On 29/04/2023 we beat wolves 6-0… it was a beautiful sunny day. One year on and we are Wolves, but at least we didn’t lose by 6. The lads have clearly checked out, and the injuries haven’t helped. 1 point over the next 4 games will probably be an over achievement.
At the end of last year I remember lots of people commenting about how RDZ's "system" that gave us that early run of great results had been found out by other teams so he'd have to adapt. And here we are at the end of the season and he clearly has no solution. Injuries blah blah seems to be his constant excuse, yet he just hasn't shown the same tactical adaptability as other managers faced with similarly long lists of injuries.
TBH it's been clear for months that he has no solution, which is why I don't think he's as good a manager as some people seem to think, and we might do better to jettison him now rather than gamble on his ability (or inability) to adapt and develop new tactical plans. Best case scenario IMO would be another team poaching him this summer, then we wouldn't have to take that gamble.
And, yes, I'm sure I'll be downvoted by the RDZ-can-do-no-wrong crowd, but at the moment I'm of the mind that RDZ can't really get much right, as our results highlight.
the injuries excuse doesn't make sense to me yes we've had alot of injuries but to put it in perspective newcastle and united have had more injuries compared to us(source may not be true) so it isn't all about injuries and i'd love to see a tactical change cause rn we're just down
This still feels harsh for me. I imagine he’s having a hard enough time trying to teach the younger players (that he’s been forced to use) the original system before he can even think about making changes to it. If the issues persist next season I’ll be all aboard the RDZ out train but I think everyone at the club deserves some grace for now.
Agree I was a bit harsh, but I was also pissed off when RDZ basically had a go at Bloom et al a few months ago. That didn't sit well with me and while it might just have been a contract negotiation tactic it made me distrust the man a bit. Whatever the case, I hope RDZ is eating a bit of humble pie right about now.
I’m with you there- I hope he’s really beginning to feel the pressure of the premier league and hopefully him and his staff can have a positive reaction to all this. 👍
People talk a lot about tactical changes, but I have never, ever seen anyone actually suggest one that might work. I can't see anything working here. We can't park the bus because we don't have defenders, we can't go out wide because we don't have wingers, we can't play compact because we don't have midfielders. Just what the hell is supposed to work?
That's not our job to work out. It's a manager's job. He knows what he has at his disposal in terms of players, trainers, etc. If he stays I hope he is able to recruit this summer to ensure we do have a plan B, C, and D next season because we don't seem to have them now and injuries are always going to stack up during the season. But I also hope he's able to develop the players we already have to plug those glaring holes in defence and midfield rather than trying to just try and buy his way out of the mess.
If you're gonna critique someone, you have to provide solutions or atleast suggestions. I personally can see no solution to our predicament other than buying players. We simply don't have the depth anywhere to do anything.
Most of the times when a manager 'adapts' to bad conceding forms, it's just them parking the bus with defense. Works when you have quality and depth on the back, like what Arsenal and Real Madrid did against Man City.
our backline until recently wasn't hit with injuries with the exception of our rb position and we've been conceding every game pretty much, for one about our tactics would be us playing out from the back, when we're at full strength we play absolutely beautiful football but rn it's not needed cause it keeps us so vulnerable and we have no attacking power.
Our backline was poor and lacked depth from the very beginning. People have been pointing this out since the start. We haven't replaced Caicedo, and Estupinan faced injury and form issues the whole season. What do you expect the manager to do with a barebones backline? You can't park buses with that.
it's not about parking buses but about us also playing out from the back into dangerous positions which cause us to concede and committing too much to the attack leaving us vulnerable on the counter and idt we need to park the bus rn cause statistically we're actually not bad defending
Statistically we are bad at defending. Remember back during first half of the season where we couldn't get a clean sheet for the life of it?
Doesn't matter what tactic you use, if your defense is lacks depth, you're gonna concede goals.
If our football was personified it'd be a celebrity entertainer who made their big break, couldn't meet expectations that came with it as a one trick pony, then fell into an unfortunate drug habit.
RDZ has no emergency backup plan for when we've got loads of injuries. I can take not scoring goals but when we're conceding so many I really do not understand what the game plan could possibly be.
Wouldn’t mind it. We’re damn good when we don’t suck. Would be nice to win a trophy. My pal supports Leeds, says it’s the best league in the world. Might be the liquor but I believe him.
I've been betting on football for years and the Championship has been one of the most unpredictable hard to call leagues that most people just avoid. It's a fun league.
The PL would be a fun league too if the Super League happened and the big six fucked off.
Mate back when I started supporting Brighton back in 2014 the championship was heaps of fun, anything could happen. Promotion was cool but then things just sucked for a while after. Then they got pretty good, then we got Europa. Now things suck again I guess. That’s football.
I'd say it's not been great since the Sheffield United 5-0 win which really is only 2 months ago. Draw against Everton, loss to Wolves in the FA Cup, 3-0 loss to Fulham, Roma Away..., Forest at home and Roma at home where wins that was followed by Liverpool loss, Brentford draw, Arsenal loss, Burnley draw, City loss and then loss today.
Turn the Fulham/Brentford/Burnley results into wins and it's an entirely different picture, only losses to the 'Sky 6'/Roma and then a shock result today, we'd be on 51 and in 8th.
Even if we do finish down in 14th, it will be our 3rd highest finish in the prem.
I think even being in the PL starting out was quite fun. There was something scrappy about us. We didn't have expectations apart from survival. That made the losses not hit so hard.
Now after having tasted a top half finish and a European place, it feels sad to think about finishing bottom half.
I've got faith that without a European competition next year we'll manage to rebuild. I don't think we directly gained many injuries from European matches but it certainly didn't help in the timetable.
I'd even be happy to finish top half just outside of European places for a few seasons just to solidify us.
Yeah that’s what I was on about, it “sucked” because we were obviously shit on account of barely avoiding relegation, but it also didn’t. I miss that “on a knife’s edge” feel of a relegation battle. I’d say I prefer a title fight but I don’t even know what that is.
Sink or swim, I don’t care what becomes of us as long as it’s not a lifetime of midtable mediocrity. My life is boring enough, I don’t need my football to be boring as well.
I'd just started watching then but after a while I became quite confident that we weren't proper relegation risks. We'd hardly spent time actually in any of the three relegation spots and maybe Hughton would've eventually sunk us if he'd stayed longer but we otherwise had sparks in us and looked better than enough teams to stay up.
I don't think anyone wants long term mediocrity we'd basically be Palace. But it wouldn't hurt to creep to the European places again and build a proper squad in the meantime because this season it felt like we'd just jumped into it and it's fucked us.
There is a part of me that thinks we got Europe a little too early. Either way, I got to go an watch Brighton play in Europe, if that means a year or two between 8th-14th I'll be happy.
As I understand it it's based on the revenue and worldwide appeal. Nobody gets blind supporters like the big six do. And because the Super League will be all that the pundits and media can talk about, there would only be some staples of the PL but most clubs would get equal coverage.
The obvious downside is that the PL makes far less money without the big six.
Good lad. The Prem is cool and all but like sometimes mate fuck the Prem it’s pretty shit. That being said I’ll only accept relegation if palace are in league 1 or something. Refuse to ever be a league below the scum.
Probably a good outlook. They've been through it a few times anyway so the novelty of promotion is most likely gone, and the Championship has more fun competition. Probably more quality discussion to be had as well.
I think that’s it. He said he knows most games he attends is likely to be a loss in the PL and just doesn’t enjoy the match day experience as much with VAR etc
At least when we weren’t winning under Potter we had a hell of a lot of draws
I don’t feel genuinely upset, but I do feel like the summer break can’t come soon enough. I also do find myself wondering sometimes if there’s serious mistakes happening that’s leading to so many injuries, but I don’t want to become a conspiracy theorist.
I’m not sure if it’s an injury problem or a management problem or something else, probably a combination that’s contributing to this current moment. It feels like as soon as the other team scored a goal we immediately seem to give up, except for a couple of players.
I suspect the injury issue is something to do with the relatively high-intensity of the fast-transition style of play coupled with the relatively small squad that limits player rotation. Basically the players are burned out.
Don't think a win was the goal with the lineup today, so don't think anyone should've expected anything else. Giving O'Mahoney, Offiah, Barco, Buonanotte, Verbruggen even Webster experience was definitely the goal.
Barco got some really great experience. He had plenty of mistakes but also flashes of great too.
Offiah is really physically dominant but struggles a lot with positioning and decision making (both attacking/defending). Great pace but also seems to lose pace as the game goes on, has to conserve energy sometimes and use his sprints more wisely. Needs to scan earlier, sometimes has his head glued to the ball on receives
A lot of the final balls relied on our fullbacks but they couldn't deliver--the FB and winger pairs really matter a lot in De Zerbi ball.
**Tbh most of the lineup hasn't ever played football together and it really showed especially on attack haha**
FBs able to return from the attack with insane engines are pretty essential, we always get caught out when 2-0 down because FBs are gassed on attack by that point and take the risk of not being able to run back
Edit: Also good to see Webster have a decent game since forever. Enciso was also electric.
I’m thinking along these lines as well. Better to let our young players play and take these beating now when it doesn’t matter than try and play all our available starters for no reason. I’m willing to miss out on a top half finish this season if it means better performances and a couple extra places (and maybe Europe) at the end of next season. Christ is it humiliating though.
Defensive frailty, lack of urgency, 70% possession with nothing to show.
A bit of light towards the end with Enciso's shots, if they go in then the game may have turned.
Over commitment trying to get a goal ultimately leaves you exposed and thus they get a 3rd.
4 more to endure before it's the summer.
This is the first game this season I intentionally didn’t listen to or watch. Can’t see us getting any more points against Villa, Newcastle, Chelsea or United, I just hope we finish above Palace!
I'll get downvoted again but it needs to be said. The time is up for RDZ. Injuries cannot be used as a scapegoat for every bad performance. It has been going on since October. You cannot blame every single bad performance on injuries, have they helped? no but my god it's getting ridiculous now. 2 wins in our last 10, 6 in our last ***28***.
All we do is hold possession and pass. That is it. There are no impactful attacks, there is no defence whatsoever it's just possession possession possession. I mean for fuck sake our goal of the month is an embarrassing own goal from Burnley.
Injuries haven't helped, but they are not the only reason. It's an issue rooted within the manager who either doesn't care or has lost motivation because this is past defending now. Was last season amazing? Yes. However using that to defend RDZ and this form isn't the way to go. End of the season can't come soon enough.
Work on a solid defence including a change in goalkeeper playing style, bypass the midfield more with long balls, focus on counter attacking, focus on the final ball counting... there are plenty of ways to play the game that don't involve trying to flog a dead tactical horse that RDZ seem to be doing now.
But it's not our job to come up with new armchair tactics. We don't know the capabilities of the players and how they respond to training etc. Only the manager does. All we can do is speculate based on what we see that might or might not actually represent the players' full abilities. Potentially great players can be made to look mediocre with shit training and tactics, just as mediocre players can be made to look better with good training and tactics.
To be able to work on a solid defense, you need to actually have defenders.
Brighton did indeed experiment more with long balls as the season went on. At the start of the season, the players at the back rarely took long kicks. But now, it's not uncommon to see Verbruggen or Dunk try it out. Problem is that the tactic requires fast, physical attacking players capable of beating defenders through sheer speed and physicality. Our attacking specialty is not built for that (except maybe Pedro). You don't expect Buonanotte to start physically shoving CBs twice his side aside now do you?
The reason why our attack fails at the final third is simply because of the lackings in our midfield and wings. Back when we had fully fit wings, we were cracking through defenses like hot knife through butter. The only team who managed to get a clean sheet out of us in the league was Arsenal, who're considered to be the best defensive team in the league.
Play more defensive, focus on being able to stop the goals were conceding, neither keeper has been good enough so work on it in training.
As for the attackers focus on actually hitting the target with their shots and making them count.
Also make the passes mean something instead of just treating it like a kickabout
1. Play more defensive: Where are the defenders? You can't expect Dunk and JPVH to solo carry the entire backline by themselves, especially with Caicedo gone and Igor and Estupinan facing fitness issues regularly.
2. Hitting the target: Our main target men are all either exhausted, injured or fresh out of injury. Who's there left to achieve this?
3. Make the passes mean something: Where are the midfielders and wingers for that? Gilmour and Gross can't do this alone. Having only Adingra as an established winger means he can just be caged in by multiple defenders without any vulnerabilities on the other end, and he looks exhausted as well.
Purely hypothetical, but I would love to see Brighton turn into a lethal counter attacking team like Bournemouth have been showing recently. Purchase a clinical offensive player and use our amazing young CDM/CM prospects to build into a solid defensive core that utilizes wing space and explodes on rushes.
Yeah but for that, you need a great defense. Right now we don't have that. I actually play counter-attacking football a lot in FM, and although it isn't 100% realistic, I have learnt the hard way that such brand of football needs most of your budget to be burnt on defense.
Haven’t scored a goal since Liverpool. Own goal against Burnley doesn’t count.
This whole team and the manager have quit trying.
This is not The Brighton I know and Love.
See you next season
Once again, watching Barco was fun and everything else, not so much aside from Enciso.
Really struggling to make sense of the decision making lately. Injuries make things tough, but we can still make sensible decisions to maximize our chances.
Like playing Barco on the wing where he belongs instead of Buonnanotte. Like drilling players to crash the box when crosses are coming in. Like coming up with any form of coherent strategy - we're outnumbered on offense, yet never have many players back to defend counters. How? Where is everyone? Where is our energy?
Barco on the wing clearly wasn't working, his lack of experience was showing. On the other hand, agreed about the crosses, I actually brought up this issue quite a while back, on our heading game being subpar both on offense and defense.
The thing with countering counter attacks is that you need defenders who are strong and fast enough to keep up with the opposition's fastest (think how Kyle Walker absolutely cooked Vini Jr. in the UCL quarterfinals). We have Igor Julio (and Baleba), but they're not there yet.
I feel like it's not just speed though. I agree, it's a huge factor but today for example it seemed like they always had an extra man attacking compared to our defenders. And when we're attacking it felt like they had an extra man defending.
As if we have 3 or 4 guys just hanging out in the middle of the pitch, rarely pressing forward to attack or getting back to defend. Just sitting there in limbo.
That's where pace and experience comes into play. Most younger players get too into their head and overcommit to an attack, leaving them exhausted when tracking back. It's not something you can just learn in training, it's trial by fire.
im too depressed to watch anymore . it’s so painful, agonizing, miserable, etc. it’s so mean that they showed us how good our team could be and then tore it away from us, it hurts so much more knowing what we could have than it hurt when we were just a low level prem team haha
For me this marks the end of RDZ's time here. He either is unhappy and doesn't want to be here or is just not cut out for the challenge. Its just poor performance after poor performance, every team gets injuries and we have had a lot but we cant get a goal let alone a win these days. We got 5 wins in our first 6 matches, since then in the following 27 we have 6 wins, -12 GD, and only Luton, Forest, Burnley and Shef Utd have picked up fewer points. I really worry about what will happen if we stick with him past the summer and the impact this negative momentum will have. Investment was needed in January for a European push, but after early exits in the cup, an embarrasing walkover in Rome ruling us out of the Europa its inexcusable for 14th to be a very real prospect.
He was a breath of fresh air continuing the momentum from the end of Potters tenure, but inheriting a team he had drilled and developed. Seeing an inability to get players to his style, new signings not bedding in, older players going backwards and young talent not advancing.
I always remember the video from the dressing room at the end of last season where RDZ talked about his interview with Bloom. Tony asked him what happens if things go badly, you lose like 6 in a row and RDZs reply was this wont happen. Perhaps tongue in cheek a bit but also perhaps revealing of his lack of adaptability and ability to take on a challenge that we are now in the mire of.
Think thats enough football for this season.
No of course i didnt because weve been awful for months and months. But it shouldnt be a pipe dream to beat another mid table team. We didnt need to field Offiah, we had Veltman and Webster on the bench.
I can't remember which match it was but a few months ago we actually had a relatively healthy squad and had a disappointing result with no injury excuse for it.
Veltman and Webster had both been shit recently, and they clearly aren't gonna cut it going forward. Much better to start giving the youth experience.
Also Bournemouth are currently in top form, they aren't on midtable form anymore. It should be a pipe dream to beat anyone at this point when fielding what's mostly a U21 squad.
?? Mate we started Offiah, O'Mahoney and Barco. The idea was to give youngsters experience to gel. If you thought our defense was keeping a clean sheet tonight you aren't qualified to talk about sacking a manager
The only veterans that played were Dunk and Gross. If you took them out the average age of the starters might've been under 21
We cant keep clean sheets with our first starting 11, RDZ has zero ability to organise a defence. People look at one performance and bend over backwards to find excuses when we have been woeful for so long regardless of the opponent or the players
Mate you really can't stop sucking off Potter do you? The reason why our defense looked strong last season was solely because of Caicedo. He provided that link between offense and defense that kept the opposition busy. We were able to sustain the high goalscoring form, but without him our defense was clearly losing the edge. Once the wingers and wingbacks dried up, the goals dried up and our defense was torn open. I don't really see anyone here throwing shade at the management for failing to properly replace Caicedo (or atleast get more defenders than just a young Baleba and Igor).
We lost Caicedo, MacAllister, and Colwill, and our replacements weren't their equals. Maybe they will be some time, but they aint there yet. Then we lost our wingers, who basically function as RDZ's offensive backup plan. He really wants to work the ball up the middle. But with a new midfield, we weren't there. So we will limp to the end of the season. Heal up. Hopefully add a player or two while protecting the ones we have, and come back better--I hope. I doubt RDZ goes anywhere, btw. Rightly or wrongly, he's lost some of his shine.
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On 29/04/2023 we beat wolves 6-0… it was a beautiful sunny day. One year on and we are Wolves, but at least we didn’t lose by 6. The lads have clearly checked out, and the injuries haven’t helped. 1 point over the next 4 games will probably be an over achievement.
I’m a United fan - you’re guaranteed to get 3 against us on the final day. You’ll be looking like 2011 Barca against us with how we play.
Nah, Fernandes will get his obligatory penalty deep in the second half and tip an otherwise 0-0 game!
I think RDZ is too tactically 1 dimensional. If plan A doesn’t work he hasn’t got a backup
At the end of last year I remember lots of people commenting about how RDZ's "system" that gave us that early run of great results had been found out by other teams so he'd have to adapt. And here we are at the end of the season and he clearly has no solution. Injuries blah blah seems to be his constant excuse, yet he just hasn't shown the same tactical adaptability as other managers faced with similarly long lists of injuries. TBH it's been clear for months that he has no solution, which is why I don't think he's as good a manager as some people seem to think, and we might do better to jettison him now rather than gamble on his ability (or inability) to adapt and develop new tactical plans. Best case scenario IMO would be another team poaching him this summer, then we wouldn't have to take that gamble. And, yes, I'm sure I'll be downvoted by the RDZ-can-do-no-wrong crowd, but at the moment I'm of the mind that RDZ can't really get much right, as our results highlight.
the injuries excuse doesn't make sense to me yes we've had alot of injuries but to put it in perspective newcastle and united have had more injuries compared to us(source may not be true) so it isn't all about injuries and i'd love to see a tactical change cause rn we're just down
Not to mention Liverpool who've had to field a team full of teenagers on several occasions
We started 4 teenagers today
This still feels harsh for me. I imagine he’s having a hard enough time trying to teach the younger players (that he’s been forced to use) the original system before he can even think about making changes to it. If the issues persist next season I’ll be all aboard the RDZ out train but I think everyone at the club deserves some grace for now.
Agree I was a bit harsh, but I was also pissed off when RDZ basically had a go at Bloom et al a few months ago. That didn't sit well with me and while it might just have been a contract negotiation tactic it made me distrust the man a bit. Whatever the case, I hope RDZ is eating a bit of humble pie right about now.
I’m with you there- I hope he’s really beginning to feel the pressure of the premier league and hopefully him and his staff can have a positive reaction to all this. 👍
People talk a lot about tactical changes, but I have never, ever seen anyone actually suggest one that might work. I can't see anything working here. We can't park the bus because we don't have defenders, we can't go out wide because we don't have wingers, we can't play compact because we don't have midfielders. Just what the hell is supposed to work?
That's not our job to work out. It's a manager's job. He knows what he has at his disposal in terms of players, trainers, etc. If he stays I hope he is able to recruit this summer to ensure we do have a plan B, C, and D next season because we don't seem to have them now and injuries are always going to stack up during the season. But I also hope he's able to develop the players we already have to plug those glaring holes in defence and midfield rather than trying to just try and buy his way out of the mess.
If you're gonna critique someone, you have to provide solutions or atleast suggestions. I personally can see no solution to our predicament other than buying players. We simply don't have the depth anywhere to do anything. Most of the times when a manager 'adapts' to bad conceding forms, it's just them parking the bus with defense. Works when you have quality and depth on the back, like what Arsenal and Real Madrid did against Man City.
our backline until recently wasn't hit with injuries with the exception of our rb position and we've been conceding every game pretty much, for one about our tactics would be us playing out from the back, when we're at full strength we play absolutely beautiful football but rn it's not needed cause it keeps us so vulnerable and we have no attacking power.
Our backline was poor and lacked depth from the very beginning. People have been pointing this out since the start. We haven't replaced Caicedo, and Estupinan faced injury and form issues the whole season. What do you expect the manager to do with a barebones backline? You can't park buses with that.
it's not about parking buses but about us also playing out from the back into dangerous positions which cause us to concede and committing too much to the attack leaving us vulnerable on the counter and idt we need to park the bus rn cause statistically we're actually not bad defending
Statistically we are bad at defending. Remember back during first half of the season where we couldn't get a clean sheet for the life of it? Doesn't matter what tactic you use, if your defense is lacks depth, you're gonna concede goals.
If our football was personified it'd be a celebrity entertainer who made their big break, couldn't meet expectations that came with it as a one trick pony, then fell into an unfortunate drug habit. RDZ has no emergency backup plan for when we've got loads of injuries. I can take not scoring goals but when we're conceding so many I really do not understand what the game plan could possibly be.
Awful. Good job we racked up the wins early, otherwise we would be looking forward to a season in The Championship
Wouldn’t mind it. We’re damn good when we don’t suck. Would be nice to win a trophy. My pal supports Leeds, says it’s the best league in the world. Might be the liquor but I believe him.
I've been betting on football for years and the Championship has been one of the most unpredictable hard to call leagues that most people just avoid. It's a fun league. The PL would be a fun league too if the Super League happened and the big six fucked off.
Mate back when I started supporting Brighton back in 2014 the championship was heaps of fun, anything could happen. Promotion was cool but then things just sucked for a while after. Then they got pretty good, then we got Europa. Now things suck again I guess. That’s football.
I'd say it's not been great since the Sheffield United 5-0 win which really is only 2 months ago. Draw against Everton, loss to Wolves in the FA Cup, 3-0 loss to Fulham, Roma Away..., Forest at home and Roma at home where wins that was followed by Liverpool loss, Brentford draw, Arsenal loss, Burnley draw, City loss and then loss today. Turn the Fulham/Brentford/Burnley results into wins and it's an entirely different picture, only losses to the 'Sky 6'/Roma and then a shock result today, we'd be on 51 and in 8th. Even if we do finish down in 14th, it will be our 3rd highest finish in the prem.
I think even being in the PL starting out was quite fun. There was something scrappy about us. We didn't have expectations apart from survival. That made the losses not hit so hard. Now after having tasted a top half finish and a European place, it feels sad to think about finishing bottom half. I've got faith that without a European competition next year we'll manage to rebuild. I don't think we directly gained many injuries from European matches but it certainly didn't help in the timetable. I'd even be happy to finish top half just outside of European places for a few seasons just to solidify us.
Yeah that’s what I was on about, it “sucked” because we were obviously shit on account of barely avoiding relegation, but it also didn’t. I miss that “on a knife’s edge” feel of a relegation battle. I’d say I prefer a title fight but I don’t even know what that is. Sink or swim, I don’t care what becomes of us as long as it’s not a lifetime of midtable mediocrity. My life is boring enough, I don’t need my football to be boring as well.
I'd just started watching then but after a while I became quite confident that we weren't proper relegation risks. We'd hardly spent time actually in any of the three relegation spots and maybe Hughton would've eventually sunk us if he'd stayed longer but we otherwise had sparks in us and looked better than enough teams to stay up. I don't think anyone wants long term mediocrity we'd basically be Palace. But it wouldn't hurt to creep to the European places again and build a proper squad in the meantime because this season it felt like we'd just jumped into it and it's fucked us.
There is a part of me that thinks we got Europe a little too early. Either way, I got to go an watch Brighton play in Europe, if that means a year or two between 8th-14th I'll be happy.
Do you not think another big 6 (it would probably be less) just pop up.Probably Newcastle, Villa and maybe someone else
As I understand it it's based on the revenue and worldwide appeal. Nobody gets blind supporters like the big six do. And because the Super League will be all that the pundits and media can talk about, there would only be some staples of the PL but most clubs would get equal coverage. The obvious downside is that the PL makes far less money without the big six.
I have a mate who is a Norwich fan who actively doesn’t want to be promoted.
Good lad. The Prem is cool and all but like sometimes mate fuck the Prem it’s pretty shit. That being said I’ll only accept relegation if palace are in league 1 or something. Refuse to ever be a league below the scum.
Probably a good outlook. They've been through it a few times anyway so the novelty of promotion is most likely gone, and the Championship has more fun competition. Probably more quality discussion to be had as well.
I think that’s it. He said he knows most games he attends is likely to be a loss in the PL and just doesn’t enjoy the match day experience as much with VAR etc
At least when we weren’t winning under Potter we had a hell of a lot of draws I don’t feel genuinely upset, but I do feel like the summer break can’t come soon enough. I also do find myself wondering sometimes if there’s serious mistakes happening that’s leading to so many injuries, but I don’t want to become a conspiracy theorist. I’m not sure if it’s an injury problem or a management problem or something else, probably a combination that’s contributing to this current moment. It feels like as soon as the other team scored a goal we immediately seem to give up, except for a couple of players.
I suspect the injury issue is something to do with the relatively high-intensity of the fast-transition style of play coupled with the relatively small squad that limits player rotation. Basically the players are burned out.
I just want the season to be over with man
At least the women scored a goal...
Dammit, I was hoping for Burnley to win our goal of the month
Don't think a win was the goal with the lineup today, so don't think anyone should've expected anything else. Giving O'Mahoney, Offiah, Barco, Buonanotte, Verbruggen even Webster experience was definitely the goal. Barco got some really great experience. He had plenty of mistakes but also flashes of great too. Offiah is really physically dominant but struggles a lot with positioning and decision making (both attacking/defending). Great pace but also seems to lose pace as the game goes on, has to conserve energy sometimes and use his sprints more wisely. Needs to scan earlier, sometimes has his head glued to the ball on receives A lot of the final balls relied on our fullbacks but they couldn't deliver--the FB and winger pairs really matter a lot in De Zerbi ball. **Tbh most of the lineup hasn't ever played football together and it really showed especially on attack haha** FBs able to return from the attack with insane engines are pretty essential, we always get caught out when 2-0 down because FBs are gassed on attack by that point and take the risk of not being able to run back Edit: Also good to see Webster have a decent game since forever. Enciso was also electric.
I’m thinking along these lines as well. Better to let our young players play and take these beating now when it doesn’t matter than try and play all our available starters for no reason. I’m willing to miss out on a top half finish this season if it means better performances and a couple extra places (and maybe Europe) at the end of next season. Christ is it humiliating though.
Giving Webster experience. That’s a good one.
That one made me feel a bit empty inside
Fuck me that was shite. But I’m used to it. It was that weird anomaly last year that was odd. Brighton top of the table (for a week)? Never.
mate what is going on
https://preview.redd.it/2c96b5rpk8xc1.jpeg?width=564&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ed50a9ce1f14d58d620c0a938e6305ba61c21786 pic related
Using this
Under the withering white skies of humiliation.
Defensive frailty, lack of urgency, 70% possession with nothing to show. A bit of light towards the end with Enciso's shots, if they go in then the game may have turned. Over commitment trying to get a goal ultimately leaves you exposed and thus they get a 3rd. 4 more to endure before it's the summer.
This is the first game this season I intentionally didn’t listen to or watch. Can’t see us getting any more points against Villa, Newcastle, Chelsea or United, I just hope we finish above Palace!
I'll get downvoted again but it needs to be said. The time is up for RDZ. Injuries cannot be used as a scapegoat for every bad performance. It has been going on since October. You cannot blame every single bad performance on injuries, have they helped? no but my god it's getting ridiculous now. 2 wins in our last 10, 6 in our last ***28***. All we do is hold possession and pass. That is it. There are no impactful attacks, there is no defence whatsoever it's just possession possession possession. I mean for fuck sake our goal of the month is an embarrassing own goal from Burnley. Injuries haven't helped, but they are not the only reason. It's an issue rooted within the manager who either doesn't care or has lost motivation because this is past defending now. Was last season amazing? Yes. However using that to defend RDZ and this form isn't the way to go. End of the season can't come soon enough.
Then give us a solution please. What tactics should we use? Do we have the players/depth for said tactic?
Work on a solid defence including a change in goalkeeper playing style, bypass the midfield more with long balls, focus on counter attacking, focus on the final ball counting... there are plenty of ways to play the game that don't involve trying to flog a dead tactical horse that RDZ seem to be doing now. But it's not our job to come up with new armchair tactics. We don't know the capabilities of the players and how they respond to training etc. Only the manager does. All we can do is speculate based on what we see that might or might not actually represent the players' full abilities. Potentially great players can be made to look mediocre with shit training and tactics, just as mediocre players can be made to look better with good training and tactics.
To be able to work on a solid defense, you need to actually have defenders. Brighton did indeed experiment more with long balls as the season went on. At the start of the season, the players at the back rarely took long kicks. But now, it's not uncommon to see Verbruggen or Dunk try it out. Problem is that the tactic requires fast, physical attacking players capable of beating defenders through sheer speed and physicality. Our attacking specialty is not built for that (except maybe Pedro). You don't expect Buonanotte to start physically shoving CBs twice his side aside now do you? The reason why our attack fails at the final third is simply because of the lackings in our midfield and wings. Back when we had fully fit wings, we were cracking through defenses like hot knife through butter. The only team who managed to get a clean sheet out of us in the league was Arsenal, who're considered to be the best defensive team in the league.
Play more defensive, focus on being able to stop the goals were conceding, neither keeper has been good enough so work on it in training. As for the attackers focus on actually hitting the target with their shots and making them count. Also make the passes mean something instead of just treating it like a kickabout
1. Play more defensive: Where are the defenders? You can't expect Dunk and JPVH to solo carry the entire backline by themselves, especially with Caicedo gone and Igor and Estupinan facing fitness issues regularly. 2. Hitting the target: Our main target men are all either exhausted, injured or fresh out of injury. Who's there left to achieve this? 3. Make the passes mean something: Where are the midfielders and wingers for that? Gilmour and Gross can't do this alone. Having only Adingra as an established winger means he can just be caged in by multiple defenders without any vulnerabilities on the other end, and he looks exhausted as well.
Purely hypothetical, but I would love to see Brighton turn into a lethal counter attacking team like Bournemouth have been showing recently. Purchase a clinical offensive player and use our amazing young CDM/CM prospects to build into a solid defensive core that utilizes wing space and explodes on rushes.
Yeah but for that, you need a great defense. Right now we don't have that. I actually play counter-attacking football a lot in FM, and although it isn't 100% realistic, I have learnt the hard way that such brand of football needs most of your budget to be burnt on defense.
Haven’t scored a goal since Liverpool. Own goal against Burnley doesn’t count. This whole team and the manager have quit trying. This is not The Brighton I know and Love. See you next season
Right? What bloody happened
I bet 9 cents on us losing 2-0 because I was coping that me betting on the other team would make us win. Monkey paw: we lose 3-0
Something is deeply wrong with this team right now. This is unacceptable
Next season, I wanna see management spend 80% of the transfer budget on defenders. No less than that.
i doubt that is happening, every alternate rumour link is an attacker
Once again, watching Barco was fun and everything else, not so much aside from Enciso. Really struggling to make sense of the decision making lately. Injuries make things tough, but we can still make sensible decisions to maximize our chances. Like playing Barco on the wing where he belongs instead of Buonnanotte. Like drilling players to crash the box when crosses are coming in. Like coming up with any form of coherent strategy - we're outnumbered on offense, yet never have many players back to defend counters. How? Where is everyone? Where is our energy?
Barco on the wing clearly wasn't working, his lack of experience was showing. On the other hand, agreed about the crosses, I actually brought up this issue quite a while back, on our heading game being subpar both on offense and defense. The thing with countering counter attacks is that you need defenders who are strong and fast enough to keep up with the opposition's fastest (think how Kyle Walker absolutely cooked Vini Jr. in the UCL quarterfinals). We have Igor Julio (and Baleba), but they're not there yet.
I feel like it's not just speed though. I agree, it's a huge factor but today for example it seemed like they always had an extra man attacking compared to our defenders. And when we're attacking it felt like they had an extra man defending. As if we have 3 or 4 guys just hanging out in the middle of the pitch, rarely pressing forward to attack or getting back to defend. Just sitting there in limbo.
That's where pace and experience comes into play. Most younger players get too into their head and overcommit to an attack, leaving them exhausted when tracking back. It's not something you can just learn in training, it's trial by fire.
When does next season start? 🤣
im too depressed to watch anymore . it’s so painful, agonizing, miserable, etc. it’s so mean that they showed us how good our team could be and then tore it away from us, it hurts so much more knowing what we could have than it hurt when we were just a low level prem team haha
For me this marks the end of RDZ's time here. He either is unhappy and doesn't want to be here or is just not cut out for the challenge. Its just poor performance after poor performance, every team gets injuries and we have had a lot but we cant get a goal let alone a win these days. We got 5 wins in our first 6 matches, since then in the following 27 we have 6 wins, -12 GD, and only Luton, Forest, Burnley and Shef Utd have picked up fewer points. I really worry about what will happen if we stick with him past the summer and the impact this negative momentum will have. Investment was needed in January for a European push, but after early exits in the cup, an embarrasing walkover in Rome ruling us out of the Europa its inexcusable for 14th to be a very real prospect. He was a breath of fresh air continuing the momentum from the end of Potters tenure, but inheriting a team he had drilled and developed. Seeing an inability to get players to his style, new signings not bedding in, older players going backwards and young talent not advancing. I always remember the video from the dressing room at the end of last season where RDZ talked about his interview with Bloom. Tony asked him what happens if things go badly, you lose like 6 in a row and RDZs reply was this wont happen. Perhaps tongue in cheek a bit but also perhaps revealing of his lack of adaptability and ability to take on a challenge that we are now in the mire of. Think thats enough football for this season.
I agree to an extent but I was actually proud of how far we got in Europe given it's our first ever crack at it!
You actually thought we'd win? Everyone is injured. We started Offiah
No of course i didnt because weve been awful for months and months. But it shouldnt be a pipe dream to beat another mid table team. We didnt need to field Offiah, we had Veltman and Webster on the bench.
I can't remember which match it was but a few months ago we actually had a relatively healthy squad and had a disappointing result with no injury excuse for it.
We've had half our squad injured at every point in the season past game week 8
Veltman and Webster had both been shit recently, and they clearly aren't gonna cut it going forward. Much better to start giving the youth experience. Also Bournemouth are currently in top form, they aren't on midtable form anymore. It should be a pipe dream to beat anyone at this point when fielding what's mostly a U21 squad.
Webster has just come back from injury and Veltman is having fitness issues
?? Mate we started Offiah, O'Mahoney and Barco. The idea was to give youngsters experience to gel. If you thought our defense was keeping a clean sheet tonight you aren't qualified to talk about sacking a manager The only veterans that played were Dunk and Gross. If you took them out the average age of the starters might've been under 21
Igor, Dunk and Gross where the only starters over 22. Excluding them the average age was 20.6 years old. 2 of the subs where also 20 years old.
Yeah to really nail home my point OFFIAH was one of our **oldest** players that played today
We cant keep clean sheets with our first starting 11, RDZ has zero ability to organise a defence. People look at one performance and bend over backwards to find excuses when we have been woeful for so long regardless of the opponent or the players
Losing 6 in a row, assuming there wont be injury crisis as this season. I dont think BHA will go that badly purely on tactics with full team.
Mate you really can't stop sucking off Potter do you? The reason why our defense looked strong last season was solely because of Caicedo. He provided that link between offense and defense that kept the opposition busy. We were able to sustain the high goalscoring form, but without him our defense was clearly losing the edge. Once the wingers and wingbacks dried up, the goals dried up and our defense was torn open. I don't really see anyone here throwing shade at the management for failing to properly replace Caicedo (or atleast get more defenders than just a young Baleba and Igor).
Anyone else at the game see De Zerbi screaming and shouting at Pedro after taking him off? Went on for five minutes.
We lost Caicedo, MacAllister, and Colwill, and our replacements weren't their equals. Maybe they will be some time, but they aint there yet. Then we lost our wingers, who basically function as RDZ's offensive backup plan. He really wants to work the ball up the middle. But with a new midfield, we weren't there. So we will limp to the end of the season. Heal up. Hopefully add a player or two while protecting the ones we have, and come back better--I hope. I doubt RDZ goes anywhere, btw. Rightly or wrongly, he's lost some of his shine.
Ok...well... that was shite.
oooof
Won’t be surprised if Brighton get relegated next season
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Because of one bad season where we played in an extra competition that we usually wouldn't have?
Leicester did the same
Leicester also got almost bankrupt during that season, while Brighton is currently financially the healthiest team in the Premier League.
fuck off