[Albion] What are we? Weak, Cowards, Comfortable, Arrogant, Flaky, Spineless or Fragile?

[el punal]

That's all good, but there were no lessons learnt about game management from a very similar debacle v Wolves a few weeks earlier. That's what rankles. It's amateur hour and don't let any arrogant prat tell you otherwise

I haven’t met the arrogant prat yet, but should it be Tony Bloom I let him know. Anyway, this is all about opinions. As I commented in my post I was livid with the way we threw away three points at the death against Leicester, and even more so against Wolves. But these were individual errors made by different players - that happens in football. If you take in the season so far as a whole we are doing well, on the cusp of a European place and gaining plaudits along the way. If what rankles you are the errors along the way rather than balancing it with the good things then you really are an unforgiving fan.

 

[Mike Small]

-Only 3 teams have lost less than us
-4 games away from half the season being played so almost all teams have played each other. Basically you can't point to us having had "easy fixtures"
-we are 7th despite this utter crisis and a terrible manager

It's a true footballing miracle

7th is fine but it's the manner. Literally giving points to Wolves and Leicester is just so diabolical and avoidable. We nearly conceded two goals in injury time against Bournemouth too. It's pathetic and weak.

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

7th is fine but it's the manner. Literally giving points to Wolves and Leicester is just so diabolical and avoidable. We nearly conceded two goals in injury time against Bournemouth too. It's pathetic and weak.

What about the wins from behind?

It seems people pick and choose when to decide we have a bad mentality.

 

[Mike Small]

I saw this season as a bit of a free hit personally, so I’m pretty relaxed. Several injuries to the new boys haven’t helped either.

I doubt our ownership see it this way and what an opportunity we have with other top teams playing in Europe and not able to spend big because of PSR. Maybe the opportunity will be there again in the future too.

 

[Mike Small]

What about the wins from behind?

It seems people pick and choose when to decide we have a bad mentality.

I would say conceding 4 goals in the last 10 minutes of games (Wolves and Leicester) is far more of a mentality issue and problem then beating midtable Spursy and an exhausted/battered City. Just my opinion. They absolutely capitulated V Southampton too.

I honestly can't believe they let that happen yesterday following on from Wolves and nearly letting it happen V Bournemouth too. Yes the second was Igor's fault but the whole team and management are responsible for that. So weak.

 

[Mike Small]

You missed: Came from 1 down to beat City and from 2 down to beat Spurs, held on against Bournemouth having played half an hour with 10 men, held on at St James Park, scored a late winner v Man Utd, got a draw away at Arsenal after being 1-0 down. It's a very competitive league and every team is going to have ups and downs. We have a very talented, but also very young squad and we have been without some leaders at crucial times, but you don't get the full picture of a team that sits in seventh if you cherry pick the negative.


Everybody in the league is our rival. Where the teams you mention haven't strengthened, others have. The incredible money spent by Chelsea over the last few seasons did not provide instant success, but it seems to have bedded in and is helping this year. On a smaller scale see also Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth.


Bournemouth, Brentford and Fulham all have higher net spends than we do over the last five years. They all have managers with experience in the division. Hurzeler is 15 games into his first EPL season. His win percentage is 44.44%. Frank's EPL record is 34.88%. Iraola's is 37.73%. Silva's is 35.48%. Fab's record could get worse, it could get better. It could stay the same. If it stays the same he will be the Brighton manager with the highest EPL win percentage. RDZ's was 37.14%.

We are a work in progress. A lot of new signings have joined a new coaching team and quite a few have had injury issues at the beginning of their Albion careers. As you have suggested, we have no right to win EPL matches and things are as good as they have ever been. However, it will always be a massive challenge and there will always be times when we feel frustrated by results. It's hard to cope with losing points in moments, but it was also hard when we dominated matches, but couldn't score. Let's face it. It will always be hard. The only thing we can do, whenever there are knock backs, is follow Micky Adams sage advice and keep the faith.

You are a lot more measured than me. Fair play. And you speak a lot of sense.

However, I would rather dominate a game and not score than chuck away a TWO goal lead with a few minutes to spare though. It was hardly against an Arsenal/City/Liverpool team in their pomp though was it. Wolves and Leicester are incredibly poor.

What also concerns me is the coaching in these moments. Bournemouth have men over (yes we had 10 men) as do Leicester for their first. We don't mark. Nothing seems to being done about it from a coaching point of view or the players on the pitch.

 

[ClemFandango]

Brian Owen posted this BEFORE the Leicester game. The stats are very worrying..

‘Starting XI is obviously important - but so is the finishing XI. Albion have conceded the last goal in 5 of their last 6 PL games (the last 2 goals in 3 of them and it nearly happened again v Soton)’

In other words, we have now conceded the last 2 goals in 4 of our last 7 games. Numbers don’t lie

 

[pigmanovich]

What about the wins from behind?

It seems people pick and choose when to decide we have a bad mentality.

That’s true but the psychological explanation for this discrepancy has to be that we just can’t motivate ourselves against bottom of the table sides whereas we back ourselves to beat the best in the league.

 

[Stato]

You are a lot more measured than me. Fair play. And you speak a lot of sense.

However, I would rather dominate a game and not score than chuck away a TWO goal lead with a few minutes to spare though. It was hardly against an Arsenal/City/Liverpool team in their pomp though was it. Wolves and Leicester are incredibly poor.

What also concerns me is the coaching in these moments. Bournemouth have men over (yes we had 10 men) as do Leicester for their first. We don't mark. Nothing seems to being done about it from a coaching point of view or the players on the pitch.

Letting these games slip in this manner is certainly more of a gut punch, but it also seems far more easily resolved. Those long, long gaps between goals at home under Potter were just soul destroying and he just didn't seem to have a solution. This seems as simple as learning a bit of nous, knowing when to play keep ball rather than trying to score again. The return of Veltman and some fit closers like Milner and March will help calm and teach the youngsters in these circumstances.

Also, although we've been on the wrong end of two egregious instances of throwing points away at the death, teams becoming better at overcoming deficits does seem to be becoming a league wide trend. I've taken a look, and teams have won an average of 0.839 points per game from positions of deficit so far this season. If my maths is correct, across last year it was 0.721, in 22/23 it was 0.645 and in 21/22 0.547. Perhaps the increased subs, perhaps more attention to adding time back, perhaps more general attacking intent, but whatever the reasons, it does seem that the fat lady is delaying her first notes more and more.

Having a plan to deal with this would seem to be a useful weapon in a game of increasingly tight margins. If everyone is appointing set piece coaches, perhaps we need to pilot a keep ball specialist to help kill games. Surely there's a Ray Wilkinsesque former midfielder somewhere in Spain or Italy who could be brought in to teach our progressive attacking youngsters how to play without any intent when necessary.

 

[Professor Plum]

f*** off with this shit.

 

[BLOCK F]

Letting these games slip in this manner is certainly more of a gut punch, but it also seems far more easily resolved. Those long, long gaps between goals at home under Potter were just soul destroying and he just didn't seem to have a solution. This seems as simple as learning a bit of nous, knowing when to play keep ball rather than trying to score again. The return of Veltman and some fit closers like Milner and March will help calm and teach the youngsters in these circumstances.

Also, although we've been on the wrong end of two egregious instances of throwing points away at the death, teams becoming better at overcoming deficits does seem to be becoming a league wide trend. I've taken a look, and teams have won an average of 0.839 points per game from positions of deficit so far this season. If my maths is correct, across last year it was 0.721, in 22/23 it was 0.645 and in 21/22 0.547. Perhaps the increased subs, perhaps more attention to adding time back, perhaps more general attacking intent, but whatever the reasons, it does seem that the fat lady is delaying her first notes more and more.

Having a plan to deal with this would seem to be a useful weapon in a game of increasingly tight margins. If everyone is appointing set piece coaches, perhaps we need to pilot a keep ball specialist to help kill games. Surely there's a Ray Wilkinsesque former midfielder somewhere in Spain or Italy who could be brought in to teach our progressive attacking youngsters how to play without any intent when necessary.

I’m hoping Mr.Milner could help.

 

[Mike Small]

f*** off with this shit.

Should I add 'poorly coached' to the options?