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Defending: 21 in 10


Glasgow_Saint
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23 goals in 20 games.

 

Pretty decent defensive record, especially compared to the rest of the table. Only three teams have conceded less than us this season.

 

Lots written about our good defending 1st ten - but whats gone wrong in the last 10? Is it just injuries and we cant cope unless full strengh? Is that not a problem in it self?

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21 goals against in the last 10 games.

 

Boruc and Wanyama will return and all is good? Or bigger problem than that?

 

That coincided with us having a steady back four for a run of games again i.e. more than two matches, which hasn't happened in the last 9 games

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It emphasises that whilst we have a very decent 15, 16 or so who can mix it with the best we struggle when hit with 3 or 4 injuries, especially in key positions where we aren't blessed with quality back-up. The squad is work in progress.

 

For long periods last season Davis/Gazza + Fox, Yoshi, Jos were the mainstay of our defence. In Adkins last 10 games he was having to play 2-3 of them every week and we only conceded 11 in his last 10?

 

If we cant cope at all with one or two injuries isnt that a huge problem in it self?

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That coincided with us having a steady back four for a run of games again i.e. more than two matches, which hasn't happened in the last 9 games

 

 

really it's all about Boruc, simply because he controls his area. This quality in a keeper is vastly overlooked. He makes the occasional balls up, most do but controlling the box most of the time outweighs that. We tried KD and Gazza last season, you just have to accept that however they may look on occasions in games, overall they just aren't very good. Boruc might have conceded one of yesterday's goals.

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21 goals against in the last 10 games.

 

Boruc and Wanyama will return and all is good? Or bigger problem than that?

 

Ill tackle this as a serious post from you GS instead of the wind up it was probably meant to be.

 

The balance of the side has been knocked, Gazza was terrible, Davis is better but still not Prem quality. Jos is aweful and this season Yoshi looks shaky though none moreso then when he partners Jos. Fox is a woefull defender too.

 

I personally think with the injured parties back and give it a couple of games we should tighten up straight away, MoPo changed our style slightely to negate the hole created by Vic or made changes to the back line which never helped. If anything it shows the lack of depth in the squad but this is to be expected due to us only being in the prem 1 1/2 seasons.

 

All in all this run hasnt been as terrible as it could of been, top opposition pulling into their prime, congested fixtures and absentees. We have done ok but anyone that didnt expect a dip in form is an idiot.

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For the average fan perhaps, anyone who knows a bit can see their value and that the replacements are just not up to it.

 

We have a squad of 37 players. Most of which now have prem experience. Is it not a problem that we cant cope at all when we pick up a couple injuries? How do others cope as some have had it far worse than us?

 

Like i said For long periods last season Davis/Gazza + Fox, Yoshi, Jos were the mainstay of our defence. In Adkins last 10 games he was having to play 2-3 of them every week and we only conceded 11 in his last 10? These mainstay are now backup but now completely useless?

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21 goals against in the last 10 games.

 

Boruc and Wanyama will return and all is good? Or bigger problem than that?

 

It's also been the tough run of fixtures and the mistake of having and persisting with Hooiveld as our first CB backup. I think Yoshida can do a solid job if he's alongside Fonte or Lovren. He makes the odd mistake but does make up for some of them himself and whilst below the level of Fonte/Lovren I think he can be a solid backup if given match practice. I think Fox is ok as backup as long as he is playing alongside our best team although I expect we will look for better considering the ambitions of the club.

 

Sadly Jos' time has passed. Great guy but at the moment he looks like he would struggle at League 1 level, has all but given up in more than one match and it should be 'thank you and goodbye' this month.

 

Boruc and Wanyama will make a big difference though, they are key components of why we conceded so few goals earlier in the season.

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We have a squad of 37 players. Most of which now have prem experience. Is it not a problem that we cant cope at all when we pick up a couple injuries? How do others cope as some have had it far worse than us?

 

37 players?!? Where did you get that number from?

 

Half of them aren't good enough (Fox, Guly, Forte, Barnard, Martin, Sharp) then there all the youngsters. We've probably got about 13/4 decent prem players, about 6/7 who can do a job. Our squad is hardly big is it.

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We have a squad of 37 players. Most of which now have prem experience. Is it not a problem that we cant cope at all when we pick up a couple injuries? How do others cope as some have had it far worse than us?

 

Like i said For long periods last season Davis/Gazza + Fox, Yoshi, Jos were the mainstay of our defence. In Adkins last 10 games he was having to play 2-3 of them every week and we only conceded 11 in his last 10? These mainstay are now backup but now completely useless?

 

Not dissagreeing with you on that front. Just wanted to bat away your sad attempt at fishing when questioning the ability of Vic and Boruc. As per last year it was with different tactics, boruc played more often than not and the team was more settled. We are also talking about playing most of the top five which you have ignored.

 

In short yes we need better cover. The two keepers and Jos are woefully inadequate at this level and probably low on confidence.

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Glasgow makes it up as he goes along, and for what it's worth WHU are having an injury crisis and their form has gone to the ****s for that reason.

 

We have one of the smallest injury lists in the prem. Over the last 4-5 games only Boruc & Wanyama have been injured, while other clubs have lost upto 11 players.

 

We have conceded 11 in 5 so its not just injuries unless we just cant cope without Boruc?

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We have a squad of 37 players. Most of which now have prem experience. Is it not a problem that we cant cope at all when we pick up a couple injuries? How do others cope as some have had it far worse than us?

 

Like i said For long periods last season Davis/Gazza + Fox, Yoshi, Jos were the mainstay of our defence. In Adkins last 10 games he was having to play 2-3 of them every week and we only conceded 11 in his last 10? These mainstay are now backup but now completely useless?

 

I still wonder who those are that cope better than us?

8 teams are in front of us in the league. All but perhaps Newcastle would be seen as have deeper/better squads than us.

 

37 players in the squad.......why not go all over the top if you´re gonna go there and say we have over 60 players in the squad?

http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/news/news/2013-14/sep/premier-league-squad-lists-201314.html

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We have one of the smallest injury lists in the prem. Over the last 4-5 games only Boruc & Wanyama have been injured, while other clubs have lost upto 11 players.

 

We have conceded 11 in 5 so its not just injuries unless we just cant cope without Boruc?

 

It might not be a big list, but if that list includes your best players, then you will struggle. Not sure what you're trying to achieve here, as the reason the goals have started going in is clear to me, and probably every other 'fan'.

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We have one of the smallest injury lists in the prem. Over the last 4-5 games only Boruc & Wanyama have been injured, while other clubs have lost upto 11 players.

 

We have conceded 11 in 5 so its not just injuries unless we just cant cope without Boruc?

 

Over the last 4-5 games the following players have been missing at one time or another:

 

Davis

Boruc

Clyne

Fonte

Lovren

Shaw

Wanyama

Schneiderlin

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We have one of the smallest injury lists in the prem. Over the last 4-5 games only Boruc & Wanyama have been injured, while other clubs have lost upto 11 players.

 

We have conceded 11 in 5 so its not just injuries unless we just cant cope without Boruc?

 

Well Shaw, Clyne, Fonte, Boruc, Davis, Lovren, Wanyama, Schneiderlin have all had some games out recently for one reason or another. Yes, only Boruc and Wanyama are out now, but we haven't had our best 7 defensive players playing together for months.

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Well Shaw, Clyne, Fonte, Boruc, Davis, Lovren, Wanyama, Schneiderlin have all had some games out recently for one reason or another. Yes, only Boruc and Wanyama are out now, but we haven't had our best 7 defensive players playing together for months.

 

So in summary.... Goals against will reduce when and only when we have a full strengh team? Isnt that a problem in its self?

 

With our high press style we will get injuries and suspensions.... If we cant cope??

 

After a rocky start last year Davis, Gazza, Jos, Fox, yoshi played most weeks - we coped ok then? Whats changed?

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So in summary.... Goals against will reduce when and only when we have a full strengh team? Isnt that a problem in its self?

 

With our high press style we will get injuries and suspensions.... If we cant cope??

 

After a rocky start last year Davis, Gazza, Jos, Fox, yoshi played most weeks - we coped ok then? Whats changed?

 

The number of injuries so the team that then was first XI could play together week in week out with very few changes. Makes a big difference in performance from a player if he plays only a few games rather plying almost every game.

(btw, Fox didn´t play most weeks last year)

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So in summary.... Goals against will reduce when and only when we have a full strengh team? Isnt that a problem in its self?

 

With our high press style we will get injuries and suspensions.... If we cant cope??

 

After a rocky start last year Davis, Gazza, Jos, Fox, yoshi played most weeks - we coped ok then? Whats changed?

 

No, in summary goals will reduce when we arent relying in two poor keepers and an injury list including our best players in vital positions.

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So in summary.... Goals against will reduce when and only when we have a full strengh team? Isnt that a problem in its self?

 

What? You think a teams performance being impacted by a number of first choice players being out is a problem? :?

 

With our high press style we will get injuries and suspensions.... If we cant cope??

 

We've been in the Premier League 1.5 seasons. 4 years ago we were in League 1. The squad will evolve but bar wholesale changes every summer and money we don't have we'll always have backups that are nowhere near as good as our first teamers. We did the right thing in the summer buying Lovren. But now people are going to whinge the players he displaced aren't as good as him? Good grief.

 

After a rocky start last year Davis, Gazza, Jos, Fox, yoshi played most weeks - we coped ok then? Whats changed?

 

You must surely watch enough of us to know how our tactics have evolved in the year Pochettino has been at the helm?

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37 players?!? Where did you get that number from?

 

Half of them aren't good enough (Fox, Guly, Forte, Barnard, Martin, Sharp) then there all the youngsters. We've probably got about 13/4 decent prem players, about 6/7 who can do a job. Our squad is hardly big is it.

 

Our effective squad is ridiculously small, must boil down to about 15 or 16 players in all reality, the PL lets you have 25 plus the U21s. To have 15 or 16 useful players including 3 U21s is a bit lame. We need to stop kidding oureselves that all these squad fillers that we have will ever make the grade. We're obviously a bit limit on salarial mass otherwise we'd sign good players on free transfers to replace some of our crap. Who was the last senior FT that we signed, must have been Lee I think,

that turned out well didn't it.

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Our effective squad is ridiculously small, must boil down to about 15 or 16 players in all reality, the PL lets you have 25 plus the U21s. To have 15 or 16 useful players including 3 U21s is a bit lame. We need to stop kidding oureselves that all these squad fillers that we have will ever make the grade. We're obviously a bit limit on salarial mass otherwise we'd sign good players on free transfers to replace some of our crap. Who was the last senior FT that we signed, must have been Lee I think,

that turned out well didn't it.

 

Boruc?

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really it's all about Boruc, simply because he controls his area. This quality in a keeper is vastly overlooked. He makes the occasional balls up, most do but controlling the box most of the time outweighs that. We tried KD and Gazza last season, you just have to accept that however they may look on occasions in games, overall they just aren't very good. Boruc might have conceded one of yesterday's goals.

Its also about who plays in front of the back 4. When we have Morgan and VW or Morgan and Jack Cork we have a solid defence, and the number of shots on target against us is very low (just as well when Gazza is playing). Glasgow as usual posts his agenda-biased tripe without actually checking facts. Fox only started 6 games under Adkins, and surprise surprise these were at the time when we leaked like a sieve. Jos and Yoshi only started once together under Adkins, it was always Jos and Jose or the better combination of Yoshi and Jose. Yoshi only came into the team about 3 matches before Cork and it coincided with the tightening up of our defence. Neither Fox nor Hooiveld played in Adkins last 10 games, Yoshida did play with either Boruc, Davis or Gazza, so claiming that Adkins' mainstay in defence was Davis/Gazza, Fox, Yoshida and Hooiveld is just plain wrong, but hell that doesn't stop Glasgow Troll from posting bull****.

 

 

Truth is we definitely miss Boruc, that is for certain. Also not having the Schneiderlin/Wanyama or Schneiderlin/Cork combo does hurt us (lets not forget Morgan has missed a few games, in last month or so).. We've also missed Clyne (though I think Chambers is at least as good defensively), Fonte, Lovren, Shaw at various times. Yoshida came in aplyed on the right side, his weaker side, Lovren had to switch to the left to acommodate Hooiveld, and was noticeably worse for doing so. Gazza just destroyed the confidence of an unsettled, fragile back four. Then we could look at the opposition, Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City and Spuds were definitely a step up on most teams we had played earlier (except Liverpool and possibly Manu although they were poor). Finally don't ignore the conditions, yesterday was atrocious weather wise, it is much harder to defend in such conditions. I perceive that we have also been playing a more open, attacking game recently, although often this has been because we have been chasing games after falling behind, trying to get back in a game has left us open to the counter attack and we have been caught several times in this scenario (Spuds 2nd and 3rd, Villa, Chelsea,) and so we are bound to concede.

 

 

I have little doubt that when we get our preferred first XI back fit (or even without Wanyama) we will see a return to a tighter defence

 

 

We do need a back up first class keeper, its obvious, but somehow doubt this will happen if Artur is close to a return. We do need better backup for Sicknote Shaw (or we ban him from Nandos). We need another backup for Fonte/Lovren - when these two play together there is no problem, Fonte has several times this season outplayed Lovren but Lovren gets the plaudits, but the two together are a great pairing. Yoshi is fine as 3rd choice but in my opinion only as backup to Lovren, i.e. on the left. we need a right-sided backup for Fonte. That maybe our target this month, but I suspect with everyone now back to fitness we may stick with what we have. I suspect our target is another AM or even a striker.

 

 

No need to panic, and the stats are easily explainable to anyon who does not have an agenda or who is not a troll.

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We went through a spate of injuries, and it saw our defensive record goes tits up. Perfectly sensible to ask if when the same defence is re-instated, if the robustness will return, or if the other teams have somehow adapted and found system weaknesses.

Edited by skintsaint
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I think both our defensive record and league position reflect where we are as a team. We are probably the best of the rest after the top 8 are accounted for. We had easy opposition / few injuries early on = few goals conceded. Then had tough opposition / key players injured = more goals conceded.

 

I predict we will pick up quite a few points between now and the end of February as we have more winnable games - so some will get over excited and talk of Europe again. We will then suffer a drop of form as we have tough games against City / Spurs and Newcastle at which point the bed wetters and WUM will be out in force again with tales of crisis and doom. Meanwhile the rest of us will evaluate performances based on all the variables with a level head and get on with our lives rather than picking a random statistic to cause controversy.

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Last 10 league games we have let in 19 goals.

 

In the equivalent games last year we let in 23 goals.

 

Our good start to the season was based on the performances of Boruc, Lovren, Wanyama, Fonte, Schneiderlin.

 

In last 10 they have missed

 

Boruc 7 ½

Wanyama 7 ½

Fonte 3

Lovren 2

Scneiderlin 3

Shaw 1

Clyne was also out and although upset balance Chambers has done well.

 

Es

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Hard to compare the two runs. We had our best defence during an easier run. And then were facing harder games with our second(/third) choice players.

 

If when Boruc, Big Vic et al are all back and we are still leaking goals I will be worried. Until that point, it's frustrating to see. But realistically a club our size isn't going to have like-for-like replacements for Big Vic any time soon. The amount of defensive injuries at once against the opposition we have had would hurt anyone.

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We went through a spate of injuries, and it saw our defensive record goes tits up. Perfectly sensible to ask if when the same defence is re-instated, if the robustness will return, or if the other teams have somehow adapted and found system weaknesses.

Alpine's comments as usual are a bit hysterical, need to bear in mind only Arsenal, Chelsea and Everton have better defensive records as Saints and we are now into the 2nd half of the season (so we have played every other team). Our defensive record has not gone "tits up" but we have clearly lost some of the solidarity we had due to the huge injury list we had to critical players (not just Boruc, but also Clyne, Shaw, Fonte, Lovren, Wanyama and Schneiderlin at various times and in various combinations over the last 6 weeks). It is still a valid question to ask whether we can return to our previous defensive solidarity, but lets not beat ourselves up that we are somehow now the crappiest defence in the league. We aren't, we concede on average marginally more than 1 goal per game. It is perhaps more concerning that we are not scoring enough. i still think when we have a back 7 of Boruc, Clyne (or Chambers), Fonte, Lovren, Shaw, Schneiderlin & Wanyama (or Cork) that we will be fine defensively. Other than Wanyama we are not far off having this until available again. do we need better back up, of course we do.

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Ignores who opponents were in last 10 games

 

This, plus the fact that I think Vic seems a lynchpin to the way we play acting as a buffer between Def/Att and also acting as a third CB when we are on the attack and the FBs push forward. Plus Boruc is up there with one of the better GKs in the prem and the deputies are v poor.

 

Im not even going to bother discussing the inadequacies of Jos/Fox

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This, plus the fact that I think Vic seems a lynchpin to the way we play acting as a buffer between Def/Att and also acting as a third CB when we are on the attack and the FBs push forward. Plus Boruc is up there with one of the better GKs in the prem and the deputies are v poor.

 

Im not even going to bother discussing the inadequacies of Jos/Fox

Nail/head

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This, plus the fact that I think Vic seems a lynchpin to the way we play acting as a buffer between Def/Att and also acting as a third CB when we are on the attack and the FBs push forward. Plus Boruc is up there with one of the better GKs in the prem and the deputies are v poor.

 

Im not even going to bother discussing the inadequacies of Jos/Fox

 

 

Neither of our reserve keepers controls anything whatsoever, they suffer the game, they do not influence it. Cannot understand just why we've allowed that situation to carry on unchecked since last season, it was disastrous then and still is now. You'd just have to assume that we're clinging on to the idea that Gazzaniga will one day make something of himself and that we haven't been conned again as we were with Forecast and look how that turned out. Needs to be loaned out as do many of our younger players but we don't seem to do that.

Edited by Window Cleaner
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Neither of our reserve keepers controls anything whatsoever, they suffer the game, they do not influence it. Cannot understand just why we've allowed that situation to carry on unchecked since last season, it was disastrous then and still is now. You'd just have to assume that we're clinging on to the idea that Gazzaniga will one day make something of himself and that we haven't been conned again as we were with Forecast and look how that turned out. Needs to be loaned out as do many of our younger players but we don't seem to do that.

 

Indeed, I personally dont feel there is much of a keeper in there, nothing that I have seen of him proves there is. Of course confidence is always a big issue and is often misunderstood, having suffered a bout of under confidence as a player for over a year its a very real issue and coaching doesnt solve it. Perhaps we can send Gazza out to regain some confidence in himself however again most confidence sufferers you can see talent is there (see Hart/Torres) but with Gazza I dont.

 

Going into the replacement arguement I find it astonishing. As I said before I can understand keeping Fox and relying on Jos/Yoshi as in reality I think Yoshi is good enough and Jos should only be required in extreme cases (god knows what happened) and similar with Fox as realistically you have Shaw, Chambers, Clyne to cover the positions with Fox as backup. Both reserve keepers however are just terrible, why this was missed is incredible.

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Lots written about our good defending 1st ten - but whats gone wrong in the last 10? Is it just injuries and we cant cope unless full strengh? Is that not a problem in it self?

Good job we played weakened teams in the. League cup then

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More sense without mentioning Hoddle

 

Actually I have made an effort to keep off the Hoddle subject of 2004. I think most people are divided on that one and probably will be. I am afraid that we could be going round in circles for another 10 years if that subject opens up again.

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