My dream...

[PAZ]

How about this for an ideal world...?
Ok, Stockport buy that slow, one-footed layabout, Ben Burgess, and we are rid of him.
Then, we hijack Leon Knight from Huddersfield (since we are a better club than them, and London-based) - I believe he's only on a month to month loan there. Oh, and the best part, Lloyd and Leon tear apart the division and we go up.
While we're at it, we might as well get Etherington on loan as well, just to really take the piss out of the rest of our division.
What I don't understand is this...
London clubs have some of the best youth systems and reserve teams in the world. We are a London club, and since these players are likely to want to stay in London ideally, why the f*ck do we not oblige and take them on? rather than getting some Northern monkey, and an Argentinian from the South Coast...

 

[Edmundo]

Burgess has a couple of poor games and you think it's appropriate to slaughter him in these terms? Have you looked at the Second Division goalscoring charts? I hope no-one ever has the misfortune to work for you.

 

[Rob Bartram]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by PAZ:
some Northern monkey</font>

Lay of Burgess. He's scored some really important (and classy) goals for us since he's been here. A few disappointing performances does not make him a bad player.

 

[mortis]

Burgess is good and adds something different to the squad but the thing you have to remember about loaning players is that in most cases you need to take on there wages. This is probably why lovett and our St. Vincent international went out to confrence teams, enabling us to pay burgess and sidwell's wages. I very much doubt that we could afford to loan anyone else without reducing our current squad 1st.

 

[North London Bee]

Leon Knight is at Huddersfield until the end of the season.

At 5ft 4ins I do not share your opinion about his ability to play as a target man.

Owusu has benefited from having Burgess take the weight off him - or haven't you noticed.

Brentford would have to change their style of play to benefit from Knight.

Millwall had their bid to take Etherington on loan rebuffed a week ago.

Even if we could afford him he would never come to Brentford.

If you examine the pattern of loans from premiership teams they try and send their promising players to teams in higher divisions each time eg Sidwell and Burgess will probably go out to a First Division team next season

 

[PAZ]

North London Bee, have you seen Brentford play this season?
Leon Knight would suit our current tactics perfectly. BBB does not play target man for us with Lloyd playing that role just as much. Sadly, BBB lacks the pace to run on to Lloyd's flicks.
I feel that the additional pace of Leon up front is exactly what the team needs - too often BBB's lack of pace has stopped him scoring more goals.

Also, having met Leon Knight, I am well aware that he's not a target man, which is probably why I didn't suggest that he was.

 

[PAZ]

Edmundo, just like any other employer, I would expect those I employ to earn their money. I suspect you are not an employer with your wishy-washy approach to most things.
BBB may well have scored some goals, but he's also missed a few, and generally failed to make it to a position to get quite a lot more. He is all too often lagging behind play. It's all very well having the talent (and on his left foot he certainly does), but he does not make sufficient effort to use it. Nobody wants a talented employee who acts like the work experience kid, and that's what BBB does - he's not professional enough.
As for a couple of poor performances, he's had a lot more than that. People like you just ignore it because we won. It is people like you, Edmundo, who allow the rot to set in.

Ok, since I always criticise (or at least appear to), I would like now to praise BBB's strike partner Lloyd who has been absolutely magnificent this season. He's scored some cracking goals, he's improved his workrate by several hundred percent, and his all round game seems to be constantly on the up. Lloyd is a role model for anyone out there, and I just wish BBB could be more like him.

 

[AB]

Strange though this may seem, I think that we are the top scorers in the league. That would suggest that our problems don't really lie with BBB and Lloyd (although fair play to you Paz for praising Owusu- it is nice to read the first positive thing you have posted recently about Brentford and its players!).

There were actually a couple of times in the first half on Saturday when BBB outpaced one of the Wigan central defenders (although it might have been De Zeeuw who hadn't trained all week through injury!) when he had a longer run. He clearly doesn't have very good short bursts of acceleration from a standing start, but is, I think, quicker than we credit him.

All strikers miss chances. I don't think that BBB misses an excessive proportion, although admittedly his miss on Saturday and the one against Stoke stand out because they would have changed the results (I recall misses against Reading which would have put that game beyond them in the first half too). The same could be said of Lloyd (eg his miss early in the second half against Wycombe). But they both come back and keep going without letting misses make their heads drop. That is the big change that Coppell (and I suspect Forzoni in particular) have instilled in Owusu and which seems to be there with BBB too. They have to shoot to score and both are not shy of having a go, even if they don't always convert.

Where we are weak at the moment is in midfield, which means that there isn't enough service to either of the forwards. Perhaps mine is a lonely voice but I thought that this was improved (if still not as good as early on in the season) against Wigan. The Mahon/Evans relationship and interplay was better, Evans in front of rather than alongside Mahon getting in his way. There was an attempt at width (mainly via Ijah and Hunt, but probably mostly because both of them were having good games). It isn't quite there yet, but it is getting there.

As for the quality of loanees, well BBB and Sidwell are about the best loan players we've had in a long time. Agyemang was the last to stand out, but was much rawer than either of those. Perhaps we haven't got the very best of the young players from the Premiership with us, but we have actually got decent players and we are playing them in such a way that their managers are happy that we are developing their experience (ie they aren't being stifled by our rubbishness!). Compare that to the woeful performances put in by Neil Clement in a Bees shirt a couple of seasons back (a player who then went on to be the mainstay of a promotion chasing West Brom, scoring a fair few goals and is now I think their captain- wonder why no-one wanted to loan us anyone who was any good?).

 

[Nigel Brooks]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by AB:

Where we are weak at the moment is in midfield, which means that there isn't enough service to either of the forwards. Perhaps mine is a lonely voice but I thought that this was improved (if still not as good as early on in the season) against Wigan. The Mahon/Evans relationship and interplay was better, Evans in front of rather than alongside Mahon getting in his way. There was an attempt at width (mainly via Ijah and Hunt, but probably mostly because both of them were having good games). It isn't quite there yet, but it is getting there.

</font>

Spot on AB we cover well enough as a defensive midfield (although there are times when the positional play is suspect) but I am afraid that the long ball forward 'hit and hope' tactic we employ week in week out has been well and truly 'sussed' by the teams we face. The midfield needs to drive the ball forward by actually taking on the opposition players, as we seem incapable of delivering the precision pass.

Time and time again on Saturday Stephen Hunt showed what could be done with pace and by actually taking on a player. Trying to drive from deep by punting the ball simply isn't working. CHANGE OF TACTICS PLEASE MR COPPELL!

 

[AB]

We played long balls forward early in the season too. The differences were that that wasn't ALL we did and our midfield would be much more advanced up the pitch so that there was a much greater chance of it going to one of our players. Given the success we had earlier in the season, I think that there is no problem about continuing with a direct game, but only if this is mixed up with the willingness and ability to play a close passing game too. If we try and play only one or the other we will come unstuck because each style can be easily defended against if it is predictable. However if we mix the long and short games, this makes it very hard for the defending team to know where to position themselves. This is also one of the reasons why Evans scored so many goals early on, because he was often able to run into space behind a defender expecting a short pass when a longer ball was played in. It also meant that we won more freekicks in dangerous attacking areas as defenders were less in control and more likely to put in a mistimed desperate saving challenge.

I'm not sure there has been an intentional change in tactics away from this, merely that we have not had the personnel to do it so well. When you're down to the bare bones there is a need to play to whatever the perceived strengths are of the people out there on the pitch.

Perhaps we could have kept Evo out of the team longer to regain fitness, but this would have run the risk of the highly inexperienced midfield (first choice would probably have been as at Stoke, Hunt, Mahon, Sidwell, Hutchinson) being overwhelmed. They coped well at Stoke, but it might have been too big a call to risk that for a longer spell.

I'm not sure that 532 is the way forward either. As we found out at the end of last season (particularly in the LDV) this can be particularly sterile and purely defensive. The last thing we need is for the team to start every game on the back foot (although perhaps this more cautious approach would be worthwhile for away games until we get back on song).

 

[simon_porter00]

i think the brighton game says what i have been thinking all season. BBB, an obviously talented player, a wonderful left foot, a clever football brain and carries some vision. we are aware of his limitations so for the 1st time in a long while, we see BBB used as he should be. not chasing flick ons from lyodie after a hoof up the field but passed to ideally along the ground, or when attacking as a passing unit. his first goal a wonderful bit of opportunism to be in the right place to knock in dobbo's pass, and the second goal for me is what BBB is all about. sheer class. it is when brentford stop playing to his limitations, and rather his strengths that we will see even more from BBB. and no PAZ, BBB should stay till at least the end of his loan spell

 

[Fonzy]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by PAZ:

Ok, Stockport buy that slow, one-footed layabout, Ben Burgess, and we are rid of him.
</font>

You were saying?

 

[boney bee]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by PAZ:
How about this for an ideal world...?
Ok, Stockport buy that slow, one-footed layabout, Ben Burgess, and we are rid of him.
Then, we hijack Leon Knight from Huddersfield (since we are a better club than them, and London-based) - I believe he's only on a month to month loan there. Oh, and the best part, Lloyd and Leon tear apart the division and we go up.
While we're at it, we might as well get Etherington on loan as well, just to really take the piss out of the rest of our division.
What I don't understand is this...
London clubs have some of the best youth systems and reserve teams in the world. We are a London club, and since these players are likely to want to stay in London ideally, why the f*ck do we not oblige and take them on? rather than getting some Northern monkey, and an Argentinian from the South Coast...</font>

I know theres a code of conduct on this board Ed, but why do we seem to attract our fair share of idiots?