Shellshocked

[SwissBlade]

That equaliser and the manner that it came, so much against the run of play, just seemed to knock us completely.

It was one casual misplaced pass from Norwood which led to the goal, but it happens. Following that, Norwood, Duffy and Fleck were giving the ball away all over the place.

We came out in the second half, or rather didn't and we'd lost it before the second half started.

We were incredibly deep at times, yet we'd left the back three exposed. Wing backs were neither pushing on, nor dropping in. Fleck/ Coutts, Norwood were so deep. Duffy was anonymous and the two strikers were isolated.

We can criticise individuals for errors, but errors happen, its how you deal with them that's the issue.

We looked shell shocked in that second half and seemed to be unable to compete. WBA really picked their game up and were unrecognisable from how they were in the first half, they have quality which we can't afford and i'm fine with that. But nobody was picking themselves up second half. We gave them too much respect.

 

[JJ Sefton]

Mentally we seem very fragile.

 

[SwissBlade]

Mentally we seem very fragile.

We certainly did last night. Its not that we didn't have an answer (and we probably didn't), but we didn't even have a go

 

[bromtom]

Mentally we seem very fragile.

I said in another thread, as soon as a game starts to go against us, whether it be the opposition waking up, or the referee not giving us anything we seem to just get this air of "what can we do? We've lost already" regardless of scoreline.

Normally the ref being a twat spurs you on, but I hate it when it happens at the Lane. You can feel the gut punch coming.

 

[Tynemouth Blade]

Misplaced (or shite) passes, winning the ball then giving it straight back or turning straight into one of their players and giving back possession, lack of pace, lack of finishing quality..........

We were yet again poor against a much better team and as we continue to punch above our weight our lack of quality get's found out when playing the better teams in this league!

 

[SwissBlade]

I said in another thread, as soon as a game starts to go against us, whether it be the opposition waking up, or the referee not giving us anything we seem to just get this air of "what can we do? We've lost already" regardless of scoreline.

Normally the ref being a twat spurs you on, but I hate it when it happens at the Lane. You can feel the gut punch coming.

Last night we had such a visible wobble after the goal. We were punch drunk and i was just watching and thinking, get to half time and sort it... but we were as bad/ worse in the second half

 

[INTAKE BLADE]

Two of my mates were on the away end (wba fans) and the texts they were sending me after 35 mins were, they are playing shit and that we are going to hammer them and how impressed they were of us etc, I text em and said long time to go yet and we can switch off in a second, needless to say their attitude to their own team changed after the equaliser, but afterwards both said we looked top 2 that first half but our finishing is letting us down ( glaringly obvious) on to you Chris And Alan. UTB

 

[IdLiketoRogerMoore]

Mirror image of the Stoke game in a lot of ways for me. By that I mean, we dominated a superior team in the first half, but at half time they made adjustments which we simply struggled to cope with in the second half.

Certainly not wanting to be critical of Tufty as his 2nd half adjustments at Reading were outstanding and won us that game - but it does seem when these well coached 'top' teams get over the initial surprise at how good we are and adjust at half time - we don't have the ability to cope.

 

[Bladezz]

We make one bad pass the whole stadium changes it’s not a good place to play football.

 

[John Street West Terrace]

When your playing against quality players that’s what.can happen , you probably get away with that against the lower end teams .
The difference was that they had a front 3 that looked dangerous on the break on there in one previous foray into the box they created a good opportunity out of nothing , but that comes at a cost .
In a lot of respects it reminded me of Derby away bossed first 45 then a combination of us running out of steam & opposition changing tactics turned game on its head .
We’ve got to put teams to bed when we are on top or we will continue to come unstuck against the better sides in the division .
If we had their front 3 last night it would have been over by half time , I’m not knocking the lads there out there giving their all but with investment we’ve reached our peak at moment . We’ve come a long way in two years but I fear the ownership issues will kill the momentum, we could be so close yet so far this season unfortunately

 

[SwissBlade]

We make one bad pass the whole stadium changes it’s not a good place to play football.

Nonsense, we have one of the best home records in the league

 

[Bladesway]

Two of my mates were on the away end (wba fans) and the texts they were sending me after 35 mins were, they are playing shit and that we are going to hammer them and how impressed they were of us etc, I text em and said long time to go yet and we can switch off in a second, needless to say their attitude to their own team changed after the equaliser, but afterwards both said we looked top 2 that first half but our finishing is letting us down ( glaringly obvious) on to you Chris And Alan. UTB

Bang on but over to you Prince and Kev. 20m probably gets us top 6, anything less is compromise.

 

[ucandomagic]

To me, the only ones really playing for the shirt last night were Billy, Bash and Hendo.

The rest are very mechanical, playing from memory. That’s OK when you’re winning and having fun, but not when things start to go against you. JOC and Flecky in particular seem to have lost a lot of the drive and passion that they had.

I think we need to be looking for really strong characters in Jan, as much as strong players.

Magic Always Takes Work

 

[coaxingstar71]

Completely agree with you SwissBlade . We were excellent for 40 minutes, could and probably should have been 2 or 3 up, then one bad mistake and they score with virtually their first real shot on goal and we went to pieces. We never looked like winning that game in the 2nd half and you sensed they'd score at some point.

Very disappointing again.

 

[ekke287]

Billy seemed to fall over a lot in the second half too.

I think in his mind it was the only way we were going to score (ie get a pen).

 

[FlamingLip]

We can criticise individuals for errors, but errors happen, its how you deal with them that's the issue.

Spot on. We lack character.

 

[BushBlade]

I think first half West Brom got their tactics wrong, tried to play on the break but we were able to turn over their counterattacks and we made good use of our possession.

They changed in the second half and got their tactics right, which provided a platform for their superior players. Generally, if both teams get their tactics right and are at it, the team with the better individuals win. West Brom have much better individual players than us, Barry has won lots and still looks good at this level, Livermore has played for England, Rodrigues, Gayle, Phillips are all excellent championship players who’ve played in the PL.

It’s difficult to tell from TV but it looked like they upped the pace a bit too, both in closing us down and moving the ball around. They did a number on us second half. Probably the most comprehensive pasting since Boro.

 

[Bladezz]

Nonsense, we have one of the best home records in the league

Not down to our fans. There’s hundreds of posts about how poor the atmosphere here is. It’s become venemous for some reason.

We lose the ball once the stadium is at its loudest.

 

[Trafford]

Spot on. We lack character.

And leadership on the pitch. Only Basham was trying to gee people up, everyone else just had their heads down, and if we had a true captain they would have spoken to Norwood and Egan after their first mistakes to fire them back up again.

 

[Guesty]

I mentioned it elsewhere but this reminded me very much of Forest away last year (the beamback game). We were one up and cruising until a poor mistake from a midfielder (Fleck/Norwood respectively) gifted an equaliser. We never seemed to be able to rouse ourselves in either game and went on to lose a game we looked set to win comfortably. 'Shell-shocked' is the right term, I think.

and at 2-1 it was even worse last night, they looked beaten well before the final whistle.

 

[raimond]

I said in another thread, as soon as a game starts to go against us, whether it be the opposition waking up, or the referee not giving us anything we seem to just get this air of "what can we do? We've lost already" regardless of scoreline.

Normally the ref being a twat spurs you on, but I hate it when it happens at the Lane. You can feel the gut punch coming.

Make Bash skipper

 

[GrayBlade]

I think we put so much mental and physical effort into playing the way we did in the first 40 minutes it seems as though one setback is enough to completely knock us out of our stride and we can’t get back up for it against the better teams. Sometimes it doesn’t even take a setback, just the half time whistle.

I think this has got to be down to the team as a whole playing at its max and they just can’t sustain it for 90 minutes against the better teams. The only answer is to get that second goal cushion when we are playing well to lift the pressure and allow us to relax but as we know it rarely happens.

 

[Danetheblade]

Not sure why there was such a fuck about with that corner. All the fannying about in the corner areas for what? To go backwards. Get it int' box. Have a dig when the chance arrises. Don't fanny about which usually results in us playing backwards.

 

[Davalon]

The game panned out like a number of others, especially against teams at top end.

These matches are like groundhog day. We called the second half during half time like I'm sure many others did.

 

[BigBed]

"BANG and the game has gone"
Barry Scott should invest in the club!!

 

[Cerberus Blade]

I said in another thread, as soon as a game starts to go against us, whether it be the opposition waking up, or the referee not giving us anything we seem to just get this air of "what can we do? We've lost already" regardless of scoreline.

Normally the ref being a twat spurs you on, but I hate it when it happens at the Lane. You can feel the gut punch coming.

I don't agree with this about being "mentally fragile" - not at all. (The term was used on here a few weeks ago in one of Roy's pre match reviews and was something that was mentioned by a Brentford fan referring to the Brentford team). It doesn't apply to us imo. I think the mentality of the players is first class and they have consistently over-performed for us in almost every game. They are coming up against top players week in week out and they never look phased by that at all. There's a fantastic team spirit down there and they all look out for each other. That's not mentally fragile to me, it's quite the opposite.

If you are saying that we seem to run out of ideas and creativity in some games then I'd totally agree. We've seen that in a number of games where we just keep trying the same thing over and over again and it's not working, but we don't seem able to change it.

Last night's game was one where we should have perhaps been 3 or 4 goals up by half time. We created a number of chances but contrived to miss them. This is a big problem for us. I'd refer back to a thread I posted on here about 2 months ago now, "How do you say something without sounding ungrateful?" or summat like that. In this thread I was pointing out that this poor finishing is costing us lots of points and would be our undoing if we don't fix it. And we haven't fixed it. That's the bottom line.

The other factor is this dreadful reluctance to have a pop at goal. The over-passing, over-playing, in and around the box. For heaven's sake! It's like a bloody game of chess at times. No body has got the bollocks to take a man on, go round him, and let fly at goal. Most of our play in the second half last night was chipping crosses into the box from a diagonal angle. Usually to no one in particular. I'd say about 90% of our attacks were this. The ball needs to be on the deck and the players need to get around the full backs and pull the ball back from the goal line. Either that, or they need to run through the middle with the bloody thing, not keep going down the sides and punting pointless and inaccurate crosses into the box.

That's what's wrong with performances like the one last night. It's bugger all to do with any mental fragility, it's to do with poor decision making and being unable to change our approach when something isn't working.

 

[Kenilworth]

I think we put so much mental and physical effort into playing the way we did in the first 40 minutes it seems as though one setback is enough to completely knock us out of our stride and we can’t get back up for it against the better teams. Sometimes it doesn’t even take a setback, just the half time whistle.

I think this has got to be down to the team as a whole playing at its max and they just can’t sustain it for 90 minutes against the better teams. The only answer is to get that second goal cushion when we are playing well to lift the pressure and allow us to relax but as we know it rarely happens.

Building on that theme.
My observation is that we have to play at our peak to win a game of football. We dominate teams and get into really good areas but it's that final ball which is of too low a quality - it doesn't get to the striker, nor do we cut it back to a midfielder on the edge of the box to ram one home. Instead it hits the first defender or it goes way over everyone a d has to be collected by the opposite wing back - or we chip one in so it's catching practice for the keeper.

Contrast that with WBA first goal.
A mis placed pass creates a possession turnover in our defensive third.
Barnes gets half a yard on Basham and puts the ball in - not a measured pass - just a general cut across. It eludes defenders and strikers - all slashing at the ball and ends up with the one player you know is going to slot from that position, even before he strikes it. Parity.
After all that effort and dominance we succumb to one attack of no great quality - we are not opened up by a great passage of play - and we are back all square.
Contrast that with the amount of times we pressured them into giving the ball away in their defensive third that didn't lead to a goal. Must have been 3 or 4 times and we did not punish them.
It's that max effort that we need to score just one goal contrasted with the low quality chance that the opposition converts. I think its that which knocks the stuffing out of the players (and the fans).

It's as though the opposition, repeatedly, gets the rub of the green for doing absolutely nowt - whereas we utterly dominate 30-40 mins and end up with 1 or often no goals to show for it.

 

[Eric Cartman]

Mentally we seem very fragile.

One or 2 mistakes and our whole performance goes to pot. Seems to rub off on everyone.

 

[Bartleby]

I don't agree with this about being "mentally fragile" - not at all. (The term was used on here a few weeks ago in one of Roy's pre match reviews and was something that was mentioned by a Brentford fan referring to the Brentford team). It doesn't apply to us imo. I think the mentality of the players is first class and they have consistently over-performed for us in almost every game. They are coming up against top players week in week out and they never look phased by that at all. There's a fantastic team spirit down there and they all look out for each other. That's not mentally fragile to me, it's quite the opposite.

CW said it as much himself in his interview - the equaliser knocked the players back and they lost belief.

 

[Stretch]

For 40 minutes we looked like the best team in the league then bang, all momentum evaporated.

2nd half we were completely out fought and looked like a bottom half side.

I don't mind losing to a better team and expected to lose last night anyway, but fucking hell we had them by the throat at 1-0. Why oh why can't we finish teams off? It's such a shame.