[Albion] Why do we keep conceding late goals ? 9 matches this season and counting...

[PILTDOWN MAN]

I believe it something that lies with Potter to act upon. We appear to become more open as the game moves on. Also our midfield stops tracking forward players like they do for the first 70 minutes, often it's a player drifting past Biss who influences the most. Ben White also makes more positional errors later on.

A lot of it though has been alluded to, we are not normally in a convincing or commending position going in to the last quarter. We look knackered.

 

[Swansman]

All this is true but the converse doesn't happen. How many times have we scored late and changed the result?

Crystal Palace (A), Liverpool and Sheff Utd are the only three I can think of (we did against Man U but that didn't change the result). Yes, late goals are part and parcel of football but I'd like us to score a few more ourselves

This season the team conceded 7 and scored 6 in the final quarter, last season it was 12 late game goals for Brighton and 9 conceded. Next season who knows. But as it stands the number of goals conceded late is pretty average.

 

[Tiptoe through the NSC]

We either tire, sit back or both – sometimes it's hard to be 100% sure which. Last night, we were forced back but we also became very risk averse and played too many long balls out of defence with nobody up front strong enough to hold on to the ball and wait for support – ie. an old-fashioned target man. The equaliser came when Veltman aimed a ball towards Maupay's head that was meat and drink for Maguire. The ball was in our net within seconds. The issue was that Maupay was the one and only player in their half, we had withdrawn our wide midfield players to help defend and our central midfielders were too knackered to get up in support. Veltman had no options once he had dithered over the safe pass to Dunk and seen it closed off. In the first half he would have had plenty. In this instance I feel it was a combination of tactics and mentality – two things I am sure Potter can and will address.

As for why we didn't score late ourselves. That's simple. It was down to the Complete and Utter Shyster and friends.

 

[usernamed]

Last night we sat back for the second half. We came out, stopped pressing in the opposition half, and invited pressure onto ourselves.

I knew we were going to lose within 3 minutes of the second half starting. I’m supportive of GP, but this has to have come from the manager. All our energy had dissipated, we were passive, inviting MU onto us. We’d been told to hold on. The most negative thing a manager can say to a player., “We’re ahead, keep our advantage.”

We need to be strong enough to fight our battles, we were good enough to fight in the first half, we should have been good enough to fight in the second.


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[Kosh]

Last night we sat back for the second half. We came out, stopped pressing in the opposition half, and invited pressure onto ourselves.

I knew we were going to lose within 3 minutes of the second half starting. I’m supportive of GP, but this has to have come from the manager. All our energy had dissipated, we were passive, inviting MU onto us. We’d been told to hold on. The most negative thing a manager can say to a player., “We’re ahead, keep our advantage.”

We need to be strong enough to fight our battles, we were good enough to fight in the first half, we should have been good enough to fight in the second.


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I agree with the above. I suspect GP weighed it up; going for a second and/or protecting the lead or indeed settling for a point... reckoning that we’d be picked off if we continued to go toe to toe. If true, it showed too much respect and fear. As you say, we were good enough during the open 45 yet looked a shadow of our attacking selves from the whistle during the second half. Utd were better, but we played to their script and the inevitability of the comeback and outcome was and remains a ball crunching agony.

GP keeps getting done by Ole, it’s rather predictable... we were indeed far too passive and as a result the opportunity to get even a point passed us by.

It wasn’t bad, but it could have been so much better. I’d like to have seen more changes before they scored - if indeed some players were getting leggy - get them off. We had a golden chance last night, and I think we blew it.

Never let the opposition hand you the script, fight and go for it. We didn’t, we settled and we lost everything.

I say we hit Everton hard and we can win, sit on 1-0 and we’ll see it slip again. Time to learn (finally) one of your most repetitive lessons Graham.

 

[Brownstuff]

Tottenham the same this season
Although with us the main problem is not so much conceding late goals but goals conceded quite soon after we have just scored

 

[HalfaSeatOn]

Depth of squad. It’s only season no. 4 in PL. I reckon season 7 we’ll beat MU at OT so still a bit of waiting time unfortunately.

 

[Gwylan]

This season the team conceded 7 and scored 6 in the final quarter

The OP said that Brighton had conceded nine result-changing goals in the last 10 minutes and we've scored four (I've just checked) - that's a big discrepancy.

 

[Swansman]

The OP said that Brighton had conceded nine result-changing goals in the last 10 minutes and we've scored four (I've just checked) - that's a big discrepancy.

Thats the result of pretty much every game being very close - most goals are result changing. Plenty of teams have conceded more goals in the last 10 minutes, but with the difference being that they lost with two or three goals instead, so the goals werent "result changing". Is that better? If the goals were result changing or not doesnt say a lot about the teams ability in the last 10 minutes, it just says the games were close.

Far more remarkable is that 61% of the times Brighton score a goal, it gets equalised. At home this number is 71.4%, or 11% more than the second worst (WBA & Newcastle). The reason for this, as I see it, isnt about the team "switching off" or "not enough stamina" or whatever - I think its fear of the massive, dirty Amex ghost. Any time in a lead, you could see the boys sinking deep into the lap of Sanchez or Ryan, desperate and worried to protect that lead. And it just got worse when it was clear it was going to be a bottom struggle this season again.

I wouldnt be surprised to see it again this season, unfortunately. Its a feeling probably too deeply rooted for the staff/players to really resolve at this point. Just need to limp over that finishing line and then we will have a fresh season with fresh minds.

 

[Shooting Star]

I think it's part of a bigger issue of having excellent first half performances but weaker second halves against the top teams (the City game aside). We press so energetically in the first 45, which is why we look so good, and I think we run out of puff in the second. I think this has been the case over both seasons GP has been in charge (I can think of Leicester and Spurs away last campaign). Reminds me of when England played Croatia in the semi-final of the World Cup. Better teams tend to outlast us over the full 90. I'm not sure what the solution is, aside from building a bigger lead, because it's probably our best hope of beating top teams.

 

[Wardy's twin]

I am not sure the bench is 'thin' I do think there is a question regards the timing and choice of our substitutions. They are often too late and IMO the wrong player. How does Ali J continue to come but at a time when he has no chance to try to influence the game. Why name Izzy if he is not match fit , give him a try and see whether he has retained his speed. I think Zequiri is a better option than people give him credit for and desperate to do well, but not with 3 mins , give him longer to put pressure on the opposition.

We do seem to press a lot less as we tire (naurally) so balls out have to be a mixture of playing around at back but also quick release - second best pass of the night was a long ball to Maupay which led to the penalty incident.

 

[blue-shifted]

When we get possession we flood the box. When we lose it we're back in numbers.

This was absolutely brilliant to watch in the first half against Man U.

At present we don't have the fitness to sustain this over 90 minutes. Especially with Lallana, Gross, and Veltman, some of the relative elder statesmen of the team, as 3 of those who's job it is to get up and down. They do brilliantly, don't get me wrong, but there are limits of the amount we can ask.

I agree we need earlier subs. Zeqiri and MacAllister should be getting > half an hour in most games.

 

[boik]

There always seems to be a tendency on here to forget that there's another team involved. Utd have superior players to us. If they step up to their A game, then it's really hard for a team like us to press them into mistakes as they're too good. So we either take the Palace route and defend with 10 behind the ball, or play to our strengths in the hope we score another and/or don't concede.

Almost every team when they are behind will bust a gut to score and up their game. Quite often this increased effort will result in a goal. Such is football.

 

[blue-shifted]

There always seems to be a tendency on here to forget that there's another team involved. Utd have superior players to us. If they step up to their A game, then it's really hard for a team like us to press them into mistakes as they're too good. So we either take the Palace route and defend with 10 behind the ball, or play to our strengths in the hope we score another and/or don't concede.

Almost every team when they are behind will bust a gut to score and up their game. Quite often this increased effort will result in a goal. Such is football.

What you say here is completely true.

Though we've also done the same against the divisions weakest teams

 

[GOM]

In addition to late goals, we have conceded 8 goals in the 5 minutes either side of half-time (41-50 mins) this season, joint worst with Sheff Utd and Leeds. Perhaps a lack of concentration ?

 

[CaptainDaveUK]

12 teams have conceded 7 or more goals in the last 15 minutes. We’ve conceded 7 or more goals in every quarter of all Premier League matches this season except the first quarter. So I don’t think we actually have a conceding late goals problem. https://www.soccerstats.com/timing.asp?league=england

 

[amexer]

Dunk has said many times he is a leader by example. Still think we miss Webster as organises defenders round him as seen in last minute corner we conceded to Liverpool

 

[blue-shifted]

Dunk has said many times he is a leader by example. Still think we miss Webster as organises defenders round him as seen in last minute corner we conceded to Liverpool

As well as our defenders have been doing, of course we miss Webster

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

Inexperience inexperience inexperience.

Rio is right. I find it hard to look past this, but it also gives a lot of hope for the future.

 

[Guy Fawkes]

We don't settle for a draw or are willing to continue to commit players forward looking for a positive result until the final whistle and refuse to park the bus to try to hold onto what we've got at that stage (when drawing) as we believe we can still get 3 points from the game

Or when losing, we don't defend to keep the score down but commit more and more going forward to try to get an equaliser (as this season there have been very few games we've been out of it and have settled for the loss (in the similar way we've not had many games where we've been so far ahead that the opposition know they are beaten and stop trying so hard to get something from it either)

We feel we can win any game now as we head into the fixture, and as the game goes on we believe we can get a result which is a massive difference to when we had Hughton here who would rely on trying to hold onto a 0-0 against some sides (usually through last ditch defending)

People making something a psychological thing that can play on their minds during games doesn't help, things like we've only won x games at home / can't win at home, we haven't won in 2021 (for the first few games) we can't score goals, etc, etc...

Most teams will go through these sorts of runs during a season, it's the nature of the division (look at Liverpool and their 6 loses at home) and other clubs have bad runs but our negative fans never highlight these too but instead spout their usual bile, that the manager must go, that the players aren't good enough and must go, etc... When our players need confidence and belief these fans try to knock them down further and i'm glad that this season the fans haven't been there because i could see it that they would have made the atmosphere very toxic at matches (like it was in the last days of Hyypia) and forced Potter out or at least affected our performances for the worst and affected our players confidence and willingness to play well for the club (look at the abuse that Andone, Knockaert, and how they then wanted to go when they were already having a tough time mentally)

I also do wonder if we'd managed to avoid the harsh results / defeats in some of our early season games (like the Man Utd one at the Amex - especially given the manner we lost) we'd have had far more belief and would have had a better run of points earlier in the season as confidence would be sky high rather than being knocked like it was after numerous 'unfair' results (given our performances)