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Thoughts on last night

The Beautiful Game said:
Villa just felt like a huge missed opportunity. Was totally in our hands to come away from a really tough game with three points and go sixth.

Last night was something else. There was a ten minute spell where I was raging but for the most part it was just apathy. As a result it was obviously was worse but regardless of scoreline it just felt like one of those days. The var nonsense encapsulated the whole thing. Made our own problems for sure but absolutely nothing went our way.
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Last night was worse man FFS last week we went toe to toe with a top 4 team and almost won. Yesterday was an absolute disaster.
 

DonaldDownTheWing said:
Concede three goals on 6 occasions in 2026. It’s becoming a thing that we’re really poor defensively.

Worst goal difference outside of the bottom 4.
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Yes. I remember thinking after last week that people were quick to tear into 09 and get Ballard in. Rightly so - he was poor and Watkins showed him up. 09’s positioning and reactions weren’t good enough.

But I also remember thinking that the opposition have to get through an entire team before 09 fucked up. That’s multiple fuck ups by multiple players before it got to the 09 fuck up. The issues are far deeper, as was proven last night.

Whether it was crosses into the box, or players breaking quickly all over, there seems to be lots of different goals being scored against us from every area, and that’s not down to one single defender bollocksing up each time. RLB has to get a handle on this now - the amount of goals we have shipped has been consistently high for far too long.
 
Doogie Hauser said:
Yes. I remember thinking after last week that people were quick to tear into 09 and get Ballard in. Rightly so - he was poor and Watkins showed him up. 09’s positioning and reactions weren’t good enough.

But I also remember thinking that the opposition have to get through an entire team before 09 fucked up. That’s multiple fuck ups by multiple players before it got to the 09 fuck up. The issues are far deeper, as was proven last night.

Whether it was crosses into the box, or players breaking quickly all over, there seems to be lots of different goals being scored against us from every area, and that’s not down to one single defender bollocksing up each time. RLB has to get a handle on this now - the amount of goals we have shipped has been consistently high for far too long.
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We’ve got a real issue with a) stopping crosses and b) defending them at the moment.
 
The Beautiful Game said:
Villa just felt like a huge missed opportunity. Was totally in our hands to come away from a really tough game with three points and go sixth.

Last night was something else. There was a ten minute spell where I was raging but for the most part it was just apathy. As a result it was obviously was worse but regardless of scoreline it just felt like one of those days. The var nonsense encapsulated the whole thing. Made our own problems for sure but absolutely nothing went our way.
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About 5 minutes of the Villa game was a missed opportunity. Really, just one 5 second run was the missed opportunity. We were firmly outplayed until about 85 minutes.

I’ve no idea where last night came from. The first goal was fortunate, no doubt, but it was bad defending. The less said about Roefs’ error the better. The third was even poorer defending than the first because they’d been doing the same thing all game, so we knew exactly what was coming.
 
Doogie Hauser said:
We’re shipping a shitload of goals at the moment and it’s a worrying trend that I don’t think RLB has sussed. Whatever he’s doing in that area isn’t working, and he needs to change the things.

I don’t think, though, that the crowning moment to illustrate this would be at home against Notts Forest.
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It's strange considering most of our season was built on a solid defence.

Has the mentality changed in recent weeks now we are safe?

Are we not very good at handling expectations? It seemed to suit us better playing as the underdogs but more recently talk of Europe has been plenty.

We have handled the task of avoiding relegation superbly but then as soon as a different kind of pressure and expectation is applied we have completely fell apart.

I honestly thought this team were full of tough characters and up for the challenge but maybe top 10 was always a step too far in our first season back.
 
I think the Forest players tried the novel approach of shooting when the ball comes to them instead of passing it backwards, sideways then all the way back to keeper
 
Geppetto said:
I thought we started well, they seemed to score from nothing, then Roefs made that daft mistake and we completely lost the plot thereafter.

A very strange game as we started well and dominated most of the second half, granted it was over by then. We didn't create many clear cut opportunities mind, wish we'd shoot from outside the box more frequently.

Haven't got a clue what was going on with our defence, they clearly found weaknesses and followed their instructions perfectly.

It reminded me of the Stoke game a few years ago where we lost 5-1 I think it was, although I actually thought we played a lot better last night.

Overall very frustrating, baffling and embarrassing for the club and all involved.
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Freak result. Forest were well up for it, own goal, bit of luck going there way, not on it defensively from us leaving players free in the box and some poor reffing made the perfect storm. One to just forget. We’ll be (are) ok. Not worried about Europe, think the strain on the squad next year if we made it could be disastrous but still hoping for a top ten finish. Everton away looks key….
 
10 Gary Rowells said:
Forest were fighting for their lives and were excellent. Their front three were termendous - Hutchinson and Gibbs-White were tremendous and Woods was like Brobbey with an added goal threat. Anderson is as good a midfielder as you'll see in the Premier League. Our front three - Le Fee looks like he's sulking because he doesn't want to be playing out wide, Rigg looks too light weight and Brobbey is just constantly isolated. I'm not sure what Diarra is supposed to be doing but whatever it is, he isn't. He simply doesn't do enough to warrant selection. We need Le Fee in the number 10 and two speedy wingers ouitside. Otherwise we will never get the best out of Brobbey.

However, the biggest thing was that their manager out thought Le Bris. Its something Le Bris has done before but last night we had no answer. Their press was tremendous and they knew exactly what we were going to do with each play, especially the pass out to the FB. Other teams will look at that and have a go at nullfiying is in the same way. It really was a wake up and we need to show an intelligence to change and vary our play. The other obeservation was that a few times we were breaking fast when Roefs had the ball in his hands and he chose not to launch it. We need to vary the play sometimes. Hopefully, Le Bris and his team are reviewing how easy it was for Forest to disrupt our game plan.

Oh, and I'm still pissed off with all the leavers, it was embarrassing. Some even went at 3-0.
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Although obviously there so much to go on, what I dont really understand is the lack of any real change in strategy at 2-0, 3-0 and even 4-0.

I dont really want to start having a go at Regis, as I think its just another 'modern day football thing'.

You see teams getting absolutely battered, but the coaching staff dont seem to want to interact with the game, move players around, sit deeper, press higher etc?

It was bleedingly obvious that the game had no width at all. They had packed the middle and it had suffocated us, playing with no wingers.

Yet the only change we do make at 4-0 down is to take OFF one of the players being asked to play out wide and replace him with a fullback??

I just dont get it at all.
 
It's the pass out to the middle that pisses me off, we either lose it there or lose it when the man in the middle gets it and passes wide. Either the keeper gives it wide or play it long ffs. Last night reminded me of how Southampton last season pissed about, we weren't doing it first half of the season too, bewildering.
 
Think the bottom line is that Gibbs White Hutchinson and Anderson are better players than we have in our squad by some margin. They now have a manager who sets the team up to get the best out of his squad.
 
ontap said:
Regarding their press, as impressive as it was. People saying we were sussed we should have been launching it. As you say Brobbey was isolated so. That wouldnt have worked. Yes Roefs messed up for their second but, he’d already shown we could bypass their forward oress with two lovely balls into MF for Sidiki , who was relatively unmarked , but on both occasions instead of spinning 180d and starting an attack, he played a blind pass to Alderete that put us straight on the vbsck foot. Am not having a pop at him. Am just saying that we weren’t up for it and our passing game that has beat other teams oress on Manu occasions this season was well below par. For me it’s not a case of binning it , it’s more an end if season attitude issue with some of our players. I agree about Diarra , he isn’t doing enough to justify negating le fe by playing him wide. I’d also like to say that Rheinaldo defensively looked a much better option that Hume as a left back when he came on.
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Yes, you are making good points. All I was saying is we are predictable and it cost us. There needs to be some variation.
 
Safc98 said:
We nearly stole the Villa game. Over the 98 minutes they were way better.
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Which was too our credit though surely? We got ourselves , as a newly promoted club , with players who have only known each other for barely one season in a position to beat a top 4 CL outfit.
 
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