh_him]

It’s decision making for me. Players holding onto the ball for too long, very few triangles and working for each other.

Really great players, but unless Danny is up top our front 4 find it hard to gel.

Joao is much better as a 10.
It isn't just not having Welbz, it's also not developing Fergie to be his cover.

 

[Zeberdi]

We have good players agreed, but they're all kids learning, as is the manager, its very similar to the first year of Gpot . . . Remember it took him over 2 years to get it to click . . .same for all the young players, who we cashed in on.

Absolutely.

It is also important to remember the historical successes of all clubs wax and wane - while our long term trajectory however, has been generally upward since promotion out of the 3rd division in the late ‘50s, we also spent the next 50 plus years bouncing between 2nd and 3rd division (Championship/League 1) with 2 seasons in the 4th in the late ‘60s and 3 seasons in the top tier in the early 80s.

Within that, as with most clubs, we’ve also had some quite stark seasonal fluctuations in each tier. Although we have been back in the top flight for 7 years, there’s no guarantee that will not change again in the future because we are competing against some of the richest football teams in the world. Therefore, our survival in top flight requires a sustainable financial plan that relies on data driven recruitment of young, largely unknown players that we can develop and sell on for large fees. That inevitably means in order to remain competitive in the top flight, while it may seem counter intuitive at the time or even a regression, we need to accept some seasons will be stronger than others as we develop young players and sell on our best and not all recruitment windows will be as successful as others.

2022/23 was an exception rather than the norm but we were benefiting from brilliant recruitment made 2 or 3 seasons previously before selling our top players on. That doesn’t mean we won’t get Europe again, it just means for a Club our size, I think we will more realistically hover around 14th-9th with some breakout seasons.

Both Potter and Hürzeler are project managers which in itself can test even the most patient fans, RDZ isn’t, he’s a breed of his own, a flawed, innovative genius who needs a big club in order to implement his ideas ASAP or he implodes. We will get another RDZ (without the histrionics hopefully) again I think but our squad is in a development phase and I still believe we have the right project manager in Fab to lead us into the next waxing phase.

 

[Bodian]

I liked seeing Enciso out there and at least trying to make things happen. But for a couple of inches on that shot that hit the post, it would've been a very different game.

Enciso puts one of his two big chances away in the first half, we would have done them by 3 or 4.

We say this sort of thing a lot. But our recent experiences don't really back this theory up.

When we do score (at any point in the game, not just early on) - we change the way we play, don't necessarily score again, and then concede (and if we have scored again, we concede two). Look at the number of points dropped from a winning position this season.

 

[Garry Nelson's Left Foot]

A lot of people have remarked on a potteresque performance.

I didn't see it like that.
My recollections of Potter, is a much slower build up, trying to pass through packed defences,

That wasn't what I saw.
We were far more attacking than we were in the Potter home draw period.

Last night was the first game where we were decent in both halves of teh game.
Certainly not as good in the second, but we were still the better team in terms of the game.

Enciso puts one of his two big chances away in the first half, we would have done them by 3 or 4.
But having moaned at the rest of the squad for not shooting, I'm not going to criticise him.

Positives:
Solly
Clean Sheet
Intensity
O'Riley
Decent Atmosphere for large periods.
Solly
Brentford singing Shall we sing a song for you, in one of the few quieter moments in the first half.
North stand singing Solly, Solly March to Ayari whilst hew was warming up.
No obvious injuries
Solly

I think it can be described as Potter-esque in how the game unfolded rather than the tactical approach per se. It was Potter-esque in that we dominated possession, missed loads of chances, failed to score and ran out of ideas.

I think we were decent first half, that's when we created the vast majority of our chances. The second half I don't think we were particularly decent. We just weren't as bad as we can be. We kept going but created very little. The debutante goalkeeper who came on mid match didn't have a save worth the name to make.

It just felt like a reworking of the movie we saw many times under Potter.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

Having seen the highlights back, it was definitely one of those games.
Flekken did his groin by over-stretching to save a nasty deflection which was going in.
O'Riley's strike took a deflection to take it just wide.

We're just shit out of luck at the moment.
Swings and round abouts though, as we had heaps of good luck across the first 7 or 8 games.

We're about where we should be.

 

[dolphins]

I'm hoping that the incoming assistant head coach - Daniel Niedzkowski - will make a difference to things. Having been head of the German Football Association's coaches training programme, he hopefully has some tactical nouse (sp.?) that will pay dividends...