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

[Berty23]

We created 29 chances. Should have won easily. Battered them. Conceded a deflected goal and keeper had game of his life. It happens. Let’s not fall into some nonsense media type narrative. Randomness of a goal can blur how people view the game.

Let’s judge rotation at the end of the season. We could not risk anymore injuries so RDZ has rotated and we have done quite well considering.

Newcastle looked shot vs Everton.

Villa might burn out.

 

[Triggaaar]

Dahoud was acquired as the finished article

Wasn't he free? Maybe you're right, he's not young and learning his trade, but it's a step up to the PL and I'm not sure what we can expect from a free transfer.

Team slelection was the issue - easy to say i know after the fact but best team on at start and leading puts us in a better position to rotate...All about opinions though.

I'm sure that De Zerbi knew that that wasn't our best starting 11, but he needs to rest players. We could have gone in all square or even winning, and then we'd be looking pretty.

 

[Sheebo]

Poor and slow first half - brilliant second half. RDZ tried to rotate but did the right thing at Ht. Can’t win them all and content enough with a point given the results of our recent games. Keeper outstanding for them - move on - seen us lose those horrible games 1-0 too often…

 

[tstanbur]

We all know all of this - it doesn’t change the fact we were very much below par and making avoidable mistakes in the first half. Burnley were not playing particularly well, they just played with more determination and commitment but were also sloppy in defence and failed to convert. Milner may have scored an own goal but it was still poor defending from us. Conceding a goal first against a side like Burnley just before half time was always going to be a tough challenge for the second half, even more so as the clock ran down at 1:1. After that it was a combination of unlucky finishing and great goal keeping.

We were good in the second half - Lallana and Dahoud were not working well so hats off to RDZ for a half time change ( early for RDZ) - Mitoma and Gilmour made an immediate impact. Gross, Gilmour and Adingra I thought had a good half and we created a lot of chances. Chances don’t win matches unless they are converted especially when combined with some bad luck when shooting and some excellent keeping from the opposition so in that sense Burnley were lucky that we didn’t manage to slip another couple in.

RDZ has made loads of half time subs

 

[Colonel Mustard]

Villa have better players than us?

I'm not sure that they have better players. But they do seem to play their best team whenever possible. We don’t, as many have pointed out. That may well be a crucial difference.

 

[zefarelly]

There's a lot of entitlement and over expectation creeping in round here. It's not a good look.

 

[jimhigham]

Poor point. We cannot keep giving 2 points to relegation-fodder teams. It's a bad, bad trend

No, I meant "good point" that the person I was replying to made. Not that we'd won a good point, which I agree was... underwhelming.

 

[jimhigham]

So frustrating. RDZ definitely did not get the best out of his players today. It was the kind of performance that does make you feel qualifying for Europe again could be beyond us this season - enjoy these Thursdays while we have them

The UEFA coefficient currently had five Champions League places on offer so there might be European places available all the way down to 8th place. All still to be decided of course, but possible.

 

[peterward]

Villa have better players than us?

That's not the point.

Its that with similar levels of competitions they're in too, Emery isn't tinkering personnel/positions. He just sticks with what worked in last game.

Additionally, nearly every time in this game Martinez gets ball, long kick towards Watkins who tries to hold ball up with players running off him.

Lot more direct but effective

 

[Seagull58]

xG was 2.52 v 1.02.
One goal from 2.52 xG is seriously awful. We have to do much better than that.

 

[Littlemo]

That's not the point.

Its that with similar levels of competitions they're in too, Emery isn't tinkering personnel/positions. He just sticks with what worked in last game.

Additionally, nearly every time in this game Martinez gets ball, long kick towards Watkins who tries to hold ball up with players running off him.

Lot more direct but effective

Tbh Villa do look a bit tired in this match, and Newcastle did against Everton the other night. You can see it in the ones not rotating,
But maybe there’s no real perfect answer.

 

[BN41Albion]

Overall, 'on paper', we did more than enough to win. Am I disappointed? Yes, but only slightly. We played well against a team who are fighting for survival - we were there not so long ago - and we were unlucky to not get a winning goal. Just imagine how a Man U supporter must be feeling today.....let alone a Palace one.

About this for me too. I think those who keep labelling us as the softest team in the league etc need to give their head a wobble and look at the league table and europa league table. We really could do with plugging our leaky defence but all things considered - amount of games and injuries etc - we're having a very good season imo, especially in Europe

 

[Seagull58]

There's a lot of entitlement and over expectation creeping in round here. It's not a good look.

We've drawn at home to Sheffield United and Burnley!!!!

 

[Zeberdi]

I understand RDZ's desire to rotate to save legs, but what frustrates me is why he doesn't put his strongest XI out at the beginning of the game there.

Tactical? - maybe not a bad idea to hold back with a few key players (resting) on the bench to see which way the opposition is playing before bringing them on? To suddenly bring on eg Ferguson or Mitoma for example when the original game plan isn’t working can really throw the opposition off kilter and can win the game as we’ve seen before - especially helpful when playing against teams with shallower squads perhaps?

 

[BN41Albion]

We've drawn at home to Sheffield United and Burnley!!!!

All other teams above and around us have not won games v teams down the bottom too you know. It happens!

 

[Albion my Albion]

Yeah, but De Zerbi out, right? And get rid of that twat Bloom too, what's he ever done for us.

I'm sure you could get a patent on a website called DeZerbi out // Bloom out very easily right now.

 

[birthofanorange]

We've drawn at home to Sheffield United and Burnley!!!!

And Man U got trounced at home by Bournemouth.
Your point?
It happens.
Edit: And who expected Everton to thrash Newcastle? I certainly didn't.

 

[El Turi]

We were by far the better team (especially in the second half) but their keeper played a blinder and we were wasteful in quite a few good situations. 4 points from these two home games is solid enough though and should set us up nicely for Thursday.

 

[Colonel Mustard]

But you'd agree their deflected goal was lucky? So if we weren't unlucky, we'd have won 1-0.

Yes, fair. But we know that luck does exist. If you have a load of shots that don't quite find the corner, you can partly say a better striker (Kane) would have found the corner, but you also know your strikers would find the corner once in every 3 or 4 efforts (for example) and if they have 12 shots and don't find the corner, there's a bit of bad luck there.

What was the XG for the game? I'm sure that'll tell a bit of the story.

Of course luck is a huge factor in sport, and in life in general. We agree. But we all know that quote: 'the harder I practise, the luckier I get.' Which isn’t to say that we don’t work hard in training. I’m sure we do. But let’s have that other cliché: 'Work smarter, not harder.'

In other words, WE MAKE OUR OWN LUCK. As has been pointed out many times here, we seem to be deficient in defence, bad at corners and free kicks, and hopeless at shooting. Our passing is generally sublime, but are we missing out on some of the other basics? I think so, yes.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Of course luck is a huge factor in sport, and in life in general. We agree. But we all know that quote: 'the harder I practise, the luckier I get.' Which isn’t to say that we don’t work hard in training. I’m sure we do. But let’s have that other cliché: 'Work smarter, not harder.'

In other words, WE MAKE OUR OWN LUCK. As has been pointed out many times here, we seem to be deficient in defence, bad at corners and free kicks, and hopeless at shooting. Our passing is generally sublime, but are we missing out on some of the other basics? I think so, yes.

But apart from that fine?