Albion v Bristol C team news/matchthread

[TipperaryBaggie]

Great result and some wonderful pace and finishing shown tonight. However, the biggest worry is the defence where Dawson, Hegazi and Bartley were absolutely atrocious. Moore has got to do something about the shocking defending if we are going to maintain a promotion push. I thought that Houlahane showed some nice touches and composure when he came on.

[The Minn Junta]

Well, I don't quite know what to make of all this, I know we're flying by the seat of our pants every week. It can't carry on going our way, surely. The only answer I can come up with is most of the Championship forwards can't finish whereas ours can.


Apart from that.....











....LAI OUT!

COYBB.

[mickd1961]

Bomber Brown said we were a disaster at the back and that at 4-2 we were hanging on by our fingertips.

Dullard Brown has to grow some nuts and get Bartley out and revert to a back four with Dawson and Hegazi in the centre.

The front four of Phillips,J Rod,Gayle and Barnes are clever enough to to play in a 4-2-3-1 but surely Field has to play in the "2" in front of the back four.

Until we have three athletic defenders who are comfortable on the ball this "experiment" needs putting on the back burner.

[Leicesterbaggie]

Bomber Brown said we were a disaster at the back and that at 4-2 we were hanging on by our fingertips.

Dullard Brown has to grow some nuts and get Bartley out and revert to a back four with Dawson and Hegazi in the centre.

The front four of Phillips,J Rod,Gayle and Barnes are clever enough to to play in a 4-2-3-1 but surely Field has to play in the "2" in front of the back four.

Until we have three athletic defenders who are comfortable on the ball this "experiment" needs putting on the back burner.

Couldn't agree more. Our defence has been shambolic all season. We aren't good enough to play the system that we are adopting at present and as you say we must move Dawson into the centre of the defence to play alongside Hegazi in a back four. We look a million dollars going forward but like paupers at the back. We can't keep on relying on our front men to score three or four goals every game in order to win matches. We have the basis of a side capable of getting out of this league but will not do so if we insist in playing three at the back.

[The Minn Junta]

Bomber Brown said we were a disaster at the back and that at 4-2 we were hanging on by our fingertips.

Dullard Brown has to grow some nuts and get Bartley out and revert to a back four with Dawson and Hegazi in the centre.

The front four of Phillips,J Rod,Gayle and Barnes are clever enough to to play in a 4-2-3-1 but surely Field has to play in the "2" in front of the back four.

Until we have three athletic defenders who are comfortable on the ball this "experiment" needs putting on the back burner.

I think it's a matter of time before we're on the end of a right d icking. Blues could have had five, I couldn't make the Bristol match but it sounded on the radio commentary like they could have had five aswell.


Should we experience a few injuries or bans to the likes of Barnes, Gayle etc and continue with this system I fear the worst. Seems daft complaining when we sit third in the league and having won 4-2 against a promotion rival but I think we all know it's not as plain and simple as all that. The big games, Boro, Leeds etc will find us out, as I said in another post, I think some of the poor finishing at this level has saved us so far. I wonder how we will fayre against Roofe and Roberts at Leeds? (two for Roberts last night), and we all know where they came from!

Megson played three at the back but they were never as uncertain as these three. Keeping hearing the post match "we're working on it" speech is worrying as we seem as shaky as ever. For me (also Mick)I think we need to consider a flat back four.

[Whicka_Mon]

Seriously chaps.
We've had three years of park the bus defending, watching the freezer defrost football. Now we have people complaining we don't defend. Unbelievable. What exactly do you want ?
For those of us that could be bothered to go last night. It was open, edge of the seat football. A great game of attacking football from both sides. What we've been crying out for for three years.

[TipperaryBaggie]

Seriously Wicka, what we want is a team that could challenge for promotion this year. Like everyone has observed this season, we are atrocious at the back whilst going forward we look sharp and decisive. In my opinion, I believe that we need two central defenders and two proper full backs yet we still persevere with the Pulis gamble of playing centre backs at full back. I would like to see Dawson and Tosin play those two central roles with Gibbs and one other across the back. That way we are not parking the bus but defending properly.

[The Minn Junta]

Seriously chaps.
We've had three years of park the bus defending, watching the freezer defrost football. Now we have people complaining we don't defend. Unbelievable. What exactly do you want ?
For those of us that could be bothered to go last night. It was open, edge of the seat football. A great game of attacking football from both sides. What we've been crying out for for three years.

Fair enough Whicka, so you’re happy with our defending then?

For the record, I couldn’t attend due to not finishing work near to kick off time. After being a season ticket holder for 28 years, why I’m justifying that on here fck knows, just the prickly nature of this site I suppose.

Ho hum.

[WBA123]

Seriously chaps.
We've had three years of park the bus defending, watching the freezer defrost football. Now we have people complaining we don't defend. Unbelievable. What exactly do you want ?
For those of us that could be bothered to go last night. It was open, edge of the seat football. A great game of attacking football from both sides. What we've been crying out for for three years.

100% agree with this.

What I wanted this season was excitement and a change of philospohy. There's also been an attempt to reduce the age of our squad (Hoolahan and Mears are in on short term deals, I can't see them being here next season)

And that's what we are getting. People whinging about our defending are the same people who were whinging about Pulis for 3 years, just love complaining. Would you rather we won 4-2 last night or defended Pulis style and won 1-0? I know what I would rather..

Its not going to be easy, we are clearly in transition. Our manager is asking our defenders and goalkeeper to play it out from the back and trust each other on the ball. I have my doubts if they are good enough, but I'd rather that than watch them put 10 men behind the ball and just hoof it up to Rondon for 90 minutes.

We're 3rd in the league, and the 2 games we have lost this season have been last minute winners against us.

I'm fully behind this new style of play, its exciting and its better than the crap we've had to put up with in the last couple of seasons,

Stop whinging and embrace it.

[Leicesterbaggie]

It's not that we aren't applauding our new style of attacking football because I certainly am, it's our shambolic defending that I'm concerned about. There's nothing that states that just because a side is attack minded that they can't be strong at the back as well. I realise that to play it out from the back is proving difficult for us at the present moment and that is probably because our defenders aren't good enough to play this system. We are much too vulnerable and need to tighten up, whether that is to persist with a back three and hope that we improve or revert to a flat back four. It also has to be taken into consideration that we are now playing at a lower level to last season and that opposition strikers, in the main, have not truly capitalised on our poor defending. I'm not advocating a return to the turgid football of previous seasons but we can't rely on the maxim 'If you score three we'll score four'. There has to be a happy medium whereby good defending is as important as being a strong attacking outfit.