Our Defending

[Bristol Blade]

Apologies to Bergen, I'm not trying to steal his job and I'll leave it to him to do a full analysis later, but I just can't believe how our defence has turned from being so solid a few games ago to the mess we're seeing now.

I know there have been a lot of complaints levelled at Bunn lately for conceding too many long range strikes, and indeed some of the goals have definitely been his fault, but I can't help but feel that a lot of the blame lies with the midfield. Looking at the highlights for Scunny's first yesterday, when McCann got the ball there was not a midfielder within 10 yards of him. The defenders are lined up along the edge of the penalty area, allowing him all the time in the world to take a shot. The second and third goals have similar problems, with our players (by the look of it Harper and Stewart) not picking up the men running off them who then go on to score.

So for me the problem is with a lack of closing down in midfield. I know Monty's out and he'd be doing a lot of the leg work that's gone missing, but surely the rest of our midfield know how to track a man or close down a player in a dangerous position.

 

[spadge]

to be fair the player who scored the first goal had a couple of long range strikes before the one that went in one canonned off a defender for a corner and i turned and said to my mate why do they seem to have so much room. to be honest seems more to me that none of the side seem to no there roles at the moment and theres alot of dismay hopefully something will come out soon and it will all get settled

 

[Sensiblade]

to be fair the player who scored the first goal had a couple of long range strikes before the one that went in one canonned off a defender for a corner and i turned and said to my mate why do they seem to have so much room. to be honest seems more to me that none of the side seem to no there roles at the moment and theres alot of dismay hopefully something will come out soon and it will all get settled

Lots of room about 25-30 yards from goal
Monty injured
Coincidence?

 

[Lincoln Blade]

Lots of room about 25-30 yards from goal
Monty injured
Coincidence?

No coincidence at all.... we have no holding midfielder in our ranks anymore that is able to get back and make them all important challenges infront of the back four.
We need to either bring someone else in who can perform this role or blackwell actually needs to do his job and get someone to do monty's role.
Im seriously disallusioned with united at the moment, were going backwards and fast!!!

 

[Bergen Blade]

Appreciate anyone's opinion on our football, and anyone can feel free to do the GoalWatch analysis. I will have a look at the highlights tonight when they appear on BP.

Speaking generally, I think our way of defending as a team is very demanding, and heavily relies on our players being more up for it than the opposition players.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Speaking generally, I think our way of defending as a team is very demanding, and heavily relies on our players being more up for it than the opposition players.

Bergen - I think you've summed up more than just our defending there. This seems to be the only strategy at the moment, and very risky if players are distracted by frequent line-up changes and contract negotiations.

It can't take a genius tactician to work out where our game will focus in the lead-up to a game against us and as long as you can cope with Darius, where are any other threats coming from?

 

[LoughboroBlade]

A lot of it is down to confidence in my opinion. Whether people rated Kenny or not in the stands, one thing that I think stood out is that the players did rate him, and the defenders in front of him were more confident with him in the team. The types of goals we are giving away are sloppy, and I don't think we'd have been giving them away 6 months ago. We probably wouldn't have done 2 months ago - in the early games, Bunn wasn't really tested at all, and the defence looked steadier, despite us playing against some tough teams. Kenny in my view could be relied upon to do well, whereas Bunn has shown in recent weeks to be a bit dodgy from long-range shots. With Kenny you could be safe in the knowledge that it would have to be something pretty damned good to beat him from, say, 20/25 yards, and that obviously means the defence need not be too panicky when the ball is fairly far out. At the minute they look worried that a goal could come from anywhere, which as a result makes them less confident and more prone to errors.

This isn't anything new really - the defence in the Premiership looked nervy whenever Bennett or Gerrard came in. If you look at England at the minute, their defence looks far more comfortable with James in than Green - when the latter plays, there seem to be mistakes made in front of him. I think we seriously need to consider bringing Bennett back in, or start looking at other options in on loan. I am really hoping that Kenny's suspension is cut to allow him to return in January - it would be a major boost.