Goals conceeded from free headers this season

[shrubbery]

7th best defensive record in the league on average goals conceded per game, even after playing Liverpool and Arsenal away already.

Lowest number of goals scored in the league, just 3 in 6 games with 2 of them from somewhat soft penalties that were only gained after VAR intervention.

I'd say that indicates the attack is more of a reason for being bottom of the league than the defence.

We had one of the lowest number of goals scored in the league for the whole of last season but finished in the top 10 because we had one of the best defensive records. Our 7th place defensive record this year is only due to the fact that defensive skills in geneal have gone out of the window since the restart for pretty much all of the other teams. If we had defended like last year we would be top of that table now and not 7th.

The fact is that we have conceded numerous goals this season that we wouldn’t have last year with Jack in the team. It is plain the see. Without those unexpectedly conceded goals we would have had a similar start to last year. We don’t expect to score many and have proven through our season last year that you don’t have to if you are exceptional at the back.

 

[CarlMcBlade]

Mistakes happen, but when we make mistakes it always seems to be game over.

 

[Champagneblade]

Wolves. saiss
Villa. konsa
Leeds bamford
None v Fulham but mitovic missed a couple of sitters
Arsenal saka

And two today
So its not hard to see what the difference is between now and last season

Almost like we should consider playing an additional centre back to counteract such things. Oh wait...

 

[guancheblade]

Whisper it...





(No Deano)

 

[LoughboroBlade]

I think as a club we have let JOC and ourselves down. It was clear post lockdown he was injured and yet we pushed him to play. Now we have lost him for the season and if he had the OP back in July we would at least have a chance of him playing this season. We didn’t need to risk him post lockdown as we were safe from relegation.

You’re essentially suggesting that the manager will have gone against the medical advice to play JOC, which is I feel a fairly large accusation – and one that I personally don’t feel is likely. Regardless of being safe from relegation though, there was clearly a need for him if he was fit to play – the European spot was open at the time after all. So if he was cleared to play by the medical staff, getting him back in was a logical thing to do. It’s easy to say in retrospect he shouldn’t have played, but there’s no telling whether that would have actually affected anything if the full extent of his lack of recovery had yet to emerge – we could have easily just had another month or two of sub-par JOC performances, and then an announcement of an op in December to sort it.

 

[Bladesman]

You’re essentially suggesting that the manager will have gone against the medical advice to play JOC, which is I feel a fairly large accusation – and one that I personally don’t feel is likely. Regardless of being safe from relegation though, there was clearly a need for him if he was fit to play – the European spot was open at the time after all. So if he was cleared to play by the medical staff, getting him back in was a logical thing to do. It’s easy to say in retrospect he shouldn’t have played, but there’s no telling whether that would have actually affected anything if the full extent of his lack of recovery had yet to emerge – we could have easily just had another month or two of sub-par JOC performances, and then an announcement of an op in December to sort it.

Fact remains I feel like someone dropped the ball and it was clear by JOC's on and off appearances post lockdown that something wasn't right. Everyone thought JOC was being sold.

 

[LoughboroBlade]

Fact remains I feel like someone dropped the ball and it was clear by JOC's on and off appearances post lockdown that something wasn't right. Everyone thought JOC was being sold.

I can honestly say without any doubt that during that period I never once thought he was being sold.

Look, players get injured. Some injuries are fairly simple to recover from, some are tricky to recover from. Some injuries it might be less clear the extent of the injury, where there are several options forward: eg non-surgical, with a shorter recovery period (and a level of risk that it doesn’t fix the underlying problem), vs surgical (with the risk that the longer layoff and recovery might not be completely necessary).

If it was simply a case of us deliberately getting to play him through the injury and delaying the op, he’d have gone in for that op the minute the European place went. He didn’t – it was some months down the line before that happened. Which suggests the nature of the injury was not one of the easily-resolvable ones – and the medical staff and managerial team shouldn’t therefore be obvious targets for blame.

 

[Bladesman]

I can honestly say without any doubt that during that period I never once thought he was being sold.

Look, players get injured. Some injuries are fairly simple to recover from, some are tricky to recover from. Some injuries it might be less clear the extent of the injury, where there are several options forward: eg non-surgical, with a shorter recovery period (and a level of risk that it doesn’t fix the underlying problem), vs surgical (with the risk that the longer layoff and recovery might not be completely necessary).

If it was simply a case of us deliberately getting to play him through the injury and delaying the op, he’d have gone in for that op the minute the European place went. He didn’t – it was some months down the line before that happened. Which suggests the nature of the injury was not one of the easily-resolvable ones – and the medical staff and managerial team shouldn’t therefore be obvious targets for blame.

I think it was clear he wasn't 100% when he did play and it wasn't getting better. I believe someone dropped the ball and should have called it during project restart.

Still doesn't change the fact we didn't act to resolve losing jOC.

 

[LoughboroBlade]

I think it was clear he wasn't 100% when he did play and it wasn't getting better. I believe someone dropped the ball and should have called it during project restart.

Was it clear he wasn’t 100%, or like Fleck, Stevens and numerous others post-lockdown did he just look not quite as sharp as usual? I’d suggest that’s not easy to diagnose from an armchair. It is more than possible for it to be related to the previous injury and for the managerial and medical staff to still be blameless.

 

[petcharlie]

7th best defensive record in the league on average goals conceded per game, even after playing Liverpool and Arsenal away already.

Lowest number of goals scored in the league, just 3 in 6 games with 2 of them from somewhat soft penalties that were only gained after VAR intervention.

I'd say that indicates the attack is more of a reason for being bottom of the league than the defence.

Spot on the defence is not as tight as last year because we are missing our best defender but as you say the total goals we have let in is small compared with teams above us.It's the goals for that is our problem ,3 goals in six matches is mega poor and 2 of them are penalties that's the problem .If we let just one goal in we have lost it's that simple,no chance of an equaliser unless it's a penalty.

 

[Niceguyeddie]

It's not how many goals we are letting in ,its that we are letting in the same goal over and over by just not doing the basics
If you are missing chances that's good at least you are creating chances and over time they will go in ( theoretically ) but if you are throwing away points when you are playing well by conceding Sunday league goals you have got big problems

 

[albinonick]

Dopey so n so's to a man.

Should have spent the Ramsdale/Brewster muney on a top defender.

And who would you have in goal!!??

 

[8lade]

Hang on a minute! As somebody else has posted there have been 2 changes to the defence so if the stats at the end of the season show we have shipped more goals then you can't hang it off one or the other without very good reason. We started slowly last year and we've played 2 big hitters soon to be 3 already this season, yeah we shouldn't be conceding some of these goals but everybody makes mistakes even teams who've cost hundreds of millions of pounds not just us.

 

[ChipButtyBlade]

And who would you have in goal!!??

Jagielka.....obviously