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Our Defence


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Who would you get rid of??

 

For me:

 

Fonte - Out of his depth

Hooiveld - Similarly, out of his depth with a propensity to score at the wrong end :lol:

Yoshida - Jury's out

Clyne - Keep

Fox - Bin

 

So for me, 2xCB's and a LB

 

 

More importantly though who do we play there in the next two months before the window opens ?

 

Wonder if Crosby is still registered and fancies a run out.

 

Come January though, I don't disagree with your summary by the way.

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I want to see a change in how to defend set pieces, but I do know that almost every team does it the way we are doing now.

 

I would want our defensive line to set up lower when we are defending set pieces because I believe it´s easier to defend if you can go forward and jump rather than like now ran backwards or towards the own goal and try to win the battles one on one. Our defenders are not that athletic that they can outjump the oppositions and that´s why I would prefer this different setup. You also get more players between the ball and the goal after the delivery in this type of setup.

 

Yes it makes flicks close to the goal more of a risk but right now I´ll take that and try to make a change instead of what we are doing now.....

 

(yes, english is NOT my first language so all of you grammar police do not have to report to the office due to this post)

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I also recall Adkins identifying our need. How come we didn't sort it? Either he over-estimated Yoshida or no-one else wanted to come here?

 

No idea. He clearly said he expected two centre backs to arrive - and we belatedly got one, Yoshida. As others have said its not the coaching or tactics to blame - its the fact that Fonte and Hooiveld arent good enough at this level and the jury is out on Clyne and Yoshida. Everyone is panning Adkins but its the signings which were strange - and Les Reid heads up recruitment.

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Sell nobody, we need cover.

 

Yoshida is a very good CB, Clyne is a very good RB.

 

Fonte and Jos have performed very well in games this season, they've also performed terribly in others and have lost us games with their individual mistakes. Both are ideal backups to a regular CB pair.

 

Fox isn't Prem quality, he is a top-end Championship defender. OK cover, at best.

 

Richardson isn't bad RB cover, keep him around if possible.

 

Shaw is one for the future.

 

So shopping list is:

 

RB to challenge Clyne and provide cover.

New starting CB with Prem experience. An older and wiser head would be nice.

New starting LB.

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Sell nobody, we need cover.

 

Yoshida is a very good CB, Clyne is a very good RB.

 

Fonte and Jos have performed very well in games this season, they've also performed terribly in others and have lost us games with their individual mistakes. Both are ideal backups to a regular CB pair.

 

Fox isn't Prem quality, he is a top-end Championship defender. OK cover, at best.

 

Richardson isn't bad RB cover, keep him around if possible.

 

Shaw is one for the future.

 

So shopping list is:

 

RB to challenge Clyne and provide cover.

New starting CB with Prem experience. An older and wiser head would be nice.

New starting LB.

 

Dawson would be my choice

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I don't think it's the players which are the real problem (aside from Fox). Today's goals were mainly down to bad organisation and communication. There was nothing today they couldn't have dealt with if only they were properly organised. This isn't like 05 when we had a squad full of dross like Davenport and Nilsson, we've got people who can play.

 

We should stick with Gazza unless he develops some serious faults and give the rest of them some serious coaching.

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No idea. He clearly said he expected two centre backs to arrive - and we belatedly got one, Yoshida. As others have said its not the coaching or tactics to blame - its the fact that Fonte and Hooiveld arent good enough at this level and the jury is out on Clyne and Yoshida. Everyone is panning Adkins but its the signings which were strange - and Les Reid heads up recruitment.

 

I totally agree...

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Lets face it, we're done for. By the time Jan comes round and a chance to add to the squad we will be bottom by miles. Very very bad miscalculation by however a responsible by not adding to the defence. Prepare for more heartbreaking thrashings, Spurs will get another four at least.

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A team that spent the whole of last season in the top 2....every single second of it... Should not need to replace the entire back 5

 

11-04-2012, 11:59 AM#124

 

Horley CTFC Saint

"Am I the only one that feels our defence will get ripped apart if and when we get into the Premier League? Good enough for the Championship but really unsure about in the Prem"

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It's the system we play, not the defenders... FFS

 

I thought we were more disciplined today - pushing Lallana inside and playing Guly on the left made a difference- and the goals came from poor defending (2, 3) and bad luck (1). Still sticky bandaids and all that.

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We should have brought a couple of experienced Premier league defenders. We all said as much during the summer.

 

What's all this 'We all said'? If you look back you'll see that many of those who suggested this were often slagged off and told that they were clueless. It makes me laugh as the people who said 'we don't need defenders if out intention is to score one more than the opposition' are the people who are now saying, 'we should've strengthened the defence'.

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No idea. He clearly said he expected two centre backs to arrive - and we belatedly got one, Yoshida. As others have said its not the coaching or tactics to blame - its the fact that Fonte and Hooiveld arent good enough at this level and the jury is out on Clyne and Yoshida. Everyone is panning Adkins but its the signings which were strange - and Les Reid heads up recruitment.

 

The signings don't make any sense at all. I said this at the time and all I got was abuse. I had a £10 bet with a mate that GR would spend most of the season out injured. The moment we spent £12m on one player I thought, that's going to go tits up. He'll be off at the end of the season for about 1/4 of what we paid for him.

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I thought we were more disciplined today - pushing Lallana inside and playing Guly on the left made a difference- and the goals came from poor defending (2, 3) and bad luck (1). Still sticky bandaids and all that.

 

Agree. I watched the whole game and the system was very effective defensively with us largely dominant in midfield and quicker to the second ball. We weren't as potent going forward as the midfield were more conservative with their passing with the result that we were more compact. Against Everton and Arsenal the system was probably nieve and too open against that qaulity of opposition, but no blaming the system today: Adkins got it right. Nothing any manager could have done about the succession of defensive errors so you have to question the recruitment in the summer for which I understand Adkins to be only partially responsible.

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The thoughts of Kelvin Davis - "Thank **** I got dropped"

 

Mind you some on here will still try and blame him for the last two games.

 

So far this reminds me of Derby County's last and only recent season in the top flight. The team was shockingly bad and shipped six goals in home games at least twice plus they did not react to the ****poor season they were having until it was too late and got relegated....and a word of warning, they didn't bounce back either.

 

It's funny how quite a few supporters of other teams kept saying were weren't that good and would easily get relegated last season......

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Our defence got away with it an awful lot last season - mainly because we dominated possession of the ball in nearly every game we played.

 

They still managed to make mistakes every game though - but at that level we didn't get punished every time.

 

The big difference this season is we're not dominating possession - the defence our under a awful lot more pressure and they are making a lot more mistakes - and we are getting punished nearly every time they make a mistake

 

The games we didn't dominate possession last season - like against Blackpool - we got punished - and every time we came up against an attack with pace and quality we - like against Blackpool and Reading - we got punished.

 

Even last summer most people thought our League 1 defence wasn't up to the Championship - and not much has changed since then.

 

And all we've added since then is a Championship right back and an Eredivise centre back from the team with that leagues worst defensive record last season.

 

Even if we go down this season - which is now looking more likely than not - the defence will require major surgery.

 

Our only chance is that January doesn't come too late - and that we manage to scrape out a few results before then to keep us in the fight.

 

Whoever is in charge of transfers needs to be working on the deals for January now - so that come January 1st we have a new centre back and a new left back to slot into the team.

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11-04-2012, 11:59 AM#124

 

Horley CTFC Saint

"Am I the only one that feels our defence will get ripped apart if and when we get into the Premier League? Good enough for the Championship but really unsure about in the Prem"

60% of our defence yesterday did not play for us in the Championship. Well done you for predicting the future. People can make any situation fit the things they said without actually considering any facts.

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Corky can play centreback, give him a go in there.

 

No, let's not. If he is available, let's use him in the middle, to give us some defensive qualities ahead of our defenders. Defending doesn't start with your back four.

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We can't change any personnel till January, so what we have to do is get organised. Very quickly too. Once we concede one goal it quickly becomes two or three. That's not acceptable. At Everton I turned to my mate and said we have to keep this at 2-1 to give ourselves a chance. As I was saying it they scored their third.

 

Similar yesterday 1 became 2 and were up against it. It's the caving in once the first goal goes in that's really concerning me. Is it confidence? Lack of ability? I saw that Nigel mentioned concentration levels. Maybe it's that?

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We can't change any personnel till January, so what we have to do is get organised. Very quickly too. Once we concede one goal it quickly becomes two or three. That's not acceptable. At Everton I turned to my mate and said we have to keep this at 2-1 to give ourselves a chance. As I was saying it they scored their third.

 

Similar yesterday 1 became 2 and were up against it. It's the caving in once the first goal goes in that's really concerning me. Is it confidence? Lack of ability? I saw that Nigel mentioned concentration levels. Maybe it's that?

 

It's an odd one, Nigel has said concentration levels quite a few times and that is quite a telling factor, but the whole way we concede quick fire goals is just lower league. (it's sort of what you see in cup ties, L1/champ against PL)

 

So, in my opinion, it's a lack of ability and a lack of concentration at key moments (i.e after they've just scored).

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Bottom line is that 4-3-3 or variations of exposes the back 4 as we are playing against players who will exploit the acres of space that we give them, putting the defence under pressure. Personally I would put the experiment on ice and play 4-5-1 and park the bus shut down the leakage get some draws to keep the tally clicking over and build a bit of confidence when the confidence has returned then dabble with the 4-3-3 or whatever. As things stand we are going start crossing the line at 3pm beaten already.

I would gladly take a clutch of turgid 0-0's through us just shutting up shop, and re instilling confidence.

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Are there any free agents out there as a quick fix? It worked well with telfer and Williams under wgs.

 

A few weeks back there were a couple of Italian lb's available both of them former internationals (cant remember their names) are they still free? Also, I believe Danny gabbidon was without a club, he was highly rated when he was younger but seems to have gone off the boil, could he come in and take one of our cb's out of the firing line for a bit?

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We need to change our formation to give extra help to the defence. We can't expect to score 4 every week to win

 

But we now know for a fact that won't happen, so we're back to finding ways of defending in a 4-3-3 formation (and it's numerous in-game variations).

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Are there any free agents out there as a quick fix? It worked well with telfer and Williams under wgs.

 

A few weeks back there were a couple of Italian lb's available both of them former internationals (cant remember their names) are they still free? Also, I believe Danny gabbidon was without a club, he was highly rated when he was younger but seems to have gone off the boil, could he come in and take one of our cb's out of the firing line for a bit?

 

A LB is the key. We need a good LB who can defend, then we need to stick with a starting back-four and GK combination and let them learn each others game. The best defensive partnerships we've ever had have been born out of consistency, which IMO is just as important as the players you choose.

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Blindly sticking to 4-3-3 is not vet clever when you have a leaky defence. I'd keep Clyne and Yoshida. If we had spent a sixth of the money we splurged on Ramirez acquiring a decent CB if would have been sensible. Need to spend big to get quality t the back in January and make it a captain type who we can give the armband to. Otherwise the defence will continue to play like Lallana.

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Are there any free agents out there as a quick fix? It worked well with telfer and Williams under wgs.

 

A few weeks back there were a couple of Italian lb's available both of them former internationals (cant remember their names) are they still free? Also, I believe Danny gabbidon was without a club, he was highly rated when he was younger but seems to have gone o

ff the boil, could he come in and take one of our cb's out of the firing line for a bit?

 

Answered my own question, gabbidon is at Palace but Zambrotta is still available. 35 years old so probably not at his best, but exactly the sort of quality, old head we need. And a world cup winner.

 

Controversially, thought fox looked pretty good at cb last year could be an option if we can conjure up a left back from somewhere else.

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