Brentford (a) - League - 3rd January 2005

[saddla]

why, when we are losing and a midfielder like standing gets injured , do we bring on a defender, McShane?

[Walsall Supporter]

see above post.........because we are Walsall

[PerStener]

From the live text update from sportinglife.com.

No we seem to even let one of our players play for the opponents :lol:

60min Brentford just have the edge. Key player: Mark Wright

[saddla]

at least harry's on now, but why is Leitao replaced by Robinson? Surely if we're losing we should have two forwards on. Or is Harry playing as aforward?

[saddla]

Their 15 shots to our 4 sums it up really.

[hullsaddler]

Well that was pretty depressing to listen to, must have been worse to have been there.Sounded a completely ineffectual performance.

[Megadeth]

Pathetic

"We're going to attack" said Merse the twerp on saturday - 4 shots at goal?? Useless. He's had his fun now get him out! 1 point from 12 is an absolute disgrace if those players get any kind of a break in the next week i'll burn the bloody bescot down in protest!!!

[PerStener]

This is typical.

7 of the teams above us in the table got draws and one team lost so....

[sj]

Poor team playing badly, lost it in midfield again :twisted:

[geoffwhiting]

Sounded disgraceful to me. Once again we allowed ourselves to be dominated, put in minimal effort, and allowed ourselves to slip to another feeble away defeat against a poor side - and to add insult to injury for us fans, we even scored the bl**dy goal for the opposition - AGAIN !

I am thoroughly sick and tired of these idle sub-standard peformances by players who we know are well-capable of doing much better than this.

Something HAS to happen to put some life into these overpaid ba$tards. They seem to have no pride in the shirts that they wear. Merson promised changes after the Tranmere debacle - but no, virtually sod-all has been done, and 1 point out of 12 over Xmas & New Year is enough to start the fans turning on him again, and I for one wouldn't argue with them this time.

[wton_saddler]

PATHETIC!! Forget the play offs and start worrying about relegation now. Also, I am sick of hearing about this four games in nine days crap! Fatigue - BOLLOX!! Its the same for everybody. These players are paid bloody well to perform and they are not doing it. Very very disillusioned!

[Ace]

Disappointment. I can only hope that this is the bucket of cold water Merse + the squad need to get their arses into gear.

[Neil Ravenscroft]

How many buckets of cold water do you think are needed Andrew? Same tactics, same team selections same problems as we've had since August and no changes. It wasn't 4 4 1 1 today, it was the usual 4 3 1 2 with Taylor and Leitao up front! For God's sake!!! Even the commentators were complaining about there being no width. When he makes the change and brings Herivelto on, is it on the wing? No, it's as a bloody striker, when we are losing the midfield and getting no possession. THE MAN IS CLUELESS!!!!!!

[Ace]

I don't disagree Neil, the bucket should have been last year*. Just saying, hope this makes them realise the situation.

[David Potter]

Enough is enough!

Merson's had plenty of time to produce results and we all know the outcome.
He's promised to change things, but we remain very unbalanced and predictable.
We're notoriously slow starters, gift our opponents goals which results in us climbing up hill for the rest of the match.

As was pointed out on WM today, the players have little or no confidence in their abilities and don't apply themselves. This boils down to one person...Merson.
He just cannot change who he is. Mr. Nice! Relates well to the media but not the players. Yes man to Bonser, talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk.

The club needs to bring in a manager who can train, motivate, influence, instill belief, character-build and is tactically aware. Our present manager doesn't possess any of those traits!

MEROSN OUT!!!

[WSOne]

Who's Merosn Dave? :)

[wton_saddler]

Apparently, Merse kept the players in the dressing room for 30 minutes after the match to tell them 'You 've got to believe'. Unfortunately, I think time has run out for believing!

[Surrey Saddler]

Just got back from the game. Pity the poor "fellow sufferers" who had the miserable drive back up the motorway to Walsall- at least I was home in 30 minutes. The best part of the afternoon for me was to chat to a Brentford fan in the pub before the game. Apparently all the Brentford squad are on £500 per week. What are our "no hopers" being paid, I ask myself?
For any of you who went to Slough or Leyton Orient but missed today- well done, you were well out of it. It was the same again, if not worse. The mid field was totally non existent. :x :cry:
What to do now- search me? As far as I am concerned, the only players that are worth their places at WFC now are Emblem, Bennett, Wrack and Fryatt. As for the rest, we might as well just get rid.

[Mark W]

Losing is bad enough but it's the manner of defeat that really gets me.The commitment of the players really must be questioned.Unfortunately this is down to Merson persisting with a system that clearly doesn't work.He's clearly lost the players.
He did mention on WM that Barlow makes the changes during the game.If this is the case me must go too --pathetic.

[Neil Ravenscroft]

Trouble is, I doubt Barlow making those decisions means the power to pull off the player manager and change the tactics completely. Change the personnel, yes, but not the tactics.

[Exile]

This is just like the Big Fat Jan season, but without the cup run.

[Magic Man Fan]

And the big game at Old Trafford, and the attacking football, and the joy of watchin Peron and Boli in full flow in the first half of the season.

[Jorge14]

I can handle bad results, I can handle bad players...

But what i can't accept is these bad players after turning in a bad performance not even bothering to applaud the fans. Everyone there would have spent close to 30 notes getting to Brentford and to get in to watch that shower of sh!t, and the lads might as well have flashed v's to us all, absolute crap.

There are over paid prima donnas one and all, and do not deserve 300 people giving up their Bank Holiday Monday afternoon to go and support them play for a club that they do not care about.

All we got for our troubles was a quick clap from Merson (who looked so jaded today, his set pieces didn't once reach past the first man), and the joy of seeing Paul McShane put the Brentford left winger literally into the stand, and looking like he had broken him in half! The site of 50 Brentford fans seemingly 'go' for McShane will live long in the memory!

Merson is losing the dressing room, the same warning signs that Lee had around this time of year are here again. We won't go down, but the rest of the season isn't going to be pretty unless players are shipped out and replacements brought in.

MOM - Emblen (again) or Kinsella.

But for the meantime, and tonight in particular, f**k the lot of them...

[Stu]

Well, what a load of tosh that was. By far our worst league performance of the season, only Orient and Slough can beat that performance.

No tactical nous, no desire, no passion, no commitment, no intelligence, no guile, no creativity. Just 11 fella's happy to take their money from us.

How Merson can accuse others of just dropping their heads is an amazement after him today. He was useless, although not really that much more useless than anyone else in the team.

I recall 2 shots on target.
1) An absolute sitter, score at 0-0, Kinsella puts Jorge in. 15 yards, smack in the centre of goal, keeper to beat. Surely he'd hit it hard and low, making it really difficult for the keeper. Nope, Jorge hits it on the half volley at a nice height for the keeper to go to his left and push it out.
2) Some nice football, yes, really, nice football, ended up with Aranalde overlapping (that thing everyone does to us) before coming it at an angle and drilling a shot that was saved.

If we had got a point, it would have been the biggest case of daylight robbery since god knows what.

Usual story. Far too narrow, Brentford got the ball forward and out wide quickly, full backs overlapped superbly. Deon Burton led the line superbly, Jorge take note, watch Burton for how to hold a ball up, where to run and what to do.

Murphy - A superb save in the first half, kicking was poor at times. Not sure what happened on the goal, he looked like he could have done better.

Wright - Awful at right back, absolutely lost in midfield
Bennett - Usual, fully committed but gave away some needless fouls when time was running out
Emblen - As per Bennett
Aranalde - Actually a decent game I think.

Kinsella - If Osborn had put that performance in, he'd have been lynched. Absolutely awful, should be embarrased with himself as he is capable of far better.
Standing - Off early, but actually looked decent whilst on the pitch
Broad - There was a reason that Torquay didn't want him. Why did we sign him?

Leitao - Useless, doesn't know where to run, doesn't look dangerous and missed an absolute sitter
Taylor - What the bleedin hell were we playing him up front for? Came into the game just as we took him off

McShane - Probably my MOTM, espeically after not reacting to the hostile atmosphere he had to endure for the last 25 minutes or so
Herivelto - What a genius idea, bring him on and whack long balls at him.
Robinson - Whack long balls at him, not that he is any good anyway.

Questions
1) Why did we play Daryl Taylor up front?
2) If we're going to play Taylor up front, is it reasonable to expect us to keep the ball on the deck?
3) If we're going to play Taylor up front, do not allow folk to whack long balls at him

Worst of all, Jamie Lawrence would walk into our team as a right back!

Atrocious, and it cost me £17.

I'd also like to extend my thanks for the players that came over to clap us fans off at the end. So, I'll thank them by name, that's ... and ..., oh, and ... Didn't even have the balls to come over and hear the boo's that they so deserved.

[YGA Saddler]

agree with you both totally. Got up at 7 this morning not feeling too well and still went to the game, paid £17 to get in, £13 on the coach.

They are spineless,gutless and effortless. I never thought id use those words for my own team. We were awful and as you point out we didnt even get a thank you from the players. I wouldnt mind giving a few of them a piece of my mind. But then again im going to forget about the useless lot until a week on saturday.

[Magic Man Fan]

Thanks for the summing up Stu.

That last line rings so true with me which is why my criticism of Osborn had become more fierce since the Slough game.

He was truly atrocious that day and as soon as the final whistle went and Walsall fans booed he ran faster down the tunnel than he had all game. In fact he didn't even bother shaking the hands of any of the Slough players.

[Stu]

I'm not sure what this has to do with Osborn at all tbh, but does this mean your now going to give the 16 today the same amount of stick that you always give Osborn?

Tell you one thing, Osborn would have done a damnsight better than that midfield trio today. That's the Simon Osborn who played injured for the last 6 weeks of last season and played with a broken nose for us against Doncaster, because he was asked to.

Rather than the useless Kinsella who is robbing this club blind and getting away with it.

I came away from Slough in a furious mood, I came away from Orient laughing, I now sit here after Brentford furious. Wishing I could have had just 2 minutes in the changing rooms with those bunch of 'footballers' and watching my football club throw away everything we'd achieved in the last 5 years.

If I win the lottery before the end of June, we'll have a new owner, new manager and 20 new players as I'll pay the rest to f#@! off to Timbuktu.

[philthesaddler]

thats one thing that did my head in about his comments on wm today. The "believe" statement.

Ok, belief is good at the start of the season after a bad start, but i don't class being in the bottom half after 24 games a bad "start"

there is nothing for the players to believe in. The players aren't stupid, they can see they're an underperforming side, so some bloke telling them to believe isn't going to work.

I'm not trying to sound wise after the event, but the moment mers was appointed, i was apprehensive. OK maybe a good short term solution, but his appointment was never going to be a long term one, he was never ever, not in a million year, not in a month of sundays, going to be our manager in 2007!

I believe he'll be gone before the end of the season, but whereas he's supposed to be the solution, he's become the problem.

The team revolves around him, and now has the same traits as him: Can't defend, self-indulgent and lazy.

We need a proper manager, just someone who knows what they're doing.

For gods sake, we need to get out of this situation we're in now, whereby Merson is the club, the club revolves around merson, the playing team revolves around merson. We are Merson FC, and our team are visibly low on confidence, we're full of consistent underperformers [osborne and Wright to name but two] something needs to change.

I only kept my seat this year cos bonser changed the management [i had pledged to NOT pay out nigh on £300 to watch lee's rubbish]. However, i can honestly say, unless things improve drastically, i wont be giving any more money to Bonser.

He appointed merson. It's proved to be another catacylsmic decision, and enough's enough.

Coaching staff: All out
Manager: Sacked
Merson: out
Players: Osborne, Wright, Leitao, Aranalde, Broad, Kinsella all out

COMPLETE OVERHAUL is needed.

[Ian Gittins]

Why on Earth are people still droning away criticising Osborn, who didn't even play today and had nothing to do with this debacle?

We were lousy today because, as the more astute fans have said, we had no organisation and no conviction. The mindset was passive from the off: waiting for things to happen rather than trying to make them happen. No-one seemed to know their role, and no-one seemed to care.

The only decent performances were defensive: Bennett, Emblen, Aranalde, and then McShane when he came on. Wright was hopeless, as he tends to be. Murphy made some good stops but was at fault for their goal, a corner which bounced in the six-yard box before trundling into the net off Broad's knee.

Our problems were further forward. Kinsella, Standing and Broad seemed to have little on their minds apart from getting rid of the ball as soon as possible: there were no ideas or strategies coming from them, which is why we resorted to lumping it forward for the last half-an-hour. Merson had his usual cameo role of lovely flicks and quality through balls, but not enough of them: we can't keep relying exclusively on him.

Upfront, we were dreadful. Daryl Taylor is no centre-forward and looked bemused by the role, as well as being way too lightweight to play there, and Leitao looks like a knackered old horse who should be shot. Coming from an animal rights cove, these are not words I use lightly.

Yet outside of the individual failings, the biggest let-down was the lack of shape and tactics. Once Robinson and Herivelto came on, we did nothing except hoof agricultural balls towards them. Herivelto is a flair player who needs to be getting the ball deep and running at players. Robinson I've never seen before, and I was looking forward to it after he's scored a few goals lately, but he looked a pretty limited lower-league player: let's hope it was just an off-day.

Stu is right - we have enough talented and competent players in this squad to challenge for promotion. The reason we are not is that we have an incompetent and, possibly, not terribly bright manager whose "best" is clearly not good enough. Merson may be a lovely geezer but he is naive, tactically inflexible, indecisive and self-contradictory in selection, and the source of prime galeforce gibberish when talking to the media.

Next game, I would bring in Herivelto and Fryatt, drop Wright, switch to a 4-4-2 with Merse on the bench... but this is just shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. We're not going to return to the heights of the last three seasons until we appoint a proper manager like we had then. The Merson Experiment was laudable, sure, but you're going to have to look hard to find ANYONE who thinks it's working. Sadly, the team know it's not.

[Neil Ravenscroft]

Amazing how Ozzy gets the digs even when he didn't play, isn't it? You're spot on, Ian. We haven't had any organisation from the off, which is why I did the piece after the Barnsley game, saying Merson should be given a limited time to get things right, as, on that showing, he didn't have a clue. We, over four months later, are just as disorganised and as naive tactically as we were then. There has been, quite simply, no improvement.