dip in form

[mhead bee]

I am slightly concerned at the slight change in form of some of our players.

Earlier in the season Oli was already hailed as the player of the year but somebody came in from wherever it was we got him from and said he is well dodgy and wait for the mistakes. Well, I hate to say it but he has started to make far too many. He has dropped crosses nearly every game and started tearing out of the area and taking attackers on in silly areas. His general shot stopping and sweeping is excellent, but I am starting to get nervous when he comes for a ball or when he charges out of his area. I still would rather have him than vitually anybody else but I wish I had the confidence of two months ago.
Also Ivar was having a brilliant season up until a few weeks ago but seems to have lost it a little bit over the past month with errors and misjudgements creeping in.
Strange though how some players who were not playing that well really have started to perform, especially marshall (passing and pace aside) has become very consistent and rowlands has started to look the player he was last season.
I also think that mark mc is a much better player than he is getting credit for. I thought he ran his arse of versus oldham, was desperately unlucky not to get a couple of goals, he battles, chases, runs, get crosses in.Sometimes his first touch isn't brilliant bit he is a real handful for the opposotion. I don't know why so many people slag him off. He obviously suffers from confidence cos when he lost the ball versus oldham a few members of the audiance shouted some abuse and his head went down. Lew stood up and told gibbo to encourage him. Gibbo spent the next 2-3 minutes shouting encouragement at him, unlucky, well done, keep going, ect.Lew is obviously aware of how it effects him when things go wrong and fans start moaning.

Also, does anybody know what is wrong with folan and is pinamonte injured or just in the reserves?

 

[Edmundo]

Mark Mac gets abuse from those people who are deeply upset and annoyed that Andy Scott is now obviously too good to be the target of their well-considered view that we should only employ players good enough for the Premiership!

As for Oli, he's still going to save us far more than he gives away, so I think you have to just accept that he's going to scare you from time to time.

 

[West Ealing Bee]

Oli is lacking confidence. He spent most of the first half of the season making great saves and we were still not getting many points. It is bound to get him down.
McCammon is still an unknown quantity. He runs alot and gives lots of effort but we still don't know how good he really is. He needs time to regain fitness and regular football but given the form of Partridge and Scott that looks unlikely.
Most of the stick for Mark has come since Mahon and Scott have been given the oppertunity to prove what good players they are, and rather than praise the team these people have to find someone to moan at!!!!

 

[Isleworth Bee]

Hello everybody and welcome back to the GPG

Congratulations have to be given to Ray Lew for the change in form.

The way he has got Gavin Mahon for example playing like he is deserves a lot of credit. Not many people could have foreseen that Gav could turn out to be the new Beckenbauer of Brentford and he has easily been MOM in most matches recently for me. Im a bit surprised that Ray Lew was obviously given so little say before Ron relinquished the role.Perhaps if Noadsey had been a little less stubborn about tactics we might have seen an earlier turnaround. Still thats history now.

There's a few of us on here that need to eat Humble Pie especially as far as Gavin Mahon is concerned although I dont suppose even his most diehard fan could have envisaged him as a star Libero!

It is also very pleasing to see the likes of Dobbo and Jay Lovett performing very well. Just shows that some of these youngsters can cope and even thrive on being thrown in at the deep end.

It remains to be seen whether we have anyone to help Scotty with the goalscoring up front but I agree somewhat with Jimbee on another thread that the jigsaw could be complete if the forwards are performing and if not it could be a waste of a play off opportunity if we dont try to get someone in on loan. Still maybe Lloydy will start to show us what we've been missing lately.

What better way to get the target10000 off to a good start than a late challenge for the play offs.

 

[West Ealing Bee]

Isleworth Bee, did I misread your thread or did you start to agree with me, and others, about Mahon.
I will admit I din't see him as a sweeper but I did think that if he had more time on the ball he can show what a good player he is. It appears in the 2nd division the only way to get that time is at sweeper so he must play there.
Evans and Rowlands also look better in this new system.

 

[Brian]

Have to agree Isleworth Gav is a revallation at sweeper he also seems confident when we swich to a back 4 (ala Swindon)as well
Bucket loads of humble pie coming my way too.

 

[UEA BEE]

Mhead bee - I think you answered yourself in your post. Players go through good patches and bad patches. Thierry Henry didn't score in a month, then he got a hat-trick against Leicester.

Gavin Mahon was drifting in and out of games, now he's looking good. Oli was stunning, now he's made a couple of errors. Ivar too. If the whole squad were perfect all the time, we'd be top.

What's so good now is that the team are playing the ball on the ground, which gives the majority of our players chance to play to their potential.

On the Oli front, I think Edmundo is right - he will cost us the odd goal, but he is a quality keeper. If anything, it's a bit of Grobbelar syndrome. And indeed that may disappear when the pace of Ijah, Powell and Boxall returns to the defence.

 

[rebus]

Originally posted by mhead bee:


Also, does anybody know what is wrong with folan and is pinamonte injured or just in the reserves?

Tony is recovering from a cartiledge operation from an injury sustained in the Cambridge away game, and will back in contention from about the end of January.

Lorenzo is frozen out and had better start looking for another club cos he's getting no joy from Ray Lew!

 

[8 Bee]

Playing Mahon at sweeper was an excellent solution to the problem of Evo, Rowly and Gav all wanting to play in the middle of the park.

I spoke to Pinamonte and Javray before the Wigan match. Lorenzo seemed resigned to the fact that he wasn't likely to feature much more at Brentford and would probably return to Italy. Perhaps he should ask for a transfer to Chelsea! Nice bloke.

 

[mhead bee]

There are times when people could listen to what other fans say. We had loads of people who came on here telling us that jones was absolute pants but ron had chased him for 3 years and insisted on getting him on loan and he was useless.
When we signed pinamonte people came on and said he wasn't too bad and just didn't seem to produce, just what I have seen actually!
Shame as i would have loved to have seen him in action.

it was a bit worrying to see the wholesale changes lew has made since ron backed off and stopped interfering.When ron was here full time it was ok, but when he was travelling back and forth he was picking formations, players and tactics that clearly lew and the players didn't like and he wasn't there to see how it was panning out during training throughout the week.

I still wonder why ron bought pinamonte after he made it clear he prefered brighton and clearly lew and others don't rate him, but we still chased and chased convinced him to sign for 75K. Maybe ron saw the size of him and just wanted to go long ball and didn't even ask if he could head the ball first!!!

(a bit cruel on ron I know after all he has done for us)

 

[Aussie Bee]

I just wonder why Lew didn't suggest to Ron earlier about sticking Mahon in as a sweeper.
Ron must have been listening to HIS coaches - maybe lew knows something we don't - like deaf ears abound - so why bother mentioning it - or maybe Lews stroke of genius was an accident?

 

[didier]

1 glad to see people agreeing with me and a few others that Gavin Mahon is quality. His class shows even more now when he controls and passes the ball whereas the old clogging centre half of the footballing world would have hoofed it. It's got to be great in encouraging the team to play it on the floor from the back

2 obvious now that Ron turned up on a Saturday and picked his team without listening to Ray Lew who had trained them. Saturday would have again seen Owusu and McCammon up front with Scotty at left back or left midfield or left wherever and Scotty P out of the picture

3 roll on Saturday

 

[Jimbee]

Originally posted by Mark Chapman:
Tony is recovering from a cartiledge operation from an injury sustained in the Cambridge away game, and will back in contention from about the end of January.

I knew he was injured cos I saw him limping b4 Xmas but why hasn't this been made public. He was after all on the fringes of the 1st team at the time.