Brentford Post Match Thoughts

[caytonmiller]

if anyone watches the highlights from yesterday and from several other games its clear to see the defence/vyner is not the problem.
with a midfield we have vaulks has looked the best player over the season and that should tell us everything...
he has a good shot but takes a age to shoot (usually closed down). hes got to be the slowest for pace from the whole team. he makes 1 good pass from 20 (the long stuff) possessives he can tackle ok..
hes not the only one. towell is very similar though looks like hes floating on air but running in treacle.. cant tackle, needs 3 touches when 1 should do. off ball play is shocking. came with the rep of knowing where the goal is but rarely shoots.
wiles is wasted in this team. he carries the ball well. has good feet though he also has a stiff neck watching the ball in the sky all game...
if crooks is the missing midfielder we need then im a monkeys uncle cos i can see warne dropping wiles rather than one of the others.. frustrated miller atm

[CAMiller]

if anyone watches the highlights from yesterday and from several other games its clear to see the defence/vyner is not the problem.
with a midfield we have vaulks has looked the best player over the season and that should tell us everything...
he has a good shot but takes a age to shoot (usually closed down). hes got to be the slowest for pace from the whole team. he makes 1 good pass from 20 (the long stuff) possessives he can tackle ok..
hes not the only one. towell is very similar though looks like hes floating on air but running in treacle.. cant tackle, needs 3 touches when 1 should do. off ball play is shocking. came with the rep of knowing where the goal is but rarely shoots.
wiles is wasted in this team. he carries the ball well. has good feet though he also has a stiff neck watching the ball in the sky all game...
if crooks is the missing midfielder we need then im a monkeys uncle cos i can see warne dropping wiles rather than one of the others.. frustrated miller atm

Just watched them on youtube. Their 3rd goal showed two things. Firstly they are a very slick passing side, after our 2nd goal we didn't touch the ball from the kickoff, 29 touches from them and 34 seconds later we were 3-2 down. Secondly, Towel missed a tackle and that player went on to score. Bad enough that he didn't pick him up but even then Vaulks had a chance to track him back but was too slow or not aware enough to do so.

One thing lost in all the negativity, what a great strike Taylor's was.

[CTMilller]

It's often revelatory to read the opposition's message boards for post-match comments.

Clearly Brentford fans thought their team played well above their normal game. They were certainly not dismissing us as a rubbish team that they walked over. Several of the complimentary comments from this board about how they played are quoted verbatim as
testimony (from the opposition as they see it) to the view that they were unusually good on the day.

I think it's important to keep this in mind when looking for perspective on the game.

I also thought this was a well-balanced comment from one of their sites:

"...sublime football on display from us and to be fair to Rotherham all though they were really direct it wasn’t just aimless and they did cause us quite a few problems. They might just stay up playing that style with the effort they put in today but that’s as far as it will take them.

It was a contrast of two small sides in a league littered with big clubs but one of which is an example of what you can achieve with forward thinking and good club management and the other desperately trying to cling onto championship status."

Obviously the last comment might be seen as a little arrogant on their part. (That league table of comparative spend on players by Championship teams published on here recently showed a figure of £46.22 million compared to our £6.44 million. Having a super wealthy benefactor might be a bigger factor than "forward thinking and good club management") Nonetheless there is some truth in it.

My take on yesterday was that we played OK but we met a team who were by their standards playing above their typical game. Undoubtedly our style of playing allowed them to shine (as it did in the opening game of the season) and we were sub-par.

We're going through a bad spell. All teams do. It's likely we will come out of it and start to get some better results. It may not be enough and we have sunk closer to the bottom three and are getting a bit adrift. But it's not wrist-slitting time - at least not yet. We are not in the bottom three and things change quickly. Take Hull: second to bottom for all of October and going into November. Now 8th. OK we're not going to do that but it's entirely possible that we can pick up and at least survive based on our overall performance so far.

[caytonmiller]

One thing lost in all the negativity, what a great strike Taylor's was.

didnt he shifted the ball well to make the yard he needed... guess thats whats a bit frustrating as most of our team can play football but choose/instructed not to

[fc_miller]

look at the stats between the two teams
https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/12...rham-Brentford

Here's a few

Passes
282 vs 556
Pass Success
63% vs 82%
Touches
483 vs 764
You can also look at the heat maps of each player, so you can see where they spend most of the game
https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/12...rham-Brentford

[fc_miller]

maybe we should have looked at the head to head, which is based on stats from last 2 years.
it has us pretty much spot on
https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/12...rham-Brentford

Attachment 11666

[Grist_To_The_Mill]

Looks like their manager acted on those figures and ours didn’t

Take for example Brentford’s “attack through the middle”. They didn’t do that, they played the ball into the corners and pulled the ball back to a late arriving midfielder (which we didn’t bother to mark)

[fc_miller]

Is that not attacking down the wings, creating long shot opportunities and finishing scoring chances? 3 of their 4 strengths.

[Grist_To_The_Mill]

Is that not attacking down the wings, creating long shot opportunities and finishing scoring chances? 3 of their 4 strengths.

Yes, you’re right, the strengths and style comments contradict each other