BFTG WBA

[Royal Rother]

Impressive in so many ways yesterday. (Adam apart.)

Such early days but this team looks capable of achieving really good things. And the depth of squad is excellent.

For me, failure to make Top 6 would be a huge disappointment. And actually it would be failure - which would mean departure of Gomes and we really don’t want that!

I am confident - and driving home from Windsor games listening to Timademickrita on BBCRB will hopefully not be quite such a chore as the last few years which will be nice.

[NewCorkSeth]

I'll do my full ratings later but just want to say re: Adam that those rightfully criticising his performance are not blaming the penalty or looking for a weak link. He was a weak link. He was weak. He was off pace and bundling into challenges.

[CountryRoyal]

Morrison is fast becoming one of my favourite players. He's got a bit of the Upsons about him, a 'proper' centre back.

Yeah agreed with this, understated but gets the job done. Fills you with confidence just like Miazga. Ironically the one who makes the most mistakes is Moore

[Sanguine]

Morrison is fast becoming one of my favourite players. He's got a bit of the Upsons about him, a 'proper' centre back.

Yeah agreed with this, understated but gets the job done. Fills you with confidence just like Miazga. Ironically the one who makes the most mistakes is Moore

Miazga impressing me more and more too - he was good last season but at times a little fancy, over-complicated. Almost like Morrison's pure testosterone has fired him up a bit, a pretty fearsome pair.

Apparently we got Morrison on a two-year deal, Birmingham only wanted to offer their captain one year. Seems one hell of a free transfer, and early indications that even if his legs do fall off next year, his contract will have been worth it for this season alone.

[Hound]

Morrison has been excellent last two games and exactly what we need at the back. A very good signing on the face of it. Like him a lot.

[WestYorksRoyal]

Morrison has been excellent last two games and exactly what we need at the back. A very good signing on the face of it. Like him a lot.

Our back 3 look pretty formidable to be honest. I'm expecting many more clean sheets this season.

[Jagermesiter1871]

An on negativity in general, I particularly like the assertion in the opening post that Gomes' substitutions caused our best player to give away a penalty.

Simple really. Throughout the game we had a 5-3-2 and were pressing fairly high. The Rino for Puscas sub changed it to 5-4-1

Firstly, we had no real outlet when doing this. We weren’t keeping the ball up the pitch because Joao had no options whenever he received the ball because he didn’t have anyone near him

Secondly, it meant we were dropping deeper and deeper. We were letting West Brom play around our box and obviously when they have the quality of players like Sawyers, Pereira etc the chances are they’ll be able to break through. Which they did

I get we want to hold onto the lead but Gomes did this several times last season too. Rotherham (H), Norwich (A), Preston (H) are all examples of us dropping back too deep. Obviously the players can’t run around the pitch for 90 minutes but I think a better sub would have been Loader for Puscas. Still, it was a very good point and we did very well to even get that far

Agree with all this. Gomes eagerness to consolidate and hold onto a one goal lead or draw has cost us numerous times now. Was extremely frustrating last season

[Stranded]

Re: WBA being ‘unlucky’ with earlier penalty shouts. Sky commentator reckoned ref had a very good game and that had there been #VAR they would’ve told him he had got the earlier decisions re penalties correct.

That's not quite accurate. The commentator was speaking specifically about an incident where Miazga had pushed the WBA striker but he had just pushed Morrison, hence our foul.

The shout in the first 5 mins looked stonewall, feel a bit lucky that wasn't given.

All in all, very positive performance where we deserved 1pt and could have nicked all 3. Neither keeper had to make any major saves and a penalty was the only way they were going to score.

Interesting with Rafael on the pen, was telling Zohore where he wanted to him to put it. Zohore did just that but Rafael dived the other way.

[WestYorksRoyal]

An on negativity in general, I particularly like the assertion in the opening post that Gomes' substitutions caused our best player to give away a penalty.

Simple really. Throughout the game we had a 5-3-2 and were pressing fairly high. The Rino for Puscas sub changed it to 5-4-1

Firstly, we had no real outlet when doing this. We weren’t keeping the ball up the pitch because Joao had no options whenever he received the ball because he didn’t have anyone near him

Secondly, it meant we were dropping deeper and deeper. We were letting West Brom play around our box and obviously when they have the quality of players like Sawyers, Pereira etc the chances are they’ll be able to break through. Which they did

I get we want to hold onto the lead but Gomes did this several times last season too. Rotherham (H), Norwich (A), Preston (H) are all examples of us dropping back too deep. Obviously the players can’t run around the pitch for 90 minutes but I think a better sub would have been Loader for Puscas. Still, it was a very good point and we did very well to even get that far

Agree with all this. Gomes eagerness to consolidate and hold onto a one goal lead or draw has cost us numerous times now. Was extremely frustrating last season

When was the Rino-Puscas sub? 75th minute or so? Seems pretty reasonable; maybe 5 minutes too soon. Ultimately it was a mistake from a young player who will learn from it.

In those games you reference last season, we naturally sat off for the entire second half, probably due to nervousness and lack of confidence. We'd have probably seen the same against Cardiff a few months ago, and ended up desperately clinging on at 2-1 for 15 minutes. There is definite progress; I don't think you can compare yesterday to those games.

[Stranded]

An on negativity in general, I particularly like the assertion in the opening post that Gomes' substitutions caused our best player to give away a penalty.

Simple really. Throughout the game we had a 5-3-2 and were pressing fairly high. The Rino for Puscas sub changed it to 5-4-1

Firstly, we had no real outlet when doing this. We weren’t keeping the ball up the pitch because Joao had no options whenever he received the ball because he didn’t have anyone near him

Secondly, it meant we were dropping deeper and deeper. We were letting West Brom play around our box and obviously when they have the quality of players like Sawyers, Pereira etc the chances are they’ll be able to break through. Which they did

I get we want to hold onto the lead but Gomes did this several times last season too. Rotherham (H), Norwich (A), Preston (H) are all examples of us dropping back too deep. Obviously the players can’t run around the pitch for 90 minutes but I think a better sub would have been Loader for Puscas. Still, it was a very good point and we did very well to even get that far

Agree with all this. Gomes eagerness to consolidate and hold onto a one goal lead or draw has cost us numerous times now. Was extremely frustrating last season

Very few managers at 1-0 away with 10 or so to go would not try to consolidate it. If Ejaria hadn't given away the pen, it would have worked too. One of those things.

[NewCorkSeth]

Re: WBA being ‘unlucky’ with earlier penalty shouts. Sky commentator reckoned ref had a very good game and that had there been #VAR they would’ve told him he had got the earlier decisions re penalties correct.

That's not quite accurate. The commentator was speaking specifically about an incident where Miazga had pushed the WBA striker but he had just pushed Morrison, hence our foul.

The shout in the first 5 mins looked stonewall, feel a bit lucky that wasn't given.

All in all, very positive performance where we deserved 1pt and could have nicked all 3. Neither keeper had to make any major saves and a penalty was the only way they were going to score.

Interesting with Rafael on the pen, was telling Zohore where he wanted to him to put it. Zohore did just that but Rafael dived the other way.

I dont think the first one was a penalty you know. I thought the player went down before any contact was made and the ref seemed to see that too.

On the penalty I thought it was incredibly similar to Meites penalty just on the other side. If the keeper had guessed the right way it would have been harder not to save. Powerful but medium height and very central.

[Hound]

looking again on the highlights, think Ovie did get some of the ball on the penalty. Little unlucky there.

But certainly some of the others could have been given. thought the ref was very good overall

[Victor Meldrew]

I think it was a good time to play WBA as their own team has been changed quite a bit with the loss of both Rodrigues and Gayle difficult to replace-apparently they were a bit lucky to get a win at Luton.
I'm not convinced by them but I am getting convinced by us.

Although WBA had quite a bit of possession, especially early on, I felt that the 3 Ms looked quite capable of dealing with whatever was to be thrown at them.
Finally it looks as though we won't have to hold our breath every time a team attacks us and this is the first time I have felt this way since the days of Ingi and Sonko.

Midfield is good with the right balance and Yiadom was as enthusiastic as ever.
Richards has an excellent first touch and with better players now around him I am hopeful that he will continue to progress.

Last night, with a better final ball, I thought we could have scored more.
What a difference a week makes and I am strongly in the camp that feels that this first team might well end up in the top 6-injuries will probably dictate whether that happens as back-up in the keeper and wing-back positions is well short of these starters.

Bring on the Huddersfield who have recently lost their two star midfielders, Mooy and Billing and do appear to be suffering from a seriously bad hangover.

BTW lol @ those who thought Morrison would just be a squad player-it is now Moore who looks to be 3rd choice centre-back.

[Snowball]

Just a thought, but Puscas v Wycombe and Puscas v Cardiff
looked more free-ranging, often going toward RW

From memory, last night (had someone in my ear most of the game, so
didn't give it enough attention) he seemed to be playing much higher
and central most of the time v WBA, as if "on orders"

Looked to me that he was waiting for the killer pass more than getting on the ball
and making things happen.

Joao (as v Cardiff) though he was often deeper, in the number 10 spot, seemed
to "take the defence's focus" much more, given Puscas licence to move round.

I admit my attention was less than perfect, but Joao-Puscas looks a better bet
than Puscas-Boye.

P-B were more mobile against Wycombe.

I guess maybe WBA were just better defenders, but it looked to me that JG
had given P orders to be the target man, and, relatively, it didn't work

[Notts Royal]

What I like about Miazga is he just hoofs it when required. I’ve got no issues with trying to play it out the back when the option is on, but sometimes hoofing to relieve pressure is the best option. That’s something that was alien to Stam and previous players such as Illori.

Completely agree with URZZ in that Rino should’ve come on earlier and maybe for Swift (who I thought was excellent) rather than Puscas. You don’t need to sit deep when you have a highly energetic player such as Rino who can break the play & carry it forward.

João should’ve come on for either Boye or Puscas 10 min earlier - but the change worked as he held it up a lot more than Boye. Puscas was off his game - whether that was down to his strike partner or tiredness we don’t know

[Millsy]

Very few managers at 1-0 away with 10 or so to go would not try to consolidate it. If Ejaria hadn't given away the pen, it would have worked too. One of those things.

If he hadn't, the guy was through on goal. An equaliser seemed inevitable one way or another.

Is that to say he shouldn't have tried to consolidate? No not really because their constant attack happened before the changes we made. whilst we were still in attack mode, so he needed to do something to strangle the game.

I think he did the right thing last night, it's just we were up against a very good side.

It is, however, true that we have been guilty of trying to consolidate too much and for us, attack is a better form of defence a lot of the time.

[LWJ]

Puscas played as a lone striker with Boye in the gap behind. Swift and Ejaria played deeper as well. (Away formation?)

Rather than having Joao to play off of he was left quite isolated a lot of the time, did a heck of a lot of running in behind but the ball wasn't good enough.

[From Despair To Where?]

What I like about Miazga is he just hoofs it when required. I’ve got no issues with trying to play it out the back when the option is on, but sometimes hoofing to relieve pressure is the best option. That’s something that was alien to Stam and previous players such as Illori

I think the other thing is that even when the big hoof comes, Moore, Morrison and Miazga are immediately back into position with this wall of centre backs. I think Morrison will prove to be a massive signing. He seems to play to his strengths and do the simple things extremely well.

[CountryRoyal]

Puscas played as a lone striker with Boye in the gap behind. Swift and Ejaria played deeper as well. (Away formation?)

Rather than having Joao to play off of he was left quite isolated a lot of the time, did a heck of a lot of running in behind but the ball wasn't good enough.

WBA were defensively very good and always had their positions spot on. Not just a case of our final ball being not good enough. We’ll have more luck getting in behind a lot of other teams.

[WestYorksRoyal]

Anybody else loving Puscas' celebration of the goal? You'd have thought he'd scored himself. Great team attitude.