The defence - less than the sum of their parts?

[Champagneblade]

I must confess I’m at a loss as to how we keep conceding so many soft goals when you look at the individuals in the team. Perhaps that’s it, individualism rather than forging a great understanding.

Blackman - he’s won most over with his displays and many want to keep him.

Baldock - sees a lot of the ball and seldom seems to get embarrassed defensively but few goals or assists though appreciate the latter has limitations as a measure.

Stevens - probably the one defender who has been exposed the most.

Basham - done far better than expected and often rated well in DB’s reports.

O’Connell - highly regarded and played the most minutes.

Stearman - seen as an upgrade by the majority on Wright and brings relevant experience.

So given, on the whole the vast majority have had positive seasons how come we can’t keep a lead? Who is not doing their job? How do we curtail this issue?

When we come to the retained list most of the above are still on it in terms of most fan views. So if they are all ‘keepers’ then what needs to change?

Do they lack a leader, organiser? And if so, who drops out? Thoughts?

 

[BigBed]

We need a better CB and LWB, also the fact Wilder only knows how to attack, we need to learn how to "park the bus" sometimes, I know it's boring, but sometimes it gets points, as we've seen so many times against us this year.

 

[Houston_Blade]

Basham and Wright aside we have defenders who are better at going forwards than they are at defending. I liked this style at the start of the season when it was working, now it is just making us look like a team with a shit defence.

I remember when we had Kilgallon (or Kilgannon if you prefer) and he thought he was the dogs bollocks until he dropped a ricket passing the ball back instead of clearing his lines, he never did it again and perhaps went too far the other way. At the risk of receiving the wrath of some posters on here, I'd much rather our defenders defend first and be pretty footballers second. At the level we are at and the budget we have I think the 2 are largely exclusive. When you're in the PL you can afford to buy defenders who are footballers as well, we aren't so they should be defenders primarily.

 

[Digger]

A midfielder who sits in front of the back four who can provide protection would have considerably reduced the number of goals we have conceded.

 

[Geordie Blade]

When you watch the goals that we concede in the box, the thing you notice very often is that our defenders are just slightly too slow to react.

They rarely make obvious mistakes, which is why it’s hard to pin the blame on someone. But, the problem is that opposition strikers in this league react a bit faster. Basham and O’Connell in particular are so often seen making a last ditch lunge, having been caught by a forward’s split-second movement into space.

Defenders like Paul McGrath (or John Terry, to be fair) make the job look easy, because they read the game well and react so quickly over one or two yards. You never really notice them defending ‘well’. Our defenders don’t have that skill, hence the job looking a lot harder, without them ever really looking bad.

 

[Large Mendonca]

The one thing i commented on to my lad in the first few games of the season, was how much better the defence was than in League 1. We seemed to really step up to the Championship plate and improved no end. Now we let in some real howlers, from not closing down the worldies at the back end of last year to complete switch offs that wouldn't go amiss in Graves Park. Sadly, i've no idea why.

 

[Baaaaaaa Blades]

could you blame Tiredness ? not an excuse IMO that shouldnt really be used too much for proffessional athletes but we do seem generally knackered as a team
i think this season has been tougher than maybe everyone thought and our tempo especially for the fist half of the season was very intense

i have noticed the massive difference in how we presssed at the start of the season and how we do now

also for Bash and JOC ( as must be for Baldock and Stevens also to be fair) they must put in a hell of allot of miles charging up and down the pitch, far more than your average CB( or FB ) in a 4-4-2 or similar formation

also not to bring up the whole Coutts debate again ! but when he played he basically would dictate the speed of play allot of the time and we kept ball far better and in a sense that will be allot less tiring than chasing the ball / loosing with careless balls etc ( think Lunny and Evans do this a bit too much )

all in the all a fine season and they do deserve a few peroni's and weeks in the sun !

 

[Eric Cartman]

I don't think the coaching staff are doing enough (or effective enough) defensive, attacking or set piece training. We look really weak in all those areas, but BOY do we know how to pass it around the 18 yard box while the opposition are penned in their box.

 

[Sean Thornton]

Four of those five are very prone to switching off at vital moments. We've seen itvtime after time.

 

[Eric Cartman]

Four of those five are very prone to switching off at vital moments. We've seen itvtime after time.

Out of interest, I'd guess your 'fifth' is George Baldock?

 

[IdLiketoRogerMoore]

Four of those five are very prone to switching off at vital moments. We've seen itvtime after time.

This!!

Especially after we've scored and/or in the lead. We seem to lose intensity when we take the lead and concentration seems to be a part of that.

Plus for most of that 5 it's their first 30+ games at this level.

I trust Tufty to drill down on this during the Summer and in to next season.

 

[Addison]

Four of those five are very prone to switching off at vital moments. We've seen itvtime after time.

Very true its bad enough having one. All very good going forward but have great difficulty seeing whats going on behind them and constantly lose their man. Early season energy got them out of jail now its gone they are being found out more often.

 

[Trafford]

I commented a few months ago that the defence was conceding bad goals but everyone was more pre-occupied with the forwards at the time. For me the problem is simple - there is neither a natural leader nor a set pattern for who challenges for the 1st ball, who monitors the off-the-ball runs etc and, as a consequence, we often have 3 men trying to beat 1 in the air and a forward completely unmarked. The other more recent issue is poor execution of the basics - you should never have 1 against 1 in a straight race, particularly when half of the defence aren't that fast.

 

[Keef Chedwyn]

17/18 League appearances...

Stearman W9 D8 L10

Wright W11 D2 L5

 

[BornOnShorehamStreet]

I
Blackman - he’s won most over with his displays and many want to keep him.

Baldock - sees a lot of the ball and seldom seems to get embarrassed defensively but few goals or assists though appreciate the latter has limitations as a measure.

Stevens - probably the one defender who has been exposed the most.

Basham - done far better than expected and often rated well in DB’s reports.

O’Connell - highly regarded and played the most minutes.

Stearman - seen as an upgrade by the majority on Wright and brings relevant experience.

Who is not doing their job?

Erm, maybe you answered your own post?

 

[Sean Thornton]

17/18 League appearances...

Stearman W9 D8 L10

Wright W11 D2 L5

All very well quoting stats but we were winning more games when Wright played so aren't your observations skewed because of that fact?

 

[Keef Chedwyn]

All very well quoting stats but we were winning more games when Wright played so aren't your observations skewed because of that fact?

Possibly. It just felt better when we were near the top of the league.

I've mentioned it before but I used to fucking love it at the beginning of the season when all these fancy teams came along and started casually stroking it round the back and to the keeper and back etc. They got fucked. We were ok because we didn't fuck about. We were simple and effective. We played in the direction we were trying to score. We were heroes.
Unfortunately we're now one of those teams that gets fucked because we fuck about. Jake Wright doesn't fuck about. Be like Jake.

 

[wizadry]

Someone needs to explain what Jake Wright has done wrong when he’s played and why his reassuring prescence isn’t needed to sort the whole defensive unit out?

Both him and Lafferty would’ve improved us defensively but I’m not saying I want us to go defensive, I want us to play like we did in the first half of the season which coincidentally involved Jake Wright quite a lot and we played all out attacking football, it was and is great to watch. You don’t have to park the bus if you have defenders and midfielders who can protect both the ball and their own net.

Whilst Stearman has in general done well I don’t think he organises the defence like Wright does and this is a big contributing factor as to why we concede sloppy goals.