[Albion] Bournemouth game, MATCH REPORT

Thunder Bolt said:

Bill's tweet doesn't show because you put twitter instead of tweet.

I thought it worth mentioning that Knockaert scored the first Premier League goal of 2018.

Enjoyed reading it, though.

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Badger said:

Excellent as always

The only thing missing is the word PLUCKY. I feel this is a requirement for any piece about Bournemouth.

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army ali said:

Great report (as always) and summed it up succinctly.

I may get slated here but I think CH is missing a trick in our formation, which in my opinion has lost us 4 points from the last 3 games. Here goes with my reasoning with how we could improve:

At the back - Goldson (who Has Maldiniesque tendencies) is a better footballer than Duffy; Duffy is hard and enjoys the ugly side of the game, getting stuck in when needed; Dunk is a mixture of both but needs to rely on someone to tidy up when needed. Equation - play all three together.

Midfield - We have a severe lack of bite in the centre which served us so well over the last 2 seasons. Propper and Stephens too alike and cancel each other out. Either play Stephens/Propper and Kayal. My opinion, Stephens and Kayal with Propper in the hole in an attacking free roaming type position (funnily enough, the one he does very well with The Netherlands). Ok, that leaves a problem with Groß but I will come back to him in a minute. Wide you can set up to either hold and defend with Schelotto/Bruno or Suttner/Bong (left and right) or attack with Izquierdo and Knocky (again left and right respectively). Opponent dependent.

Up Front - Murray/Hemed and Baldock. Playing 1 up front has severely restricted our goal scoring opportunities, because quite frankly, there is no one in the box because the lone striker is out of position with link up play. 2 up front obviously means that leaves one for link up and feeding with one in the box to receive.

The mathematicians, statisticians and tactitians amongst you will recognise this as a 3-5-2 formation which can be interchanged to either a defensive or attack minded formation dependent on home/away/opposition.

Now the elephant in the room - Groß. He runs his socks off every game giving everything. For me, he is simply outstanding but I think he is being asked too much of to either support midfield (most of the time) and support the attack. However, he is so effective in that ‘hole’. So, does he replace Propper in that position as THE attacking midfielder with Propper replacing Stephens? Either way, Groß must always start but I do not feel the same way with Propper or Stephens. However, we need ‘bite’ in that central midfield and that is Kayal. This will also help our front pair and (in my opinion) could really scare some (most) of the opposition outside of the top 6.

Anyway, that’s it. In a nutshell, something has to change to convert draws into wins. I do not understand comments of ‘we are learning’ or ‘a point will do’, that’s way too negative. We have a squad of players that can thrive instead of survive. We can definitely be brave and we do look like we belong.

I am not saying we can beat everyone or that we can easily be in the top 10. What I am saying is that we can thrive. That is good for our future.

Just a few thoughts.

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WildWood said:

Really look forward to these, great summary as always! If the club want to make the best football programme even better, they should add these - I’d buy one!

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B-right-on said:

Excllent sumary. Really didnt understand why Izquierdo wasnt swopped out with Solly on 75 mins. Boy was absolutly dead on his legs by 80th min.

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Badger said:

Excellent as always

The only thing missing is the word PLUCKY. I feel this is a requirement for any piece about Bournemouth.

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