What’s our biggest issue (on field)

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What’s our biggest weakness?

  • Goalkeeper

    Votes: 3 1.1%

  • Defence

    Votes: 152 55.7%

  • Midfield

    Votes: 115 42.1%

  • Strikers

    Votes: 3 1.1%
  • Total voters
    273
B

Bladezz

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So obviously last night was a horror show. We’ve had 2 managers try and get a tune out of the side.

Our defence is a top championship when it wants to be. This means we shouldn’t get tanked 8s and 5s but we do.

So isit the midfield who are all over the show? Giving us no protection or goal threat.

Or isit the strikers not holding it up giving us out balls.

It’s probably a mixture of all 3 but wondering what people think our biggest issue is.
 

You hit the nail on the head with all 3 mate.
Such is the gulf now between established Prem teams and the rest, we will increasingly see this kind of imbalance when teams who haven't had the same amount of cash to pay stooopid wages and transfer fees can only hope to pocket some cash to secure their own financial future.
The problem is, I can see a similar thing happening in the Championship, where those that do 'earn' from getting battered week in/week out every other season start to shut out those that haven't.
Money has turned our beloved sport into a loathed business for the have nots....and a fair few of the haves!
 
Tony_Kaufman said:
The midfield has been the problem all season so not only did Wilder not try to sign another one in January, but he reverted to a 2 man midfield yesterday. It's pure neglect.
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541 the exact same formation we played at Villa away where we conceded a 97th minute equaliser.
 
GreasyChipBeattie said:
You hit the nail on the head with all 3 mate.
Such is the gulf now between established Prem teams and the rest, we will increasingly see this kind of imbalance when teams who haven't had the same amount of cash to pay stooopid wages and transfer fees can only hope to pocket some cash to secure their own financial future.
The problem is, I can see a similar thing happening in the Championship, where those that do 'earn' from getting battered week in/week out every other season start to shut out those that haven't.
Money has turned our beloved sport into a loathed business for the have nots....and a fair few of the haves!
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Luton seem to be giving it a fair go with less resources than we have.

There’s a discussion to be had about the gulf in finances now apparent in the Prem. But I don’t know if we can even blame that.

Loaning players from the division below? Recruiting players with no Premier League experience? Selling our two best players days before the season begins and having to play kids for the opener?

The planning, scouting and recruitment has been so bad that I don’t know if they ever actually intended to stay up.
 
If we had egan, Baldock and even old bash for majority of the season our defence wouldn't be this bad even though all three are unlikely to keep us up.

I think our midfield is a obvious week point.
 
DSB-91 said:
Luton seem to be giving it a fair go with less resources than we have.
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So did we when we first went up with CW.
But like us, they will get found out/suffer a couple of key injuries, and their lack of investment in a super-squad will quickly tell.
 
Said midfield, but I think this would have to be way more granular than a quick poll allows. Midfielders pulled out of their shape and passed/ran through way too often. If they stay compact, and stop this - the defence will more than likely look better, as they themselves don’t have to go out to fill these gaps.

Baffling thing is 2019/2020 season, we were unreal at this. How many sides did we frustrate into long ball by keeping shape and picking off poor passes!
 
Without picking out certain positions on the pitch, the fact we regularly cannot string 4-5 passes together a majority of the time without the ball going sideways or backwards is neglecting one of the basics of football ie. 'pass and move'.

Our players' inability to make themselves available by dropping off their marker or moving into space is obvious. We play the ball and then stand around while the defence go sideways and eventually backwards because the opposition have that much time to push up and press us on the ball.

Reading the game at pace and having awareness of the play around you is what modern day PL players need in addition to athleticism. You can get away with a lack of high player skill levels if the team can at least keep possession for periods of time and dictate the pace of the game - we don't have those sorts of players in key areas for this League.
 
Rufus Smalls said:
Without picking out certain positions on the pitch, the fact we regularly cannot string 4-5 passes together a majority of the time without the ball going sideways or backwards is neglecting one of the basics of football ie. 'pass and move'.

Our players' inability to make themselves available by dropping off their marker or moving into space is obvious. We play the ball and then stand around while the defence go sideways and eventually backwards because the opposition have that much time to push up and press us on the ball.

Reading the game at pace and having awareness of the play around you is what modern day PL players need in addition to athleticism. You can get away with a lack of high player skill levels if the team can at least keep possession for periods of time and dictate the pace of the game - we don't have those sorts of players in key areas for this League.
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1000030383.jpg
 

For all his sins, Don Goodman made a cracking point on co-commentary last night - For defenders of promoted teams, the step up is larger than anywhere else on the pitch. For decades, PL teams have been developing and buying the best forward players the world has to offer; the games about scoring goals after all. The quality of the Forwards/AM's in the PL is such a large step up, to anything defenders face in the Championship (because all the best talent has already been acquired by the PL clubs) that the challenge promoted defenders face is the toughest in the league.

That's the issue.
 
A good point was made in the shoutbox yesterday - we do not seem to have a captain on the pitch.

That born leader, who wears his shirt on his sleeve.

The minute that first goal went in all the players heads dropped, no fight or belief, pride in the shirt, as a group they are shot.

Too many poor performances and all hope lost. A sinking ship. The sooner this season is over the better.

HH.
 
Lack of viable deoth across the whole pitch. Even when we do stay in games, we hit the 70th minute and the opposition bring on players pushing for starting spots whereas we bring on players who weren't getting in last years team
 
Ron_Justice said:
For all his sins, Don Goodman made a cracking point on co-commentary last night - For defenders of promoted teams, the step up is larger than anywhere else on the pitch. For decades, PL teams have been developing and buying the best forward players the world has to offer; the games about scoring goals after all. The quality of the Forwards/AM's in the PL is such a large step up, to anything defenders face in the Championship (because all the best talent has already been acquired by the PL clubs) that the challenge promoted defenders face is the toughest in the league.

That's the issue.
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It's a good point but it doesn't excuse Bogle marking two players at one set piece, players abandoning the player they're supposed to be marking as they all go for the same ball, and Tielemans twive going completely unmarked before inevitably scoring.

Non league teams go up against Premier League or Championship teams in the FA Cup and defend better than us. Hell, if we played against a non-league team now I'd put money on them scoring from a set piece against us.

It doesn't matter how good a player is or how much they cost, the basics are the basics and we don't do them. Yesterday was a joke as far as defending was concerned.

I can't believe we didn't jump at the chance to offload Anel in January, if indeed the interest was genuine and not just his agent trying to engineer a move as Anel plays like he doesn't care anymore. Either that or the crack wore off in Napoli.
 
The one area where currently there is no solution is defence. Central defence specifically

We have nobody good enough

So when we get it wrong AT ALL, like yesterday and Newcastle, there is no natural resistance

Midfield isn't functioning and shit recruitment has left us with a shit balance there. But we are actually quite well stocked there and have enough to be competitive in a decent amount of games
 
At premier league level its the prince that is the biggest weakness..

As for the current first team though, In a few years some of these never beens are gonna be on podcasts laughing about this season, and the times they got hamered but just took the money and laughed on the drive home.

This first team are not "United" players, and they're not fit to wear the fucking shirt..it's that simple..
 
Bladezz said:
541 the exact same formation we played at Villa away where we conceded a 97th minute equaliser
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It wasn't. We started with 5-2-3 and only reverted to 5-3-1-1 when it was 0-5. Read Bergens analysis. If we'd started with 5-4-1 we would have done better as we finally began to retain some control of the ball when the belated changes were made. Yesterdays result is down to the managers tactics.
 
Has to be defence…..we have absolutely no leaders! Go 1 goal down & we collapse. What we’d give for a Jack O’Connell or Chris Basham in their prime or a Chris Morgan, Brian Gayle, Paul Stancliffe!!!! That is what we are missing big time right now!
 
DSB-91 said:
Luton seem to be giving it a fair go with less resources than we have.

There’s a discussion to be had about the gulf in finances now apparent in the Prem. But I don’t know if we can even blame that.

Loaning players from the division below? Recruiting players with no Premier League experience? Selling our two best players days before the season begins and having to play kids for the opener?

The planning, scouting and recruitment has been so bad that I don’t know if they ever actually intended to stay up.
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This was my point DSB,
We've seen the likes of Burnley, Norwich, Blackpool etc taking the 'Let's pocket the cash and move on' route.
We did neither last time. We went at it half heartedly with some dodgy over-priced signings.
This time, we're more of the 'pocketing the cash' type.
Luton might or might not stay up. They are typical of us in our previous season back.
A refreshing, full of energy and belief team coached by an astute manager....all that we had!
They're not here to stay, like us, Burnley, and probs teams like Forest.
The gap is too big mate.
 
Hartley Hare said:
A good point was made in the shoutbox yesterday - we do not seem to have a captain on the pitch.

That born leader, who wears his shirt on his sleeve.

The minute that first goal went in all the players heads dropped, no fight or belief, pride in the shirt, as a group they are shot.

Too many poor performances and all hope lost. A sinking ship. The sooner this season is over the better.

HH.
Click to expand...
Exactly this, give the captaincy to somebody who is captain's material and also preferably somebody who has knowledge of organising a defence to the system you are playing,most of the game yesterday all you could hear was Wilders voice instructing players on what to do,so his players had either failed to understand their pre match instructions,Wilder wasn't good enough in getting it over to them so they were poorly prepared,none of them are suited to playing that way,or Villa were just far too good on the night,but the way heads dropped last night it looked like they have no confidence in each other or the managers gameplan.
 
I picked defence, but I wanted to pick midfield as well.

It could well be time to start employing man to man marking for certain players to make sure they stay with their man, the amount of times opponents are left free is quite unbelievable at times.
 
Tony_Kaufman said:
The midfield has been the problem all season so not only did Wilder not try to sign another one in January, but he reverted to a 2 man midfield yesterday. It's pure neglect.
Click to expand...
This

Our midfield is woeful

We have a player who doesn’t protect the defence , doesn’t link up play and doesn’t run with the ball from deep in Souza , imo he plays prob the most important role in that team and he is terrible at it .

Hamer offers little more but at least he occasionally drives us forward and try’s to create .

Young Brooks looks like he has potential but playing with the others he also struggles and isn’t ready yet - certainly for the prem.

Our engine room has no engine

Really poor and really poor recruitment
 
Overall there is no fight anymore, no backs to the wall. No laying your body on the line. Plenty of times in the past we were 2-0 down ten minutes to go and we absolutely camped in their half and sometimes drew it back.

The only one who I would say does this to a degree this season is Robinson.

Most of the others just whimper away
 
Convoluted answer here... I've said defence rather than keeper simply because there are more of them. But no one has impressed in goal and no-one has impressed in defence. At least midfield has McAtee and attack has Diaz and Archer to add a modicum of respectability (doubt we see any of them beyond this season).

So if you were to ask about our weakest area forgetting the loans who won't be sticking around, then I'd have to say the entire team from top to bottom at Prem standards.

If you look at it through a Championship lens, we know the defence will look better, and we know the attack without Diaz/Archer is underwhelming. We can't be sure about midfield, but at least Hamer has a great rep at that level.

I'd have to say at Championship level without the loanees we're probably weakest up front.. would be unfair to comment on new GK yet but if our fears are correct then that becomes priority 1.
 

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