Yes, losing always makes you a little negative, yes we were in a fairly even game and played fairly well first half and the sending off was a real body blow however:
I am not sure we really gave 100%. Cairney showed touches of class but looked a bit confused with the extra midfield player and then totally failed to lead the team 2nd half. We were very weak defensively, nothing new there and our lack of defensive leadership and dominant central defender showed up big time. Fontes introduction just made things worse, he continues to show nothing at all.
Slav has rightly been criticised after the game, he did little right, Kamara would have made a much better impact than Fonte and god knows why StefJo played centrally in such a forward position.
I really didn't think we were 100% at it which is worrying, some players ran around quite a lot like Ojo, but with very little purpose. Brentford looked better organised, more together and much better balanced. When they pressed us, they did it sharply and got in our faces, when we pressed them it was not done so with the same commitment. We have gone from a well oiled machine to being unbalanced and disjointed. Something has gone wrong, probably a combination of poor recruitment and one dimensional coaching, we lack leadership and looked sorry for ourselves. The sending off typified this.
For me the sending off was nothing to do with the manager, the team or the captain.. simply the wrong decisions from Odoi. The foul out on the touchline that meant he was clearly on the ref's radar was a mistake .. compounded by another one shortly afterwards. I think Odoi has had a good season so far, but this was definitely not his finest moment. And against a footballing team, and a half-decent one at that, that made it so much more difficult, and we were done and dusted with about 10-15 minutes to go.
Good to hear your report Stu - there seems an air of uncertainty about the team at the moment, as if they are not quite sure of their own, and each other's, roles, and definitely a fragility in confidence.
Slavisa's decisions seemed questionable to at the least, and Odoi's injury should have been managed from the bench, or by the captain on the pitch.
His injury seemed to result in the goal, then affected his judgement further, with the second yellow.