In Peace - Honest View from an Owl

[tweenster]

Good post Owlfan. In the short time he has been with us I have become a big Orlandi fan, but he wasn't at his best yesterday and some of his passes went awry, as they did for many of our players. You rightly highlighted El Abd's lack of passing ability, as the rest of the team has been improved he is beginning to look like a weak link. A shame because he has been a fantastic servant for us. I was really surprised when Vicente came on that he did run directly at your centre backs but tried to pass it around them. If he had run directly at them like he did against Derby or Ipswich last year (YouTube it if you're interested) then he would have ripped them apart.

From my perspective it was a pretty depressing day out.

 

[Imanowl]

Ulloa is a good player, matched our center backs for strength and tore us a new one on a few occasions. However, he spent way too much time flinging himelf on the ground needlessly.

CMS was by far your best player yesterday and caused us MASSIVE problems until Liera started marking him out of the game. God knows why he didn't start, would've been a completely different game if he had.

Still don't believe we're a good footballing side but give us some credit, Dave Jones obviously did his homework.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

Good assessment. Fair comment on the lack of pace and muscle. We badly lack it.

Ulloa and Upson should go someway to help with the physical side. Pace wise we miss Buckley big time

Wrong wrong wrong. We have pace in abundance just that Poyet keeps them on the f***ing bench

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

Decent post, I've highlighted a couple of points though.

I'm sure Helan and Antonio would have made a different in our side from yesterday, but I'd take Buckley and Lualua ahead of them any day of the week.

If Bruno is 100% fit for the next game, I'm sure he'll start. I reckon he'd have caused you some problems like he did at the Amex. Calderon is normally a very good back-up for anywhere in the back 4.

When Bridge bombs forward down the wing, Barnes (who usually plays on the left of the front 3) tends to drop back in behind him to cover, so once Barnes had been sent off, Bridge didn't want to risk it not only because we were down to 10 men, but because his usually cover wasn't available. Barnes is one of our more influential players, so not a great one to lose for 60 minutes of yesterday's game, and all of the next 3.

Barnes influential in 1 in 10 games, maybe

 

[brightonrock]

Thought the ref got A LOT wrong. It's very easy for the keyboard warriors to blame Barnes or Poyet or anyone else they choose to turn their guns on this week, but we stood little chance after the red card. I haven't seen it again so may be wrong but at first glance he looked late but no more so than Pugh who the ref absolutely bottled sending off. It was infuriating that even with ten men we didn't play badly - and yet EVERYTHING went Wednesday's way. It was encompassed by one moment late on when Gardner absolutely clattered CMS from behind going up for a header, all over him like a rash. The second ball was picked up by a Wednesday player and lumped forward (standard) and El-Abd won a header against their forward and was penalised and booked for climbing. Brilliant.

Barnes shouldn't have dived in but was pushed over five yards from the lino who was unmoved, and how Ulloa was on the brink of a red I'll never know. Wednesday were happy to dish out the strong tackles but didn't like it back and the number of times he was cynically kicked, pushed, nudged off the ball and had his shirt pulled, was ridiculous. Then he's in a split second late on a bouncing ball, ducks out of the challenge, their guy goes over and it's a yellow. It drove me crazy because YET AGAIN completely incompetent referreeing spoiled a game. I have no idea whether 11v11 we would have won, and I'm not claiming it was the ref's fault we lost, but for the first time in 2 seasons at 0-1 I still felt confident we'd get something from the game. We just had to be patient as we were grinding them down.

As a final thought, Llera is possibly the worst footballer I've ever seen. He brought hoof ball to a new level, it was embarassing. If I was Wednesday and had to watch him every week I'd tear up my season ticket, absolute donkey. I'd take a tenth of the wages he's on to lump the ball 60 yards out of play and foul opposing strikers. I genuinely reckon I could do it.

 

[Telford Seagull]

I agree with you for most of tha good analysis. Bridge was alright yesterday but not his usual quality. However i rarley saw him get beat. I dont know how you think ulloa should have gone as he didnt put a foot wrong really and Llera at the back constantly held him, pulled him, jumped on him etc. The tackle by pugh was a shocker and here was even a horror tackle on barnes a couple of mins before he got his marching orders which the lads should have been sent off for. Barnes was a silly boy doing what he did, but he didnt touch the lad lee as he was holding his foot, yet barnes tackle wasnt near his foot. After the ref pulled out the red he sat up and looked fine.
Upson was making his debut for us yesterday and it was only his 3rd game of the season but i was fairly disappointed. That was NEVER a penalty but with that ref i'm suprised he didnt give it you. One of you lads, i think.it was antonio kicked out at el-abd yet got away with that completely.

 

[Westdene Wonder]

Owlfan, your comments on our performance is spot on, as you say we have a number of good players, unfortunately our manager tends to keep them on the bench, even at home,CMS always gives his all but is often on his own up front,Bridges has played very well this season but no doubt was playing to orders in not going on his attacking runs yesterday.

 

[GingerBeerMan]

FWIW Bridge has been player of the season behind Bridcutt so far, he's quality.

 

[CT1]

I have heard it all now.

Yes he has played quite well recently, for him.

One of our more influential players! No wonder we are struggling.

What do you mean you have heard it all? He is spot on, Barnes is definitely one of our most influential players. If you can't see that God knows what you watch every saturday.

 

[One Teddy Maybank]

What do you mean you have heard it all? He is spot on, Barnes is definitely one of our most influential players. If you can't see that God knows what you watch every saturday.

Precisely right.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

What do you mean you have heard it all? He is spot on, Barnes is definitely one of our most influential players. If you can't see that God knows what you watch every saturday.

Complete bollocks. He plays well 1 in 10.

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

Barnes shouldn't have dived in but was pushed over five yards from the lino who was unmoved,

Pushed over. He felt a hand on his shoulder and went for the free kick. Play the ball Ashley.

 

[CT1]

Complete bollocks. He plays well 1 in 10.

Sorry I must have missed the 10 games between the Birmingham match and the Arsenal match..

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

Sorry I must have missed the 10 games between the Birmingham match and the Arsenal match..

What about the ones before!!

 

[One Love]

Pushed over. He felt a hand on his shoulder and went for the free kick. Play the ball Ashley.

Unfortunately he does this many times every game. He gets us a lot of fouls but I hate seeing it.

It also costs us when he doesn't get the foul as he is on the floor and lost possession.

 

[One Love]

What do you mean you have heard it all? He is spot on, Barnes is definitely one of our most influential players. If you can't see that God knows what you watch every saturday.

Exactly the same game as the majority.

I know he's got some unfair stick in the past and still does from a few but the praise he sometimes receives on here is so over the top.

 

[Puppet Master]

It's a good point about El-Abd, he DOES just play short, defensive passes so when he sees a lot of the ball, we're never gonna do much damage.

 

[SeagullSongs]

Exactly the same game as the majority.

I know he's got some unfair stick in the past and still does from a few but the praise he sometimes receives on here is so over the top.

Conversely, the stick he sometimes receives on here is so over the top.

 

[Owlfan]

I agree with you for most of tha good analysis. Bridge was alright yesterday but not his usual quality. However i rarley saw him get beat. I dont know how you think ulloa should have gone as he didnt put a foot wrong really and Llera at the back constantly held him, pulled him, jumped on him etc. The tackle by pugh was a shocker and here was even a horror tackle on barnes a couple of mins before he got his marching orders which the lads should have been sent off for. Barnes was a silly boy doing what he did, but he didnt touch the lad lee as he was holding his foot, yet barnes tackle wasnt near his foot. After the ref pulled out the red he sat up and looked fine.
Upson was making his debut for us yesterday and it was only his 3rd game of the season but i was fairly disappointed. That was NEVER a penalty but with that ref i'm suprised he didnt give it you. One of you lads, i think.it was antonio kicked out at el-abd yet got away with that completely.

It was Helan who kicked out at El Abd, he missed but if the ref/lino had seen it he could have gone, it was a bit like the Beckham situation against the Argentinians. We were fortunate becauce both of them were running back to their positions and had their backs to the incident, so its probably unfair to blame them for that one.

Thats the thing about fans isnt it? We see the same incidents in a totally different way. From our perspective, Ulloa was cheating and throwing himself around all game, from yours it was Llera doing the fouling. Whatever way we see it, he could have gone although if he had, it would have been strange as he didnt really do one bad bookable thing in itself, just persistent niggling.

I can't agree about Barnes and I think most Albion fans see the sending off the same way, as clear a red as you'll ever see and its a strange argument to say Pugh's was a horror tackle but Barnes' wasnt a sending off...I dont think you can have it both ways.

I take your point about Bridge and the sending off must have tempered his attacking game. He should be a cut above in this league so maybe we were just lucky not to see it yesterday.

Thanks to those who've commented favourably on my post, you're clearly a good team, despite yesterday.

 

[dingodan]

I have heard it all now.

Yes he has played quite well recently, for him.

One of our more influential players! No wonder we are struggling.

He is one of our more influential players!