By Tom Bason
November 29 2014

Wolves lost for the fourth successive game, going down 4-0 at Griffin Park. Alan Judge gave Brentford a first half lead, before Stuart Dallas, Andre Gray and Jota wrapped up a comprehensive win for the Bees.

- Kenny Jackett made four changes to the team that submitted so limply against Nottingham Forest last week. The first changes were in the middle of the park, as Kevin McDonald and Tommy Rowe dropped to the substitute bench, being replaced by the recalled Lee Evans and George Saville, who had such a successful loan spell at Griffin Park last season. With McDonald being left out today, Evans being dropped last week, worryingly, it seems like David Edwards is now the midfielder whose position is most secure in the starting line-up. Saville and Evans is quite an inexperienced partnership, both in terms of the amount of times they’ve played alongside each other, and in general game experience. The other day, I looked up how old Evans is, and was surprised to see he’s still only 20 – given how much football he’s played over the last year, it can be easy to forget this.

- Perhaps it was the lack of experience in the middle that led to Sam Ricketts playing at centre-back. Had Ethan Ebanks-Landell kept his place, then this would have meant we had a very young and arguably inexperienced quartet in the most important positions in the team. Ricketts came in to the starting line-up, and Brentford looked to get in behind him, using the pace of Andre Gray to turn Ricketts and get him facing his own goal. I did wonder what Richard Stearman felt about Ricketts coming in. Stearman started the season at centre-back, but is he now fourth choice, behind Danny Batth, Ebanks-Landell and Ricketts? And with Kortney Hause being recalled, who knows where Stearman currently features in Jackett’s plans.

- The one thing I did think when I saw the starting line-up, was that it seemed to be weaker than the team who won at Griffin Park last season.  Has the team of Ikeme, Ricketts, Batth, Stearman, Golbourne, Price, McDonald, Henry, Jacobs, Sako and Dicko been particularly strengthened by the signings Jackett and Kevin Thelwell have made? Is Edwards really a better bet to contribute than Michael Jacobs? And how many of those players who played nine months ago have actually improved in that time?

- While I couldn’t see overly well from my position low behind the goal (certainly not as well as I can see from on the halfway line in the Steve Bull upper), it appeared that we made a slight change to the positions of the players. Last season, at times we played McDonald deeper, and let Evans and Edwards alternate their runs forward into the penalty area. I think this is clearly Edwards’ best position; he’s not a number 10 who’s going to create chances for others. Today, it seemed like Evans was the deeper of the midfielders, with Edwards and Saville getting further forward. One of the issues with this formation is that it can risk leaving the centre-forward isolated. It worked more last season, partly due to the mobility of Dicko and partly due to the fact that Michael Jacobs was only very nominally on the wing, and had the freedom to get close to the forwards. However, with Bakary Sako and Rajiv van La Parra both playing quite wide on the wings, Danny Graham was left extremely isolated. I thought he actually did reasonably well considering the level of support he got, hitting the bar with a header in the first half. But too often, he was sent long balls into channels that he had no chance of getting on the end of. The difference between the quality of the passes to Graham, compared to those to Andre Gray was stark.

- Brentford took the lead in the first half, and as has happened so often in recent weeks, it was a goal of our own doing. We had a throw-in in the right-back area, which found it’s way to Lee Evans on the edge of the area. He took a touch, and obviously thought he had more time than he actually had. The ball was stolen away from him, and Alan Judge wriggled his way through the defence and slid the ball past Carl Ikeme. There was the usual shouting match after the goal, Ikeme shouting that Evans should have moved the ball on quicker, while Evans was not happy with the lack of communication from Batth that he did not have as much time. As the goal went in, you could see the players’ heads drop, in a way that we haven’t really seen in the days since Dean Saunders. Last season when we went behind, there was a feeing that we’d been wronged, and we’d go on to score again.

- Jackett made a change at half- time, bringing on Tommy Rowe for Scott Golbourne. At the time of writing, I don’t know whether Golbourne was injured, but if he wasn’t, then it seemed a strange substitution. I thought Golbourne did well in the first half, getting forward well, although his final ball was not at it’s best. He is also one of the few left-backs we’ve had who seems to understand what Sako is going to do and they have a good relationship going forward. Ten minutes later, Jackett made a second change, bringing on McDonald for Evans. I wrote a few weeks ago that McDonald has not stepped up yet, and I half hoped that dropping him might spark him up a bit, and while he did ok when he came on, he wasn’t at the level we know he can achieve. Today was the first time since December 21^st 2014 that he missed a league game, and the first time since making his first start against Port Vale in August last year that he was left out for a league game for a reason other than suspension or injury. This shows how important to the club he has become over the next 15 months; we need him to get back to these levels as soon as possible.

- With Bakary Sako not having one of his better games, much of the threat came through van La Parra on the right wing. He set up the aforementioned Danny Graham chance, and flashed another couple of crosses across the penalty area. But Brentford looked just as likely to score on the counter, and did so in the 74^th minute. Just a minute or before, they had countered, and Alan Judge was played in down their right, and forced Ikeme to push the ball over the bar. But we didn’t heed the warning, and the on-loan Alex Pritchard was slipped in in an almost identical position. Pritchard kept his head, and had the awareness to cross for Stuart Dallas to tuck the ball home at the far post. As Wolves’ heads dropped, Brentford picked us off twice again to comprehensively wrap up the game, and mean that we’ve now conceded 13 goals in our last four games, scoring just once.

Brentford 4-0 Wolves

Discussion started by Wolves , 29/11/2014 22:19

Wolves
29/11/2014 22:19

What do you think? You can have your say by posting below.
If you do not already have an account Click here to Register.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014:12:06:19:32:29 by toomb.

Reply Quote Report

petewolf
30/11/2014 00:45

thanx tom, goldbourne was injured, he's only just come back, were very poor at the moment somethings got to give, we cant carry o like this

Reply Quote Report

toomb
30/11/2014 14:17

There was a lack of urgency about the team, and as soon as went 1-0 down, you could see the heads drop. It's like most of the team are sleep walking through games at the moment



toomb's twitter

Reply Quote Report

Goto: Forum List•Message List•Search• Log In

Sorry, only registered users may post in this forum.

We record all IP addresses on the Sportnetwork message boards which may be required by the authorities in case of defamatory or abusive comment. We seek to monitor the Message Boards at regular intervals. We do not associate Sportnetwork with any of the comments and do not take responsibility for any statements or opinions expressed on the Message Boards. If you have any cause for concern over any material posted here please let us know as soon as possible by e-mailing abuse@sportnetwork.net