[Albion] When Did It All Go So Wrong?

[Reddleman]

I think Burnley result had a big impact too.

We started that game brightly coming off the back of a good performance against Watford but then got caught with three break away goals. I think two things happened, firstly the team started to lose serious confidence in their ability to take chances (this was compounded by the failure to score against Watford) and so it becomes a vicious circle. Secondly and most crucially I think CH started to fear really pushing forward to attack the lesser teams at home for fear of being hot on the break and the next few homes games become so much more conservative in approach.

Those two factors combined did for us I believe.

 

[Nobby]

Is the answer - when Dan Ashworth was recruited?

Mind you we played like a League Two team in our first game at Watford

 

[mwrpoole]

If you look at things slightly differently - we managed a solitary point against Fulham & Cardiff. Against the relegated teams you need to win at least your home games and perhaps at a point away. If we'd beaten Cardiff & Fulham at home we'd have finished on 41 points and 15th despite playing pretty dire for large parts of the season. What would people have thought then - an ok season and with a few tweaks aim for 12-14th next season?

Did the cup run cause problems? For me yes. We were due to play Cardiff the week after beating Palace away and confidence would have been high. Against Southampton at home the week before the SF, players clearly looked like they had one eye on playing at Wembley.


Lots of ifs and maybes, but basically very, very small margins.

 

[Mtoto]

Yeah, we weren't a million miles off winning two away games fairly close together being 2-0 up at fulham and west ham. To get 1 point from those positions damaged the confidence of the players and the manager, we went VERY defensive from then on really.

Next game after Fulham - when we could easily have been 3-0 and out of sight at half time - was home versus Watford, when we battered them and had no luck at all in front of goal. xG (from 538) is Albion 2.1, Watford 0.3. Not the performance of a team that's suddenly gone VERY defensive.

Game after that was the away win in the Cup at WBA, then the 1-3 at home versus Burnley when Heaton made several great saves in the first half - again, VERY defensive? Why was Heaton so busy if so? Then we beat Derby in the Cup, lost 2-1 away at Leicester, beat Huddersfield at home and won away at Palace. That's seven games in League and Cup, with seven points gained and 10 goals scored.

There's no denying that we tried very hard to defend the initial point in the last few games (ie. from Southampton at home onwards) but for me, it was a sensible thing to do at that stage and the most effective way to ensure survival. And it worked.

Hughton is a pragmatic manager, no doubt about it, but that's what you need at our end of the table. And that doesn't mean he wouldn't also be smart enough to adapt the style of play if he was asked, by the bloke who hired him and sets his targets, to aim a little higher. He'd more than earned a chance at it, and would have taken a great deal of the experience of the last two years into the task as well. Still, who cares about loyalty and continuity eh?

 

[Pavilionaire]

When you look at the fixtures it's very clear - wins against Hudds and Palace at the beginning of March left us in a good place, but then we had a 3-week break from the Prem and after that we went winless, 3 points from 27, 3 goals in 9 matches.

Something happened in that 3-week window in March.

 

[The Antikythera Mechanism]

It started when they banned bottle tops FACT

 

[Seasider78]

When you look at the fixtures it's very clear - wins against Hudds and Palace at the beginning of March left us in a good place, but then we had a 3-week break from the Prem and after that we went winless, 3 points from 27, 3 goals in 9 matches.

Something happened in that 3-week window in March.

I was going to say the palace game since then I can’t help but think there was some complacency that we had done enough to stay up with everyone citing our very winnable home fixtures which is where the panic set in

 

[Uh_huh_him]

I’ve been wracking my brains for when we went from a safe, conservative, uninspiring team to a disastrous car crash outfit struggling to put anything together apart from some desperate backs to the wall performances in the last few games.

My feeling was that it was the second half showing at Fulham. 2-0 up and absolutely cruising at halftime. Second half starts and the whole team collapsed like a soggy soufflé. I don’t think we ever really recovered from that despite fortuitous wins against Huddersfield and Palace.

I remember thinking at half time, "we have such a good defence, this game is over and done with"
What followed was incredible to watch. The team were all over the place. Panic set in and the rest is history.

Why it happened? I have no idea.
We certainly were playing a more expansive type of football. Probably should have had 4 in the first half alone.
I'm told (by others more attuned to football tactics) that this formation left our full backs exposed.
Fulham got lucky and started to believe in themselves.

It was also a disgusting night (weather wise) where probably the team with more attacking intent were likely to get an advantage from defensive slips and mis judged/hit passes.
Maybe we tried to sit on the lead when it was better to keep attacking.

This result followed on from giving a 2 goal lead away at West Ham.
We had gone from a strong defence looking to nick a goal, to a free-scoring team with a leaky defence..

Must have been a change of intent/tactics/formation from the manager.
The players weren't able to execute it and stay in shape at the back.

I think both games have affected the team's confidence.

 

[Machiavelli]

Aside from the Man U (H) game early on, any exciting and classy performances that stand out last season? Arsenal (H) perhaps?

I think you're right here, and what was distinctive about Man U at home was that we actually pressed them during that game especially first half, and did so successfully. I really can't remember that happening again. If we'd continued that (even against certain opponents, or for spells during a game) we'd have some variety to our game, but we became increasingly one-dimensional, even with the change in formation that I first noticed away to Bournemouth.
Excluding some exceptional rearguard performances, you can count the games in which we played well this season on one hand.

 

[Machiavelli]

It's kind of interesting that a number of people are mentioning Fulham as where it all went wrong. The mental fragility exhibited in the second half was on show throughout the rest of the second half of the season. It's interesting because the game away at Fulham the year we went up was the game that I became convinced we were going up for sure. They played us off the park and it was only the sheer bloody mindedness and determination of the players, the unbending will and mental strength of the players that saw us leave with a highly improbable 2-1 win instead of having our arses handed to us like a whole load of teams had that season.

So Fulham was the high mark of Hughton's reign and the low too.

Well, I find it kind of interesting.

Good point, it was also the game before his reign started. And what a fantastic cold, still evening Nathan gave us then.

 

[Machiavelli]

It started when they banned bottle tops FACT

And there was I thinking it was when I could no longer take my FLASK to the Amex

 

[Napper]

We came from behind to get a point against Newcastle, from behind to get a point at Arsenal (which might have been three) and almost kept Spurs at bay for 95 minutes. If we were "unravelling" - which is a matter of opinion anyway - then someone seems to have ravelled us back up again in time to keep us in the Premier League. Wonder who?

haha

Newcastle for 45 mins up there with worst all season and meant we were chasing it 2nd half
Arsenal - yes good performance
Spurs - we lost and barely got out our half.

I wouldn't say we did a lot to keep us up once things started to go wrong , we stayed up because of what we did before and a shite Cardiff being able to capitilise

 

[pigbite]

I am wondering how much part the relationship between CH and the players has to play in all of this. I tend to reserve judgement on rumours about what is supposedly going on behind the scenes but I do wonder if something significant changed between CH and key team members, potentially over tactics, formation and the like?

If the players are not 100% behind the manager then you have a big problem, not just with the squad you have but also in attracting players. They ask around and take on board what they hear.

If TB was wondering if CH was up to getting a squad pushing for a safe mid table finish next season then he surely would be taking into account the atmosphere in the dressing room.

 

[BLOCK F]

Irrelevant it may be, but I was most unimpressed and disturbed by the way we failed to win the Championship and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
Lack of resolve, mental strength etc. that has shown up this season.

 

[Questions]

When did it all go wrong ?

Just after we sacked Pat Seward imo.

 

[brightn'ove]

Next game after Fulham - when we could easily have been 3-0 and out of sight at half time - was home versus Watford, when we battered them and had no luck at all in front of goal. xG (from 538) is Albion 2.1, Watford 0.3. Not the performance of a team that's suddenly gone VERY defensive.

Game after that was the away win in the Cup at WBA, then the 1-3 at home versus Burnley when Heaton made several great saves in the first half - again, VERY defensive? Why was Heaton so busy if so? Then we beat Derby in the Cup, lost 2-1 away at Leicester, beat Huddersfield at home and won away at Palace. That's seven games in League and Cup, with seven points gained and 10 goals scored.

There's no denying that we tried very hard to defend the initial point in the last few games (ie. from Southampton at home onwards) but for me, it was a sensible thing to do at that stage and the most effective way to ensure survival. And it worked.

Hughton is a pragmatic manager, no doubt about it, but that's what you need at our end of the table. And that doesn't mean he wouldn't also be smart enough to adapt the style of play if he was asked, by the bloke who hired him and sets his targets, to aim a little higher. He'd more than earned a chance at it, and would have taken a great deal of the experience of the last two years into the task as well. Still, who cares about loyalty and continuity eh?

Completely fair assessment, and it’s hard to disagree. I would’ve been happy if Hughton was our manager next season. I just feel like this was the time that our luck started to change and fear started coming into play.

 

[Bwian]

Irrelevant it may be, but I was most unimpressed and disturbed by the way we failed to win the Championship and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
Lack of resolve, mental strength etc. that has shown up this season.

It isn't irrelevant at all. That game at Villa showed a fragility that became more and more apparent away from home our first season in the PL. That fragility became ingrained in our play away from home this season and eventually became part of our home performances.

Tony Bloom has made the right decision. Hughton is not the man to stop the slide-we've all seen that since January.

He has constantly talked about 'a club at our level', playing up the opposition. Bill Shankly used to tell people that he'd put his best team out and let other teams worry about his side. Not comparing teams but the mental side of the game. Ferguson learned from Shankly and was a master at psyching out the opposition. I bet he never once gave a press conference bigging up the other team. We got it all the time. The players must have been tired of hearing how good the other team is.

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[oldboyroy]

One note from all of this was the constant talking up the opposition fair enough to a degree but it was every game who ever it was and it felt like we were only good to try and stop the opposition from scoring not impose our game on them we have some quality players too

 

[Bwian]

Next game after Fulham - when we could easily have been 3-0 and out of sight at half time - was home versus Watford, when we battered them and had no luck at all in front of goal. xG (from 538) is Albion 2.1, Watford 0.3. Not the performance of a team that's suddenly gone VERY defensive.

Game after that was the away win in the Cup at WBA, then the 1-3 at home versus Burnley when Heaton made several great saves in the first half - again, VERY defensive? Why was Heaton so busy if so? Then we beat Derby in the Cup, lost 2-1 away at Leicester, beat Huddersfield at home and won away at Palace. That's seven games in League and Cup, with seven points gained and 10 goals scored.

There's no denying that we tried very hard to defend the initial point in the last few games (ie. from Southampton at home onwards) but for me, it was a sensible thing to do at that stage and the most effective way to ensure survival. And it worked.

Hughton is a pragmatic manager, no doubt about it, but that's what you need at our end of the table. And that doesn't mean he wouldn't also be smart enough to adapt the style of play if he was asked, by the bloke who hired him and sets his targets, to aim a little higher. He'd more than earned a chance at it, and would have taken a great deal of the experience of the last two years into the task as well. Still, who cares about loyalty and continuity eh?

I admire your loyalty to Hughton.

The truth is that this season we ended up with almost identical stats with his Norwich side who were relegated. He did exactly the same things that Norwich fans told us to expect and they were quickly told to eff off, this time Hughton has learned from that season, blah blah blah. He clearly didn't learn anything from that season because he repeated it and we nearly went down.

Explain to me what worked? Getting our asses kicked at home by relegation rivals and out of form clubs? We got our asses kicked by Millwall but fluked a win. It wasn't working. It really wasn't.

He is a decent man but his time had come to leave.

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[Captain Sensible]

I am wondering how much part the relationship between CH and the players has to play in all of this. I tend to reserve judgement on rumours about what is supposedly going on behind the scenes but I do wonder if something significant changed between CH and key team members, potentially over tactics, formation and the like?

If the players are not 100% behind the manager then you have a big problem, not just with the squad you have but also in attracting players. They ask around and take on board what they hear.

If TB was wondering if CH was up to getting a squad pushing for a safe mid table finish next season then he surely would be taking into account the atmosphere in the dressing room.

I agree with this. When the players start to question the tactics and aren’t pulling in the same direction as the manager then it all falls apart. There have been plenty of rumours about professionalism and loyalty to CH (players going to CH asking for a more attacking game to be played and apparently out on the town lately), although maybe not 100% accurate, it shows there was at least a little smoke even if there was no fire. There is no doubt the #togetherness of the team, manager, club and the fans got us to the PL and kept us in it last year. But there were signs that some of the players can switch off and mentally not always be strong enough to see a job through to the end. The last 3 games in the Championship after Promotion, the Games after we had secured PL status against Man U last season and the Wembley SF This Year. Those important moments when some of the players took their foot off the peddle ever so slightly was enough. The fragility of the squad has shown at certain times, ( when the team has shown mental strength, they have mostly done very well, Palace games being an example). I think there is no one single reason why the team didn’t show up for the trio of “must win“ home games, but squad mentality and belief in the managers tactics had a major impact on the results and performances. Tony Bloom knows more than we do, he clearly felt this slide was going to continue into next season and a fresh approach was needed. There always comes a point when the control over players is more difficult, especially if both player and manager have been at a single club for a long time. We have had almost the same core of squad through the last 4 seasons and finally for whatever reason Hughton’s influence had diminished. Alex Ferguson would have shipped out a player as soon as he was questioned, or if there’s was any one player questioning him or his tactics. We can’t afford to financially keep the constant freshness of squad to keep the manager in total authority as Ferguson did.
So I do believe Bloom was right to make the change. After all, it’s easier to change the manager than change 5 or 6 players.