[Albion] Japan pre season

[curly69]

I'm having a fantastic time and free beer at the meet up yesterday was a nice.

 

[timbha]

Thoroughly unbelievable trip this met some amazing local fans with insane knowledge, loved it. Some people travelled some distance to get here from elsewhere in Asia. Amazing what this club can do.

Jack - does your flag say Hove or Hovel?

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

Simultaneous high fullbacks was a bit of a Hyypia trait, as I remember it. That didn’t work out too well. Did occur to me today that the way the centre-backs were playing saw them isolated on the wings at time, which we’d probably all agree is a rare weakness in Dunk’s armoury.

Just a friendly though so who knows what the season will bring. I’m optimistic Hurzeler will find solutions and there’s a wealth of talent to choose from going forwards.

Mate, this is the danger that i'm seeing.

It's not just Dunk, no centre back wants to get isolated out wide doing the job of a full back who is too far forward to do his primary job.

At times last season I think all of our CB's got done out wide. Webby certainly did, Igor I think. Dunky infamously at Roma. We need to have a look at why we're allowing this to happen.

No panic as yet. I like you think that solutions will be found.

 

[8049]

Just re-watched the highlights and I wonder if the players were told not to run at 100% this early in pre-season. Each time we were over-run on the wing, the wing-backs (Barco, Adingra and Cozier-Duberry) were basically jogging back. It may be they're all a bit lazy but given our injuries last season it might be that they've been told to take it easier while they're getting their fitness up.

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

Just re-watched the highlights and I wonder if the players were told not to run at 100% this early in pre-season. Each time we were over-run on the wing, the wing-backs (Barco, Adingra and Cozier-Duberry) were basically jogging back. It may be they're all a bit lazy but given our injuries last season it might be that they've been told to take it easier while they're getting their fitness up.

I've been doing exactly the same thing.

Wow we coughed up some chances in that last game.

I think that conditions played a part, but if we go into a PL season with full backs who can't or won't get back our goals against column won't look good.

But it wasn't just full backs. For most of those chances, central midfielders weren't getting goal side. Milner and Facu in particular. Again, we'll be properly punished for this once the season starts.

To be clear i'm not freaking out. We did some very good work. But the matches to me highlighted that we don't have the fit specialist full backs or fit specialist defensive midfielders we need at the moment. Players like Moran and Samuels not currently at the level we need to play full back in the PL, Moran was clearly out of position to be fair to him.

 

[dazzer6666]

I've been doing exactly the same thing.

Wow we coughed up some chances in that last game.

I think that conditions played a part, but if we go into a PL season with full backs who can't or won't get back our goals against column won't look good.

But it wasn't just full backs. For most of those chances, central midfielders weren't getting goal side. Milner and Facu in particular. Again, we'll be properly punished for this once the season starts.

To be clear i'm not freaking out. We did some very good work. But the matches to me highlighted that we don't have the fit specialist full backs or fit specialist defensive midfielders we need at the moment. Players like Moran and Samuels not currently at the level we need to play full back in the PL, Moran was clearly out of position to be fair to him.

They’re training runouts, I wouldn’t analyse them too much.

 

[MTSeagulls]

They’re training runouts, I wouldn’t analyse them too much.

I agree with this and sometimes a team learns more from a poorish pre season.
Two pre seasons stick out for me where it was obvious we were going to struggle.
MA's second term where we played Athlone and never looked like scoring, MA was a shadow of his former self, and Sammy Hyppia's time who was also strangely inactive on the sidelines.

 

[AZ Gull]

Anyone able to tell me the attendances for the two games please?

The Antlers game was 25,172; the Verdy game was 25,851.