BFTT Bournemouth

[South Coast Royal]

I think people are being a bit harsh on Joao.
When you play as a lone striker it is hard and with 5 in midfield there were plenty out there to do the covering.

Somebody said about fitness and the midfielders looked knackered and were slow to close down players in the second half.
I said when talking about the past few games that we really don't close down quickly enough outside our box and once again we are punished by Cook's screamer-it's as if they feel that players at this level can't shoot but of late we have discovered that they can.

A real disappointment after a well controlled first-half and made worse by Matt Mills suggesting (quite rightly) words to the effect that we are mentally weak and yet you look at Moore, Morrison and Richards and think that we aren't.

So the honeymoon is over but at least the football is better to watch than in the past few seasons and with Moore and Ejaria back we might do ok but right-back is a real worry if Yiadom is unfit.
Although we might miss some of his tidy work in midfield I wouldn't mind seeing Rhino there in a 4-4-2 with Meite up top with Joao and possibly McIntyre and Laurent in the two more defensive midfield central areas and Olise and Ejaria either side of them.

This squad really isn't that deep-you can rattle off a number of names but amongst any 5 there aren't too many game changers.

[Gunny Fishcake]

For years when the going has got tough this lot have sat down and given up.

Hear hear

[URZZZZ]

From being top and seven points clear we are now sixth.

Could be down as far as 11th if we lose the next one.

Great, so as well as getting five subs now every game, you get five points for winning too

[URZZZZ]

Esteves & Aluko not a wise combination. If we're going to play the talented but inexperienced right-back, surely we need someone a bit more defensively minded in front of him ? Or if he wants Aluko, need more of an out-and-out defender at right back.

Came to post this but no need, nail on the head

If you’re Esteves, you need someone tactically aware, tactically disciplined in front of you. Aluko isn’t the man. It’s no coincidence that Esteves’ best two games so far were Blackburn and Rotherham with Meite ahead of him

In a sense, Aluko also needs a certain type of player behind him if he’s to play out wide, seem to recall him doing well with Yiadom a few times. Preferably, you play him in the middle or no where but RW in front of Esteves is simply illogical, same sort of outcome when Stam/Clement kept pairing him with Gunter

[Westwood52]

Watson has to be better than Estevez or Holmes at RB.

[Snowflake Royal]

Watson has to be better than Estevez or Holmes at RB.

Well Velcro thinks he's a midfielder.

[Bristol Paul]

I think people are being a bit harsh on Joao.
When you play as a lone striker it is hard and with 5 in midfield there were plenty out there to do the covering.

Somebody said about fitness and the midfielders looked knackered and were slow to close down players in the second half.
I said when talking about the past few games that we really don't close down quickly enough outside our box and once again we are punished by Cook's screamer-it's as if they feel that players at this level can't shoot but of late we have discovered that they can.

A real disappointment after a well controlled first-half and made worse by Matt Mills suggesting (quite rightly) words to the effect that we are mentally weak and yet you look at Moore, Morrison and Richards and think that we aren't.

So the honeymoon is over but at least the football is better to watch than in the past few seasons and with Moore and Ejaria back we might do ok but right-back is a real worry if Yiadom is unfit.
Although we might miss some of his tidy work in midfield I wouldn't mind seeing Rhino there in a 4-4-2 with Meite up top with Joao and possibly McIntyre and Laurent in the two more defensive midfield central areas and Olise and Ejaria either side of them.

This squad really isn't that deep-you can rattle off a number of names but amongst any 5 there aren't too many game changers.

Agree with this, we don’t press enough and give opposition too much space. Whilst it sometime appears to work and we counter attack well, it also means on balance that given the possession the other teams have, they are fairly likely to score.

[Zip]

I think people are being a bit harsh on Joao.
When you play as a lone striker it is hard and with 5 in midfield there were plenty out there to do the covering.

Somebody said about fitness and the midfielders looked knackered and were slow to close down players in the second half.
I said when talking about the past few games that we really don't close down quickly enough outside our box and once again we are punished by Cook's screamer-it's as if they feel that players at this level can't shoot but of late we have discovered that they can.

A real disappointment after a well controlled first-half and made worse by Matt Mills suggesting (quite rightly) words to the effect that we are mentally weak and yet you look at Moore, Morrison and Richards and think that we aren't.

So the honeymoon is over but at least the football is better to watch than in the past few seasons and with Moore and Ejaria back we might do ok but right-back is a real worry if Yiadom is unfit.
Although we might miss some of his tidy work in midfield I wouldn't mind seeing Rhino there in a 4-4-2 with Meite up top with Joao and possibly McIntyre and Laurent in the two more defensive midfield central areas and Olise and Ejaria either side of them.

This squad really isn't that deep-you can rattle off a number of names but amongst any 5 there aren't too many game changers.

Agree with this, we don’t press enough and give opposition too much space. Whilst it sometime appears to work and we counter attack well, it also means on balance that given the possession the other teams have, they are fairly likely to score.

This was very much the case today. Teams appear to have sussed us out.

[leon]

I think people are being a bit harsh on Joao.
When you play as a lone striker it is hard and with 5 in midfield there were plenty out there to do the covering.

Somebody said about fitness and the midfielders looked knackered and were slow to close down players in the second half.
I said when talking about the past few games that we really don't close down quickly enough outside our box and once again we are punished by Cook's screamer-it's as if they feel that players at this level can't shoot but of late we have discovered that they can.

A real disappointment after a well controlled first-half and made worse by Matt Mills suggesting (quite rightly) words to the effect that we are mentally weak and yet you look at Moore, Morrison and Richards and think that we aren't.

So the honeymoon is over but at least the football is better to watch than in the past few seasons and with Moore and Ejaria back we might do ok but right-back is a real worry if Yiadom is unfit.
Although we might miss some of his tidy work in midfield I wouldn't mind seeing Rhino there in a 4-4-2 with Meite up top with Joao and possibly McIntyre and Laurent in the two more defensive midfield central areas and Olise and Ejaria either side of them.

This squad really isn't that deep-you can rattle off a number of names but amongst any 5 there aren't too many game changers.

Agree with this, we don’t press enough and give opposition too much space. Whilst it sometime appears to work and we counter attack well, it also means on balance that given the possession the other teams have, they are fairly likely to score.

This was very much the case today. Teams appear to have sussed us out.

They hadn’t in the first half. We were coasting.

Someone said fitness earlier. That’s a good shout. The first thing to go is your concentration. This team just loses focus and makes stupid mistakes.

[Zip]

Agree with this, we don’t press enough and give opposition too much space. Whilst it sometime appears to work and we counter attack well, it also means on balance that given the possession the other teams have, they are fairly likely to score.

This was very much the case today. Teams appear to have sussed us out.

They hadn’t in the first half. We were coasting.

Someone said fitness earlier. That’s a good shout. The first thing to go is your concentration. This team just loses focus and makes stupid mistakes.

Not convinced it’s fitness. We were scoring late goals earlier in the season.

[leon]

This was very much the case today. Teams appear to have sussed us out.

They hadn’t in the first half. We were coasting.

Someone said fitness earlier. That’s a good shout. The first thing to go is your concentration. This team just loses focus and makes stupid mistakes.

Not convinced it’s fitness. We were scoring late goals earlier in the season.

Ok. So they’re fcuking morons then?

Actually..,,,.,,,,

[Jackson Corner]

It’s going as I thought it would under the Croation clown. Forget the freak start he is tactically clueless. No idea how you play in this league. He reminds me of Japp Stam when we didn’t win for 17 games. No plan B. He needs to. Go now ASAP. Before we will be down by Xmas.

[SCIAG]

It’s going as I thought it would under the Croation clown. Forget the freak start he is tactically clueless. No idea how you play in this league. He reminds me of Japp Stam when we didn’t win for 17 games. No plan B. He needs to. Go now ASAP. Before we will be down by Xmas.

Be surprised if anyone bites on this, poor effort.

[Stranded]

We weren't the best team in the league when we were winning. We aren't the worst now. We need to snap this run then this team is good enough to be around the play-off hunt.

Bristol snapped out of a bad run, we can too.

[Snowflake Royal]

I think people are being a bit harsh on Joao.
When you play as a lone striker it is hard and with 5 in midfield there were plenty out there to do the covering.

Somebody said about fitness and the midfielders looked knackered and were slow to close down players in the second half.
I said when talking about the past few games that we really don't close down quickly enough outside our box and once again we are punished by Cook's screamer-it's as if they feel that players at this level can't shoot but of late we have discovered that they can.

A real disappointment after a well controlled first-half and made worse by Matt Mills suggesting (quite rightly) words to the effect that we are mentally weak and yet you look at Moore, Morrison and Richards and think that we aren't.

So the honeymoon is over but at least the football is better to watch than in the past few seasons and with Moore and Ejaria back we might do ok but right-back is a real worry if Yiadom is unfit.
Although we might miss some of his tidy work in midfield I wouldn't mind seeing Rhino there in a 4-4-2 with Meite up top with Joao and possibly McIntyre and Laurent in the two more defensive midfield central areas and Olise and Ejaria either side of them.

This squad really isn't that deep-you can rattle off a number of names but amongst any 5 there aren't too many game changers.

Agree with this, we don’t press enough and give opposition too much space. Whilst it sometime appears to work and we counter attack well, it also means on balance that given the possession the other teams have, they are fairly likely to score.

This was very much the case today. Teams appear to have sussed us out.

Possession doesn't mean chances.

Have we learnt nothing from years of obsession with possession and the good start.

Bournemouth's possession had very little to do with it. They had more possession first half and scored none.

They scored because we got turned and dropped clangers. We had virtually the same number of chances as them, but they had a keeper who made difficult saves and players who found the net. Not because they had a lot of the ball. They scored four from the game opening up, not us sitting back.

[Hound]

I don’t think any team we’ve lost to have ‘sussed us out’ as such. Maybe Cov did as much as anyone

Just been rank bad mistakes. The stat on the other thread - 13 goals from 18 shots on target against us in the last 4. It’s not like we’ve conceded tons of shots or the keeper has been keeping us in matches

In a way I was surprised actually how little trouble Bournemouth caused us on the whole. We were prob the better team at 2-2 when I was expecting a full on siege on our goal. Even at 3-2 down we looked more likely to score

Stupid errors in terrible positions, lack of concentration, lack of experience and I’d agree a lack of defending nous on that right hand side have cost us. It’s fixable but in a way almost more difficult to stop than an obvious tactical error

[Zip]

Agree with this, we don’t press enough and give opposition too much space. Whilst it sometime appears to work and we counter attack well, it also means on balance that given the possession the other teams have, they are fairly likely to score.

This was very much the case today. Teams appear to have sussed us out.

Possession doesn't mean chances.

Have we learnt nothing from years of obsession with possession and the good start.

Bournemouth's possession had very little to do with it. They had more possession first half and scored none.

They scored because we got turned and dropped clangers. We had virtually the same number of chances as them, but they had a keeper who made difficult saves and players who found the net. Not because they had a lot of the ball. They scored four from the game opening up, not us sitting back.

No I disagree. If you allow teams constant opportunities to attack in dangerous areas it is only a matter of time before you start conceding. We simply didn’t press them anywhere near enough. Contrast Joao’s lack of closing compared to Solanke. It was far too easy for them to work their way into dangerous positions because they had free access into our half and then targeted our right flank. From there we were in trouble.

[Hound]

It’s kind of the tactic that led us to 7 wins though zip. Sit deep and break

I don’t think they got loads of time on the ball tbh

[Zip]

It’s kind of the tactic that led us to 7 wins though zip. Sit deep and break

I don’t think they got loads of time on the ball tbh

Yes it was but looking back were we very fortunate that the quality of the opposition finishing was rank bad? We perhaps dodged some bullets suggesting the system was working a lot better than it really was.

[paddy20]

Cabral - 5 basically giving away a goal a game at the moment. oxf*rd terrible form
Esteves - 4 Morrison spends half the game shouting at him. He's got talent but it's like no one has ever taught him how to play RB. Positionally awful.
Richards - 6 don't remember much wrong
Morrison - 6 don't think he got much wrong
Moore - 6 ditto
Rino - 6 solid game
Laurent - 8 thought that was the best I've seen him
Aluko - 5 scored but was otherwise atrocious and for an experienced pro did oxf*rd all to help Esteves
Semedo - 6 starts brightly but goes completely missing second half regularly
Ejaria - 6 quiet game apart from creating the goal

Holmes - 6 he can defend unlike Esteves
Olise - 6 superior to Aluko in every way
Meite - 6 so close to scoring
Baldock - 5 not really his circumstances.

Paunovic - poor. Sent them out second half and let them give away the initiative then did nothing about it in time.

Bournemouth - quality

Ref - thought he was tolerable and dropped no clangers. Feel like he should have pulled back that advantage, but we spaffed it up the wall ourselves, so I can see why he didn't.

Bournemouth were very good, but we still failed to take some chances. Even at 2-2 or 3-2 we probably should have taken one of our opportunities. Instead we suicided yet again.

Four goals in a half you start by leading 2-0 is simply unacceptable.

On reflection - We played great in first half, they played great in second
We were up against one of the best sides and away from home
A lot of our players are not strong mentally
Semedo fades badly in second half, always
Rafael needs to improve his kicking
We desperately need a proper winger and a right back