Pre Season Friendlies. What have we learnt?

[Steve Foster]

Results:

BHA 1 0 Burgess Hill
BHA 1 3 Whitehawk
BHA 2 2 Bognor
BHA 2 3 Eastbourne Borough
BH1 1 1 Sunderland
BHA 0 2 Portimonse

1. Pre season friendlies don't matter. All about team building, match practice, new formations?
2. Pre season friendlies do matter. Building team confidence, momentum & new formations?
3. The results like 2009 have been very poor. Like last year this would infer a poor start to the football season proper?
4. However, on paper our team is better than last year?
5. Short of a good goal scorer. Holroyd still hasn't scored a goal at any level in the last 10 months & Murray is out for the first two league games.
6. Squad is not strong in depth. Need more quality signings across the pitch to cover for suspensions, injuries etc
7. Poyet & Taricco sign extended contracts
8. We have brilliant fans who watch the club in all corners of the world (well Europe)
9. Discipline is still an issue
10. That I will save a few quid & not pop down to the bookies yet, to put any money on the Albion getting promoted

 

[Mendoza]

1) if we lose to a county team, we are doomed, will be relegated / It was just a fitness exercise so it doesn't matter

2) if we draw against a premier league playing us for a fitness exercise, we are world beaters and will easily get promoted

 

[KneeOn]

1) if we lose to a county team, we are doomed, will be relegated / It was just a fitness exercise so it doesn't matter

2) if we draw against a premier league playing us for a fitness exercise, we are world beaters and will easily get promoted

And if we do both, we're going to get relagted but be well fit.

 

[Marc]

Whenever we go abroad we end up fighting, god forbid we should get into a euro cup one year!

 

[Billy the Fish]

Results:

BHA 1 0 Burgess Hill
BHA 1 3 Whitehawk
BHA 2 2 Bognor
BHA 2 3 Eastbourne Borough
BH1 1 1 Sunderland
BHA 0 2 Portimonse

1. Pre season friendlies don't matter. All about team building, match practice, new formations? points 1, 2 and 3 covered below
2. Pre season friendlies do matter. Building team confidence, momentum & new formations? points 1, 2 and 3covered below
3. The results like 2009 have been very poor. Like last year this would infer a poor start to the football season proper? points 1, 2 and 3covered below
4. However, on paper our team is better than last year? Just about. Last years team was actually worse than the sum of it's parts. I'm more concerned with the style and balance of this team, which at the moment is looking good
5. Short of a good goal scorer. Holroyd still hasn't scored a goal at any level in the last 10 months & Murray is out for the first two league games. We need another striker. I don't think that is in dispute from anyone, Gus knows it, the fans know it
6. Squad is not strong in depth. Need more quality signings across the pitch to cover for suspensions, injuries etc I think that will always be the case at this level of football
7. Poyet & Taricco sign extended contracts Best signings of the summer
8. We have brilliant fans who watch the club in all corners of the world (well Europe)
9. Discipline is still an issue Not sure about that, if you mean the game getting abandoned I put that down as a one off. Lets see what the bookings/red card tally is after 10 games, I bet it's nothing like last year
10. That I will save a few quid & not pop down to the bookies yet, to put any money on the Albion getting promoted. Sensible, unless we sign the extra 3 players we need we are short of a promotion squad at the moment. Slowly slowly catchy monkey

On the friendly results side of things, I think all of those points are partly right and partly wrong.

The games against the non league teams were all played after a days training, and the teams were all a mix of what we'd consider to be the 1st, reserve and youth team, he was also making lots of substitutions near the end of the game. They are all about fitness and experimenting.

Now that Gus is playing a proper team we should be a little bit more worried about results, because as you say, it takes momentum into the first game of the season. We had a good game against Sunderland from what I've heard. We need another good one against Aberdeen to set us up for swindon the week after. If they play rubbish and get tonked, then yes, that might indicate what the swindon game will be like, we'll just have to wait and see

 

[essex seagull]

6-Definately need another good defender i see Simon Francis can be got on free transfer .

 

[brightonlass2009]

Portugese players can run faster than Ashley Barnes?

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

I think we've learnt that Sunderland must be REALLY shit

 

[e77]

I have learnt that being away from Sussex with work and not going to any pre-season friendlies hasn't been the end of the world.

 

[bhaexpress]

The poster known as Steve Foster is a boring twat.

 

[BensGrandad]

The poster known as Steve Foster is a boring twat.

But was a very competant player in years gone by and has a good knowledge of the game.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

But was a very competant player in years gone by.

 

[Rookie]

that people have yet to learn that pre season friendlies are for fitness and no points are up for grabs

 

[astill86]

that people have yet to learn that pre season friendlies are for fitness and no points are up for grabs

Exactly!

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

that people have yet to learn that pre season friendlies are for fitness

Its not as simple as that. A professional league team should be able to comfortably dominate a non-league team. OK, its non-league team's 'Cup final', but even so, League team should be comfortably ahead in all areas of the pitch over 90 minutes. That clearly isn't happening, same as it didn't happen last pre-season. Which means we'll be discussing 'time to gell' til about November while languishing in 16th place. Poyet can't just flick a switch and turn them into play-off contenders. Believe it.

 

[BensGrandad]

Havent been to all of the pre season friendlies only BH and Whitehawk but much as I accept that the prime motive is fitness and playing together I am slightly disappointed to see that we have not dominated teams with brilliant ball play for lengthy periods irrespective of results, suddenly so how can we expect to do this against Swindon and so forth.

 

[Mackenzie]

We could do with a left midfielder and a centre forward to help out Murray and Barnes.

 

[brightonmark1234]

i agree with u mackenzie

 

[withdeanwombat]

Burgess Hil ,Burgess Hi - ill

Can we play you every week?

Can we pla-ay yo -ou every week.

 

[public school boy]

It's going to be a long hard season. Mid table finish