If you watch the goal again you will see that lindelof is in no man's land, leaving Jones and dalot Vs 3 attacker's. Harsh to blame him for that, yeah he could have won the header but he had two men to mark and couldn't decide, and rightly so, which to mark and therefore was slightly out of position to win the header. Part of our resurgence has been down to his ability and bravery on the ball Vs smalling. He can and will step forward into midfield and can pick a passAll today showed was we still have players in positions that are not up to scratch. Better full-backs and centre-back not called Phil Jones will help us a lot.
Our players don’t lack discipline.
With respect to keeping themselves in prime physical conditioning, they certainly do. I wont be surprised they don't live cleanly off the pitch.
With respect to keeping themselves in prime physical conditioning, they certainly do. I wont be surprised they don't live cleanly off the pitch.
We give the ball away like it's nothing. Just brainless decision making all over the pitch.
Why would Solskjaer need to use the hair -dryer then? It was knee jerk and that’s clearly what you were hinting at.
You know what.
Winning games like this actually convince me more about Ole than the early games when we steam rolled teams.
Yes absolutely did..It really felt like complacency took over
It convinces me that Ole has got the tactics in attack working, because without that we would be in quite a bit of trouble. There is no control of the game when the opposition gets fired up. Ole will convince me if under these circumstances we grab hold of the ball and knock it around for a few minutes. Atm we look like headless chickens.
First one will be solved by new signings.I see two major weaknesses in Ole's way of playing.
1) The structure of the defence is not good enough.
2) The players get too tired in the second half, due to running too much earlier in the match
For both of these I am afraid we will get punished when we meet the best teams (as we were close to when we met Tottenham, but then saved by DdG)
Yeah i've only got one foot on the Ole train but with the fixtures we've got we'll know if he's the guy. There's no way you can luck your way through those game.
It convinces me that Ole has got the tactics in attack working, because without that we would be in quite a bit of trouble. There is no control of the game when the opposition gets fired up. Ole will convince me if under these circumstances we grab hold of the ball and knock it around for a few minutes. Atm we look like headless chickens.
First one will be solved by new signings.
Second one with more time on training ground.
Completely agree with this and agree with the OP too. Yes its been a blessed run of wins with OGS, and its been fantastic to see the players unafraid to attack and express themselves, scoring goals no longer seems an issue at all. Confidence is back. However we have some problems and we are due a thumping if we don't rectify them. We have been riding our luck a bit and our attacking quality and goal scoring has seen us through. Great win at Spurs but on another day they thump us. Today as well we could have easily lost. Now I am realistic about us occasionally being under the cosh or having an off day but when the same thing rears its head in successive matches and we are hanging on for dear life then it points to a pattern.
WE GIVE THE BALL AWAY LIKE ITS NOTHING when we need to be controlling the game. We looked incredibly poor in second half today and that is not how we should be playing at home. There was zero ball retention and patterns of play in the 2nd half. This would have taken the sting out of Brighton and made the result comfortable, however by the end Brighton were well worth a draw if not more. Now I love the fact that we are finally good on the counter (right tactics and personnel) however if we can't ever hold the ball when teams come at us we are going to struggle again.
Honeymoon officially over.
On a day when Liverpool.. The best team in the PL (cringe).. concede 3 to palace and scrape a win, we beat Brighton unconvincingly being truthful, and Ole is bring criticised? In the PL anything can happen. Brighton slowed the game down and played the possession game for the last 30 minutes. Very clever from them when we had dominated the majority of the game.
I would love us to dominate every team in the league with positive possession and swashbuckling attacking football. But that's not going happen. Something that will never happen in the PL is a shock scoreline. We got the 3 points. I'm happy.
Under Jose, getting 3 points but scraping it wasn't good enough. But games like today is normal in the PL. Brighton held us for a period. Palace held Liverpool. Jeez even Liverpool only beat Brighton last week by a goal. Why the overreacting?
We have so many good, but not great, defenders, and Ole still hasn't had all of them available yet. I'm not sure what you mean by structure, do you think we should play three at the back, or play two, so called, defensive midfielders, and two CB's?I see two major weaknesses in Ole's way of playing.
1) The structure of the defence is not good enough.
2) The players get too tired in the second half, due to running too much earlier in the match
For both of these I am afraid we will get punished when we meet the best teams (as we were close to when we met Tottenham, but then saved by DdG)
On a day when Liverpool.. The best team in the PL (cringe).. concede 3 to palace and scrape a win, we beat Brighton unconvincingly being truthful, and Ole is bring criticised? In the PL anything can happen. Brighton slowed the game down and played the possession game for the last 30 minutes. Very clever from them when we had dominated the majority of the game.
I would love us to dominate every team in the league with positive possession and swashbuckling attacking football. But that's not going happen. Something that will never happen in the PL is a shock scoreline. We got the 3 points. I'm happy.
Under Jose, getting 3 points but scraping it wasn't good enough. But games like today is normal in the PL. Brighton held us for a period. Palace held Liverpool. Jeez even Liverpool only beat Brighton last week by a goal. Why the overreacting?
Before Ole arrived, I would have agreed with you here. But to say we were hanging on is way off the mark. Brighton had 7 attempts in the whole game and 3 were on target. Other than the goal I don't remember DDG having to touch the ball other than one punch from a FK near the end.
Again, not true. We created several chances in the first half of the second half but then our tempo dropped allowing Brighton back into the game. The issue as many have said beforehand is a fitness one.
And that last comment I've highlighted is just laughable in its over exaggeration.
This is the next step in our development in a team. Someone put it very well. We are either defending or attacking. That takes a lot out of you. There has to be a middle ground where we can control the game at our own pace and just keep the ball/make other team desperate without actually being intent on scoring, if that makes sense.I don't think it's about mettle, it's impressing some game smarts on them. They need to learn to control a match and run the clock down. Playing attacking football is fantastic but it's only half of the job.
They scored a deserved goal and we were severely under the pump for the last quarter of the game having lost control. So maybe not an L but definitely a D would not have been undeserved.
Rubbish. A dangerous FK and corner does not equate to "deserving a draw" in my book. We weren't at our best, but seriously...come on.
I disagree. Away from home and applying that sort of consistent pressure. It would have been a fine result.
What consistent pressure? They had the ball more but I can't remember them doing anything with it after the goal apart from set pieces and then they were dealt with.
Surely those saying they’re not in Oles camp because he’s not shown x, y or z don’t know more about what Ole & co should be doing with the team than they do?
I trust they’re much more football wise than all of us put together and well aware of simple things like “needing to control the game better” for the last 25mins and players looking lethargic towards the end.
I’m sure he’s not gone to bed thinking it was a perfect game and that’s why all of us should be going to bed more than happy we’ve won 7 in a row. Rome wasn’t built in a day (or 7 games).
Do you not remember how bad we were only a couple of months ago? On the back foot from the first minute to the end, always trying to come back from behind, defending a 1-0 lead...?
The overreacting isn't even about the performance per se. More about the manager seemingly being clueless on how to change the flow of the game when the opponents switch things up and put us under pressure. We seem to just sit back and absorb the pressure, which better teams can take advantage of. Had it not been for De Gea having one of his best ever performances for us, Spurs could have buried us in the second half. We can't rely on DDG to pull performances like that regularly. PSG will make a mockery out of us if we sit back and try to soak up pressure. Ole needs to be proactive and make changes throughout the game.
It's so far the one thing that I'm not convinced of about Ole. He has done a remarkable job, but in the big games when we can't rely on individual brilliance, the ability to switch things up is extremely important.
I'm hoping he will figure it out though as it's still early days.