Pliny the Gull
Member
- Mar 4, 2024
- 65
Great day. Back to St Leonards tonight after a big performance from the team. Water back hopefully after 4 days. Not complaining. Having no water is a sobering and grounding experience to be appreciated.
[Albion] 1:0 How do you feel Now?
- Thread starter Zeberdi
- Start date
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Wow. Suggesting I kill myself over a football opinion. Nice.
What woods are we in? Seriously wtf. Ok we won't get to Europe next year so what, considering our injuries I think we have had a stellar season
Can you please add a fourth option. Something like I didn't feel bad before we won against villa
pasty
A different kind of pasty
- Oct 20, 2022
- 4,948
- Thread starter
- #68
Ha! After the abysmal run of performances, the endless injuries and all the speculating over the past 3 months, you must be one of the only fans that has not been touched by that at all but I admire your ostrichtaciousness
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ROSM
Well-known member
What pleased me more was that we tried something different. We had a strong back four with a deep lying midfielder. We allowed our wingers (well one of them at least) to be a winger.
We , rather than always looking to play the ball from mid to forward as a through ball, also played mid or full back, to winger to forward.
Also I thought that allowing webster to do what he does best (not quite 'man to man' on Watkins but more, patrol all the areas Watkins should be playing in)
It wasn't quite at our having 22 shots a game best but it was solid enough.
Yes villa were poor, but that performance yesterday would have likely beaten most of sheff utd, Burnley, Everton, Fulham and maybe West ham at home (c6 or 8 more points over the season).
We , rather than always looking to play the ball from mid to forward as a through ball, also played mid or full back, to winger to forward.
Also I thought that allowing webster to do what he does best (not quite 'man to man' on Watkins but more, patrol all the areas Watkins should be playing in)
It wasn't quite at our having 22 shots a game best but it was solid enough.
Yes villa were poor, but that performance yesterday would have likely beaten most of sheff utd, Burnley, Everton, Fulham and maybe West ham at home (c6 or 8 more points over the season).
I thought our shape was good too.
Interestingly, we played 4-5-1 out of possession and 3-4-3 in possession. This seemed to work very well.
My criticisms were that Veltman at right wingback was not as effective in attacking situations as Adingra and vice versa with defending but I guess that was the system. Also, when we were playing ‘DeZerbiball’ at the back with the quick short passes between centre backs and central midfielders, 3 at the back seemed excessive but Adingra and Veltman were both hugging their respective lines at hallway so there was an attacking pass-out both sides.
This was certainly evidence of De Zerbi having a plan B. He needs top level and in form fullbacks and wingers for his attacking 4-2-3-1 which he hasn’t had available together for a long time.
el punal
Well-known member
Well we beat Forest. You could say we’ve turned over a new leaf.
That was our worry - 'It's Villa - bound to be given after ours has been chalked off'....flag was up straight away but the longer it took.................
Somethingdean
Active member
- May 18, 2019
- 89
A clean sheet. Confidence for Bart and the defence. Was a fairly poor game but those are the ones you need to win, especially when nothing to play for but pride. Move on and regroup for next game. End the season well.
Agree with the plan B actually being seen in our game plan at last. By offering the diagonal long ball threat from Dunk to the wings, we at last stopped defenders pushing up and playing like wingers and pressing to win the ball in our last third. Walker did this for city particularly well.
whether it was Dunk and or De Zerbi they deserve credit for the change in mindset and let’s hope the continue, because it kept Villa off balance whether to press or drop back.
Greg Bobkin
Silver Seagull
- May 22, 2012
- 15,015
I feel good. I knew that I would.
I feel nice, too. Almost like sugar and spice.
I feel nice, too. Almost like sugar and spice.
Echoing most of this and also to say that if ever we were to have a JP pen miss that was the relatively unimportant day to get it out of the way (and nicely corrected immediately by him too in any case). So def happy with all that.