Ricardo's report v Burton Albion

[GPs Beard 0]

We saw Farke once again attempt his favoured style placing his attacking emphasis on the full backs sitting wide when in possession. This has the affect of all attacks coming from this direction - which , as we used to say , makes play predictable. the ide of a) making the pitch big, and b) changing the direction of attack didn''t work because a) burton sat narrow and b) the ponderous passing which meant that Burton could switch the shape to overload the point of attack, easily.

Wes playing wide left, and then cutting inside was reliant on quicker forward passes, but most often he didn''t have that option. Contrast that to Maddison who against Brum was a more central point of attacking play.

Tettey postion was odd too. In stead of two holding players it seemed the Tettey and Stiepermann interchanged as one went higher the other dropped.

It was turgid stuff. Once again an old head Championship coach undoes a German U23 coach who has a possession based plan. Burton pressed 5 yards higher than Brum , certainly in the first half, which lead to a lack of tempo, and Burton pressed not only the man with the ball (first half Klose more often than not) and also his intended recipient. Burton left the wide full back , until the ball got there, and then overloaded. It was childs play.

Olly became frustrated to the point of petulance, and Josh and he seemed to spend more time not passing to each other than was healthy.

You can get carried away with timings and substitutions , but exactly like for like seemed a bit odd.

All in all we failed to get the ball into the areas where goals come from. We played lots of tight passes in neutral areas , which would have delighted Clough who defended the box very well.

Or put it another way, we , along with the Ref, were cr@p.

[writeronthestorm 4]

Thanks for the report Ricardo - I always seek them out following a game

[ricardo 7,339]

After all that non-excitement I see that I omitted to name my MOM. Hardly surprising I suppose but after 36 hours of mulling it over I went for Tom Trybull and special mentions for Ivo Pinto and Alex Tetty. They bobbed on the surface of a sea of dross.

[vos 155]

When a seasoned and balanced contributor like Ricardo suggests we are dross, then we have big problems. I was unable to go to the game, thank God, but when you are confronted by a lowly team who have just been thrashed, then it is a massive basic mistake to start the first 10 mins rolling the ball about between the centre backs. You go for the opponents straight away to put pressure on before they settle.

Most people are prepared to give Farke a bit of time but to date he does seem out of his depth. Why on earth do we have to appoint another Manager/Coach who is learning. Neil Adams looked a far more competent manager and built the team which Neill saw past the winning post. Don''t know if it has already been mentioned but I see Kings Lynn top their league. They have a proven experienced and very capable Manager/Coach. Can''t think of his name !!!!!!

[TIL 1010 4,718]

Good to see you back vos as last time we spoke you said you had lost your log in details.

[vos 155]

Thanks JT. For some unknown reason have occasional log in problems with Archant. Might be something to do with browsers !! Anyway after a 3 month break I should return more wiser and nicer. BUT I doubt it !!!