Chris Hughton - the most tactically astute BHA manager since...

[One Love]

Nothing wrong with the formation, the team hasnt bothered to turn up. No way back from this so rest up Kayal

IMO Everything wrong with the formation

 

[Questions]

Playing Zamora alone up front without a central midfielder getting anywhere near him to support or a genuine wide man in the side looked wrong.

And then when we are a mile behind we get midfielders forward......... Negative start.

 

[Albion Dan]

Hughton has had an absolute shocker today. Zamora should never be a lone striker with his lack of pace and I'm gonna have nightmares tonight over our middle three. 442 has bought us all our success his season. I'm worried he's now going to try and limp to a play off place using 541 away.

 

[Phat Baz 68]

Terrible tactics today 4-1-4-1
BZ on his own, leaves Hemed on the bench afters he's just got his confidence back
and started scoring again.
Murphy left out, Kayal left out.
Poor performance maybe too, but I am blaming CH today I'm afraid.

 

[Surf's Up]

Hughton has had an absolute shocker today. Zamora should never be a lone striker with his lack of pace and I'm gonna have nightmares tonight over our middle three. 442 has bought us all our success his season. I'm worried he's now going to try and limp to a play off place using 541 away.

Agree with this - it'll be interesting whether he admits that his team/formation selection was wrong. That said its been shocking all round - Stockdale created their second goal all on his own, Dunk and Goldson have been shit, Kernokhart has been poor, the midfield have been non existent and Bobby has struggled up front.

 

[sussex_guy2k2]

Unfortunately, like everyone's said, the 3 in midfield has been poorly used today. He played 3 players that are too similar in the midfield and they clearly didn't know their roles as none of them seem capable of tracking runners and none of them really knew who was supposed to be supporting Zamora.

It's become a 451 rather than a 433 which it easily could've been had CH pushed Knockaert and Skalak much further forward in support of the central striker.

And Zamora as a lone striker needs to be consigned to the past as he lacks the mobility and pace to stretch teams - it allows the opposition to play 15 yards further up and compress the game, pressurising us at the back in ways they can't when our other forwards player with him or on their own.

It's a shame we've had this result - everything that could've gone wrong, went wrong - but a reality check isn't a terrible thing at this stage.

 

[Ernest]

Get rid of Hughton, all he knows is BORING people

 

[One Love]

Unfortunately, like everyone's said, the 3 in midfield has been poorly used today. He played 3 players that are too similar in the midfield and they clearly didn't know their roles as none of them seem capable of tracking runners and none of them really knew who was supposed to be supporting Zamora.

I've always said, stick 3 people in the middle to do 2 people's job and they all think someone else is doing what needs to be done.

It's like playing with less than 10 men.

 

[sussex_guy2k2]

I've always said, stick 3 people in the middle to do 2 people's job and they all think someone else is doing what needs to be done.

It's like playing with less than 10 men.

Just listening to BBC Sussex and someone's made an interesting point. Went to 2 in midfield in the second half and a midfield runner gets the goal. None of them knew who was supposed to be doing that first half.

3 in midfield can work and used well it can be devastating, but players need clear roles and they just didn't seem to know who was going and who was staying today.

 

[Henfield One]

Spot on - why leave out the two players (Hemed & Murphy) who are on form and are creating chances? I guess leaving Beram out was due to his niggling injury, ok I get that.

But where was the central midfield - we can't just rely on Beram. No one filled the gaps, no one closed Cardiff down, backing off was the norm. Just awful. In the week when the Club talks of bonuses for all staff if we get promotion! Time was when the P word would not get uttered until April.

Regroup, refocus and play the strongest in form players on Tuesday.

But honestly today was utterly awful from a Top 6 side.

 

[Soulman]

Perhaps due to injury or resting Hughton had to change the team. For me Sidwell and Crofts are fine to come on but to play them both together does not work.
Stephens looked a bit lost without Kayal and we missed the pace of Murphy as an outlet.
No excuses because we were poor all round but a heavy pitch does not suit us and Cardiff dug in better.
We move on and hope it is a bad day at the office.

 

[Tony Meolas Loan Spell]

Sorry Chris but you REALLY ****ED UP TODAY. I mean where to ****ing start. One up front. Sidwell AND Crofts?

 

[One Love]

Just listening to BBC Sussex and someone's made an interesting point. Went to 2 in midfield in the second half and a midfield runner gets the goal. None of them knew who was supposed to be doing that first half.

3 in midfield can work and used well it can be devastating, but players need clear roles and they just didn't seem to know who was going and who was staying today.

No sure it's down to clear roles, I just think 3 in midfield leads to laziness and complacency.

 

[Deleted member 2719]

I've always said, stick 3 people in the middle to do 2 people's job and they all think someone else is doing what needs to be done.

It's like playing with less than 10 men.

Too true.

They didn't know their roles at all we went half cocked.

So pissed off.

Also when will Dunk also learn not to get's the wrong side of his man in the penalty area and when he does that he can not go through the man.
He has two defensive coaches teaching him, is he ever going show his potential consistently, or has he got the brain of schoolboy?

He is the most frustrating Albion player at present to me.

 

[Lifelong Supporter]

One can look at what went wrong with the attacking which was not great but if you concede goals as easily as we did today you will lose consistently. We let in two against Bolton but got lucky due to their lack of quality. Greer must return and Dunk must get some consistency.

 

[sussex_guy2k2]

No sure it's down to clear roles, I just think 3 in midfield leads to laziness and complacency.

You do know that basically every successful side over the last 15 years has had 3 in midfield right?

But they did it with variations of: -
1 designated holder
1 box-to-box player
1 attacking playmaker

There have been variations of this I.e. With a regista or 2 box-to-box players in front of or behind a playmaker etc, but ultimately the key point is still that those teams have 3 players with 3 very clear roles.

We played 3 box-to-box players to today and they simply didn't know where to be on the pitch offensively and defensively, and it meant we didn't have the options to build out of the back or support Zamora.

 

[One Love]

You do know that basically every successful side over the last 15 years has had 3 in midfield right?

But they did it with variations of: -
1 designated holder
1 box-to-box player
1 attacking playmaker

There have been variations of this I.e. With a regista or 2 box-to-box players in front of or behind a playmaker etc, but ultimately the key point is still that those teams have 3 players with 3 very clear roles.

We played 3 box-to-box players to today and they simply didn't know where to be on the pitch offensively and defensively, and it meant we didn't have the options to build out of the back or support Zamora.

I'm talking about 3 players all very similar in their play.

If you were going to put our players in boxes showing similar roles and attributes those three would all be in the same box. So you can't play them together. In fact I wouldn't even want two out of the three in the same team.

One look at the team was all it took.

Then add in Skalak out of position, Calderon ageing and out of position and an ageing striker lone up front and the team was the stuff of nightmares.

 

[pb21]

Hemed not starting seems very odd to me; he is just getting into a bit of a run again and works well with Zamora.

 

[Hampster Gull]

Perhaps due to injury or resting Hughton had to change the team. For me Sidwell and Crofts are fine to come on but to play them both together does not work.
Stephens looked a bit lost without Kayal and we missed the pace of Murphy as an outlet.
No excuses because we were poor all round but a heavy pitch does not suit us and Cardiff dug in better.
We move on and hope it is a bad day at the office.

Very level headed

 

[Nixonator]

I have no idea why he would set up like this away to Cardiff. I don't know whether he was looking to keep it tight and switch mid-way through 2nd for a winner, it baffles me honestly. May have worked if we had a single central midfielder playing well, at times it looked like we had 9 or 10 men on the field with massive gaps in front of an ever backpeddling defence.

Far too much respect given to them based on form alone, in my opinion we had the beating of them playing 442, at worst a draw.