[Albion] “The fight has gone out of Brighton”

[Machiavelli]

Thats when you have to dig that little bit deeper. Its what top sports people possess. That innate inner strength to keep going when all looks lost. You may not always recover the situation but once in a while you will and the boost that gives is inestimable. Even a late flurry and a goal gives something to cling to and build on. Yesterday, there was none of that. Just players going through the motions and accepting defeat.

It might just be the case that many of our opponents have top sports people that are even better than ours, hence their transfer fees and wages being higher.

I'm not singling you out here, and this comment is more applicable to others on this thread, but the best thing you can do is to get behind the team. This team has given us an awful lot of late. What we can do when things aren't going right, is to boost our support for them. Check out the thread on the Huddersfield fans (which I haven't read yet), but they were absolutely brilliant yesterday, and if they go down, they'll go down together, having enjoyed a peak at the high life. I'm not entirely convinced we'll be able to say that, given the entitlement of so many of our 'fans'.

 

[Me and my Monkey]

All season, right up until the Man United game (where they were MAGNIFICENT) I have been really proud of my team, as despite the results they have always worked their socks of for a result. Last Saturday, against a very good Liverpool, I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. But yesterday, it just wasn’t there, and it was very disappointing. None of us know whether it’s physical fatigue (pffftt), mental fatigue, or behind doors shenanigans, but whatever it is, i hope it’s just a temporary dip. I do believe CH is a fantastic man manager, and has as good a chance as anyone of helping them to sort their heads out. We’ll win Wednesday anyway, and all will be right with the world again.

 

[DarrenFreemansPerm]

You'd soon feel tired if for 2 hours of the 40 you were completely out of your depth, missing stuff, seeing your best wasn't good enough, knowing any mistake you make will massively impact on all your colleagues.
Not to mention the 30,000 people signing, booing and catcalling the slightest of errors.

I’d then cheer myself up by driving back to my beautiful home in my top spec car and seeing my stunning wife.

 

[Return of the Rev]

I think we need to pay them more money, they are probably worrying about the added expenses at Christmas, it's not like they can get a Saturday job for extra Xmas cash is it?

 

[BN9 BHA]

On a level I do agree, but by the same token denouncing even the possibility of tiredness when the team clearly are tired is baffling.

Not good enough sometimes, yes.
Tired halfway through the season, sorry I can't agree with that.

 

[Sussex Nomad]

On a level I do agree, but by the same token denouncing even the possibility of tiredness when the team clearly are tired is baffling.

No, sorry mate, but there is no excuse for tiredness from a professional footballer. I get up at 5 in the morning, I get home at 7pm, I am not earning 20k a week, I often have to cook when I get home, I do this 5 days a week. That is tiredness and I'm 53, not 21. I have money worries as we all tend to, they don't, they train for half a day, they get the best treatment, they get a lot of money for it. I cannot for the life of me understand tiredness, they live in a different world. It's an excuse for not getting your lazy arse into gear for 90 minutes, 90 f'ucking minutes! I will never ever back a footballer, not just ours, that say they are feeling fatigue. F'uck off and do a day on a building site you big pussy, then you'll know what it's like to have tiredness.

 

[Not Andy Naylor]

If players want to be in the Premier League, then they have to accept that everything they do will be scrutinised, analysed and criticised, and that they are up against the best in their profession. If they aren’t technically as good as their opponents, then they have to try to make up for that in other ways - with maximum effort (which should be a given), or by being mentally sharper. One or two of ours seemed to fall short there yesterday.

On MOTD Wagner said his players had to overachieve in every game to win. We should have that mindset too. Alarm bells went off for me in Harty’s interview with Paul Barber the other day when he asked PB about plans for the future now that it looked as though we wouldn’t be in danger of relegation (or words to that effect), I hope the players didn’t look at the table a few weeks ago and come to th3 same conclusion. At this stage of the season every club outside the top seven is in danger of relegation.

 

[Stat Brother]

I’d then cheer myself up by driving back to my beautiful home in my top spec car and seeing my stunning wife.

All of which might be hanging by a thread because it turns out you're currently not the football you thought you were.
(and most of us thought you were just 4 games ago )

Again I'm just putting forward the counter argument, because this thread seems to be equating Albion players with robots and not fragile humanoid lifeforms.

 

[Sussex Nomad]

All of which might be hanging by a thread because it turns out you're currently not the football you thought you were.
(and most of us thought you were just 4 games ago )

Again I'm just putting forward the counter argument, because this thread seems to be equating Albion players with robots and not fragile humanoid lifeforms.

I would just like to say I am not aiming the 'fatigue' accusation just at Brighton players, but every pussy professional out there.

 

[Blues Rock DJ]

It seems to me we are just incapable of beating the press. When teams let us have the ball we have time to progress up the field and retain possession. When we are heavily pressed we either rush passes that don’t find the recipient or we get bullied out of possession as we are too lightweight.

We have seen this so clearly in the last 3 fixtures especially as the high press is part of the style of both Liverpool and Huddersfield. We are either not technically gifted enough to move the ball quicker to beat the press or we need more time on the training ground to practice these situations

morning !

 

[Mo Gosfield]

I don’t know why everyone thinks that the Albion are any different from other teams. All teams have bad runs; htfc had just lost 4 in a row and are now seemingly world beaters. Spurs were in crisis and just won 5-1. It’s what happens over a season. No need to analyse the @&@@ out of it.

Ah...but there is.
Our early season has been built on strong discipline and organisation. Everyone knowing their job and sticking to it. Making it difficult for the opposition and earning a reputation for being difficult to beat. Very quickly and for whatever reason, all that has disappeared. The last two games have seen mistake after mistake. Firstly, ruthlessly exposed by the fast raiding and talented Liverpool and then secondly, being overrun, outthought, broken down and outplayed by an ordinary Huddersfield side, made to look far better than they are by our sheer ineptitude.
If you were at the John Smiths yesterday, you would have been shaking your head at the baffling team selection and even more so by the manager's comments afterwards. You would have despaired at your team's performance. A pale and poor shadow of recent much better showings. We were all trying to analyse it. To get to the bottom of it. We can all sense a difficult period coming up and it looks increasingly likely we will slip further toward or even into the bottom 3. We can see the problems in the team. The lack of pace in key areas. The failure to retain possession and the constant mistakes. The manager perservering with ageing players and seemingly unwilling to rotate certain personnel.
We have to analyse what is happening because very quickly our season is in danger of unravelling and we need to find answers as to why it is happening. To suggest it is just a blip and we will recover our mojo will do nothing to pacify the disgruntled at Huddersfield, who are all waking up this morning and analysing the pants off arguably, the worst PL display put up by any team this season.

 

[BensGrandad]

I am quite amused by this stock rotation argument as to who we could have used. CH uses 1 of Kockhaert. March and Iziquiredo with 2 on the other 2 on the bench. Bong or Sutner which ever one is fit. The only other possibles are Kayal and Baldock both not fit until recently so that leaves Hemed or Murray as the only choice for rotation.. I think our form is due to tactical failure to set us up right for the games as yesterday and or the class of the opposition recently.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Totally agree with this, I think it's bullshit to use 'tired' as an excuse. 20k a week minimum, only work half days to play 180 minutes tops in a 7 day period. How the hell can they get tired? Seriously.

https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/fo...-footballers-health-study-finds-a3713791.html

 

[Stat Brother]

Not good enough sometimes, yes.
Tired halfway through the season, sorry I can't agree with that.

Maybe I should be a little more specific.
I don't see the team as tired from the moment the game kicks off, but far too tired when it finishes, which in turn has a knock on effect.
A non specific example would be mistakes that were made in the 85th minute may now be happening in the 80th, if you see what I mean.

Like many others I've been a bit baffled by the use of the squad.
Unsurprisingly I blame most of the current 'issues' on only having H&M up front, none of what I'm talking about happens with a 2 goal lead.
Huddersfield sure as hell aren't feeling tired today, not only because they won, they won easily, but they were able to coast for 45 minutes. With the exception of West Ham Brighton haven't had that luxury all season.

 

[Sussex Nomad]

I am quite amused by this stock rotation argument as to who we could have used. CH uses 1 of Kockhaert. March and Iziquiredo with 2 on the other 2 on the bench. Bong or Sutner which ever one is fit. The only other possibles are Kayal and Baldock both not fit until recently so that leaves Hemed or Murray as the only choice for rotation.. I think our form is due to tactical failure to set us up right for the games as yesterday and or the class of the opposition recently.

The class of opposition yesterday we should have been set up for. Before the game I was already thinking what the f'uck? But I obviously hoped I was wrong. CH said he set up basically for a draw post match which is very, very disappointing. We had nothing on the wings to set Murray up. We went with the mindset of damage limitation against Huddersfield! We need to lose that mindset very, very quickly. Baldock on the bench, and Kayal, means they're fit to play, play them! This was our worst performance this season, I believe, so hopefully it can only get better, but I don't expect much from Wednesday.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

This tired argument absolutely grips my shit.

I work 45-50 hours a week, spend an additional 6 hours on top of that in the car commuting, and probably another 5 hours on top of that working from home. Not to mention running a household and all of the associated work that comes with that.

I can still manage (as 3000 others did) to turn up in good voice at Huddersfield on a freezing cold Saturday afternoon in December.

These players train 2 hours a day, 5 times a week, invariably with just one 90 minute game of football at the end of it.

Earning in excess of £20,000 a week for the privilege, I don’t think it’s asking too much for them to turn up and apply a little bit of endeavour and application.

Fatigue is nothing more than a kop out to mask what was at best an abject and gutless performance yesterday.






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I think this argument is only valid if players were refusing to play.
The argument isn't that they aren't bothering to turn up, just that there performance is not at it's peak after a long run of games.

I'm certainly not operating at my peak performance at work after a demanding 50/60 hour week.
Fortunately my performance isn't analysed on a day, by day basis. I'm judged over the course of a year, like most of us here.

The situation we are in is that many in the first team have played in the majority of games ( I don't think Stephens or Propper have been subbed once). It's not reasonable to expect them all to be firing on all cylinders every game.

Since the United game, there has been a drop in levels across the team.
Tired or out of form, it amounts to the same thing, changes are needed

 

[Mo Gosfield]

It might just be the case that many of our opponents have top sports people that are even better than ours, hence their transfer fees and wages being higher.

I'm not singling you out here, and this comment is more applicable to others on this thread, but the best thing you can do is to get behind the team. This team has given us an awful lot of late. What we can do when things aren't going right, is to boost our support for them. Check out the thread on the Huddersfield fans (which I haven't read yet), but they were absolutely brilliant yesterday, and if they go down, they'll go down together, having enjoyed a peak at the high life. I'm not entirely convinced we'll be able to say that, given the entitlement of so many of our 'fans'.

I don't believe Huddersfield have better players than us and it hurt me yesterday to watch us fail to even trouble them. We got away with 2-0, which many seem to be overlooking. It should have been four or five.
I do get behind the team, vociferously. I have been to 14 out of 16 games this season and clapped and cheered them but I reserve the right to be critical when they fall below the standard they have set for themselves. Yesterday was so far below that level that discussion and analysis is necessary to try and understand what has happened and whether we can get back on track relatively quickly.
Both sets of fans were superb and hats off to Huddersfield. The stadium was absolutely rocking. If that doesn't raise you as a home player, nothing will. Lets hope we can match that spirit in the coming weeks.

 

[BensGrandad]

The class of opposition yesterday we should have been set up for. Before the game I was already thinking what the f'uck? But I obviously hoped I was wrong. CH said he set up basically for a draw post match which is very, very disappointing. We had nothing on the wings to set Murray up. We went with the mindset of damage limitation against Huddersfield! We need to lose that mindset very, very quickly. Baldock on the bench, and Kayal, means they're fit to play, play them! This was our worst performance this season, I believe, so hopefully it can only get better, but I don't expect much from Wednesday.

Not exactly true as they may be fit but not to play 90 mins yet, I believe that yesterday was definitely a bad day for CH as he got it completely wrong with his team selection. As you say we should have started a winger either 1 of the 3 and I would have brought both Hemed and Baldock on and there was a strong argument for Kayal to come on alongside of Stephens and pushing Propper forward in the Gross role.

 

[sir albion]

Christ we've played 16 games and had a few international breaks...These players have a bloody easy life as even I jog miles and do exercises and I'm a fair bit older than the players...also work many hours a week like most.
These are professional athletes who earn silly money and tiredness should not even be mentioned.The ball is only in play for about 70 mins and how many miles do they do?

The truth is we don't have the quality in depth and our midfield options are really poor and creativity is piss poor.Then you have a 34 year old striker with a snails pace who gets poor service.

We need far more pace up front to actually penetrate defences.If you don't have the pace you have problems and we have become very dull and defensive because of this.

 

[GloryDays]

Not good enough sometimes, yes.
Tired halfway through the season, sorry I can't agree with that.

I think that’s the £50,000 a week question. Why are they tired at this stage? And a bonus point for why do they all look chronically depressed?

I wonder if a few errors (set pieces) recently have shaken the architecture of the squad. Since the Stoke game we’ve looked terrible in possession, like we don’t want it. Desperate Sunday league at times.