covcity4life
Well-Known Member
I'll take that as an admission of defeat
Match Thread Birmingham City (6 Viewers)
- Thread starter cc84cov
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cc84cov
Well-Known Member
You forgot to quote me this time
covcity4life
Well-Known Member
You forgot to address the pointYou forgot to quote me this time
Lets try again
Do you admit you have been wrong everytime you tell us the pts gap will widen?
Brighton Sky Blue
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KenilworthSkyBlue
Well-Known Member
Your logic is based on the fact we automatically would've won if we used the 3-5-2/ 3-5-1-1.
I personally don't think we would've benefitted by utilising our usual set-up because of how Birmingham like to play - capitalising on gaps down the flanks by getting the ball to their wingers (primarily Bela) and whipping the ball into the box for Jutkiewicz to get on the end of. (Something they attempted regularly on Friday night). What was that stat the panel mentioned? Jutkiewicz has scored more headed goals than any other player in the Championship since 2017 or something along the same lines?
Using a system that is notorious for leaving you exposed on the wings, coupled with the number of individual errors that we tend to make during games doesn't suggest to me that Robins made the wrong call. As whilst we probably would have provided more of a threat in attack using our usual formation, there's a risk that it would have left us further exposed.
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
We lost the aerial battle against Juke regardless.
Frostie
Well-Known Member
Correct. Jutkiewicz won more headers than anyone & should have scored from at least 1 of them. The clean sheet is papering over the cracks that we still coughed up a lot of good chances just Juke was very poor on the day.
KenilworthSkyBlue
Well-Known Member
Regardless of what formation we would've played it was an inevitability that they would have attempted to get balls into the box and as a consequence conceded headed chances - it's pretty much their only go-to tactic. We lost the ariel battle because Jutkiewicz is probably the best in the league at what he does and our defenders just didn't know how to cope with that.
How do you think we would've fared if more balls were sent into the box due to our flanks being left further exposed?
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
We’d have had an extra central defender competing with him for a start. We’d have bagged at least one or two ourselves going on their own defensive capabilities
KenilworthSkyBlue
Well-Known Member
Ah yes of course, because having the extra central defender has worked miracles defensively so far this season....
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
It probably would against a lone striker. Was it worth taking out all of our offensive capability and misplaying Hamer? The central 3 were starting to get some chemistry as were the front 2 and we actually had Dabo available at RWB. In my view we were too cautious in our approach to a side that was guilty of the same thing.
Grendel
Well-Known Member
As Clint says it’s pointless having an adult discussion with you
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
I guess the real adults are calling for the manager to be sacked in a thinly veiled manner
Grendel
Well-Known Member
Im not saying he should be
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
Not explicitly but everything you write on the subjects says it’s what you think we should do. You also have this habit of telling people to hide in rectums...
You know it’s funny being called immature when the dialogue was about keeping things tight despite Juke still bidding things in the air. If the answer is that he would have done so regardless of our formation then logically we should have shown more attacking ambition. Look at the goals we conceded in those 3 games. Just as you say the formation didn’t create all the goals we scored I argue it wasn’t at fault for the ones we conceded. Particularly as 4 were from set pieces or freak penalties
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
On the flip side against other teams we were unsuccessful because we weren't clinical with some very good chances. Against Brum we didn't even have the chances to miss.
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
Biamou should have had at least one against Watford before they opened the scoring.
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
But how many chances did we create ourselves?
It seems against teams that were less likely to score at the time (Barnsley and Brum) MR has looked at that and gone "we could be solid and get a clean sheet". IMO it's better to say "they're less likely to score so we might be able to afford giving them a few chances in favour of creating our own".
On the other hand he's approached games against quite clinical teams with more openness, affording them chances, when we don't have that same conversion rate for our chances. It's completely the wrong way round.
Grendel
Well-Known Member
We are always going to concede chances every game - it’s proved We conceded less on Friday so give up on that one. He will always get a couple of chances - the first one even looked like it could have been offside
Grendel
Well-Known Member
they should have scored in the first 5 minutes - yawn
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
If we're playing two up top arguably Shipley's best assets (linking with the striker and backing up looking to score) aren't as necessary as O'hare, who as well as being creative also gets stuck in.
Shipley tends to need replacing after an hour and you could argue O'Hare could be even more effective as a sub, esp as we now have 5 to play with, but for me O'Hare gets the ACM role.
clint van damme
Well-Known Member
I think injuries have played a part. I keep saying that we'll go two up top when Godden and Walker are fit but he now seems reluctant to start Biamou or Baka so won't start either of them as a second striker.
Maxs performance against Forest has sealed his fate as far a City is concerned in my opinion.
KenilworthSkyBlue
Well-Known Member
Why would it? We've played and lost against teams who use a lone striker or a variation of such. Blackburn, Forest and Brentford. Jutkiewicz is difficult to play against for even the most experienced Championship defender and one of the best at what he does in the division. So, throwing as many CBs as possible into the back line in order to mitigate the ariel threat from Jutkiewicz still may not have delivered a miracle solution. As at the end of the day individual errors still exist in the usual formation (in my opinion the chances of mistakes are actually enhanced) and both the 3-5-2/ 3-5-1-1 leave us more exposed on the wings - especially against teams who predominantly utilise wingers to service their lone striker.
Playing Hamer in what at times almost looked like RM was the wrong move. There's no getting away from that.
That might be the case but we were still conceding two goals per game and silly mistakes were still being made. Claiming they were starting to get some chemistry is nothing more than sugar coating the situation.
We were too cautious I'll also accept that, but that wasn't all that unsurprising given we've conceded the most goals in the league.
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
We conceded less by a) sacrificing any attacking outlet and b) by playing against a team which has also struggled for goals this season. Just like Barnsley when we played them couldn’t hit a barn door but had the better chances.
A balance must be found and Friday went too far in the defensive direction. You can’t tell me on the one hand Juke would have chances no matter what and on the other say we should have eliminated our attacking threat.
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
We lose against Forest because Max lost us the game at the very end. Whether a flat 4 or 3 with wing backs you still have Dabo defending against the wingers and he has never been strong at that. We had two weeks to work on issues in training and in my view we have spent it on the wrong thing. It is tricky with injuries right now and I get that, but we went over cautious in the wrong game I think.
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
A point with 12 men vs 11 of a very average team should be considered a disaster.
KenilworthSkyBlue
Well-Known Member
It took two goals for us to lose. The first goal, whilst I thought looked offside, was down to terrible defending yet again.
Really? I thought Dabo's defending came on leaps and bounds last season so I have to say I strongly disagree on that.
What was the right thing to work on though in your view? Personally, I thought the two things to work on was cut out the mistakes (which I think we're probably going to struggle to do) and stop conceding the number of goals we have done.
One of those came off, yes admittedly at the expense of no goals scored, but expecting Robins to come up with a vaccine for our multiple ills in just two weeks isn't realistic. As Robins said, we can at least use this as a building block.
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
I thought we had made progress attacking wise by finding the net more often and generally creating more and better chances. Looking at the high number conceded from set pieces I’d have invested time on those and have worked on forcing players to work with the ball under pressure. As you will find me saying in the Forest thread when it happened that first goal was caused by Rose not coming forward with the other defenders playing everyone inside. No you don’t fix everything in a fortnight but it takes even more time to learn a quite different system.
Dabo’s strength is still his attacking game as he showed glimpses of when he was able to go forward.
KenilworthSkyBlue
Well-Known Member
Taking Rose out of the team was a must. I don't like to use this term often with our players but he's been terrible all season and has cost us goals. Whether thats down to fatigue after his lengthy lay-off, or the Championship being too much too soon, I'm not too sure. But, I don't consider it a coincidence that we've kept a clean sheet when he's not played.
You've just highlighted a fundamental flaw with the 3-5-1-1/3-5-2 which I keep on pressing though. You have to have CBs that are good at this level of distributing the ball under pressure, otherwise the chances of errors are raised. At least in the formation we played on Friday our CBs weren't given license to see and use more of the ball. Something that is an accident waiting to happen as I've previously stated. We can't use the 3-5-1-1/3-5-2 every game and Robins should have worked on two formations during pre-season. Most managers do this so I'm baffled as to why Robins seems to miss this memo and has to wait to adopt a new system until injuries force his hand. (Reference to League 2 campaign and last season).
He's certainly better as a WB but his defensive game is fine and his athleticism/physicality are able get him out of trouble more than the average RB. He won't look out of place in a flat back four.
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
Whether you have 2 or 3 centre backs as our aim is to play out from the back we’ll still get ourselves in trouble as we did in the first half a few times. I do agree though that you can’t rely on one system all game every game and what I saw on Friday is worth keeping with for times when we need to see a game out, which we have been very poor at to date.
Also important for me is the midfield 3 do not get stifled
clint van damme
Well-Known Member
I think part of the problem is sometimes he's having his mind made up for him due to injuries and to a lesser extent suspensions.
That's why he played one up front Friday.
Of course that isn't an excuse for some of his bizarre decisions, playing Hamer out wide for starters.
Grendel
Well-Known Member
He had biamou and bakayoko both of whom he’s offered extended contracts on the bench
clint van damme
Well-Known Member
and it's clear to me that he won't start them, I think Max burnt his bridges after Forest.
Would the money have been better spent on bringing someone in?
Possibly, but that would still have consisted of a punt because we definitely can't afford a proven Championship quality striker.
Grendel
Well-Known Member
He should never have allowed Bakayoko to stay - he was never good enough in league 1 and it was madness to think Biamou could make the grade and he should have said to him to get a new club or rot in the bomb squad