Before last night he'd made one appearance across October, November and December, and Lampard thought it was a good idea to throw him in against Ipswich. It's on Lampard.
Bidwell hasn't played much football lately and is on the decline, its more on the squad. I'm not sure we would have been any stronger with Bidwell than Brau last night.
His ball retention was awful and as others said, he totally switched off for the second goal.
He was a cheap punt so it’s no big deal, under usual circumstances he wouldn’t be playing anyway, but it seems likely that the club will outgrow him before he can truly settle here.
As he has barely been used he was probably trying to hard to impress and was forcing things he may normally do naturally., a tough game to come in for.
Both goals were due to our full back not being able to defend. It was Van Ewijk to blame for both though, not Brau. Just before the goal he also waved Clarke through to put a dangerous cross in that came to nothing and that itself was about 5 minutes after Clarke got in behind him again and inexcusably hit the ball out for a goal kick with the outside of his foot. That’s just a 15 minutes after sample of how to ignore defending according to MVE. There is more.
Agreed that MVE was poor but he has clearly suffered more than most from flu, and has played through a glut of games recently when he probably needed more recovery time. I'm not sure the upcoming two games coming so fast helps that either, and bearing that in mind I was a bit surprised he played the whole game last night.
On the ball he started really poorly, but I put that down to nerves and lack of match sharpness. We were also against the best team we’ve seen here this season in terms of nullifying how we play.
We play on the front foot / others actually play well and I think he’d have grown in confidence and looked a different player.
Was random to start him for this game of all games though.
Also, don’t forget half this forum hated JDS last season (some definitely still do). Albeit it was clear he always had ability and could be an asset in the right system.
Compare JDS retention of possession ( a major problem for us last night) and his ability to pick out a pass down the wing.
Feel sorry for Brau. Worst possible game to come into the team where we weren't at the races, and that goes for all our players apart from Rushworth.