Change of/in players

[Salopian]

I am doing a little of grasping at straws. 

The current problem seems to be the defence, although apart from Hooper no striker has scored recently, and Grabban for some time and Lafferty when?

Could the defence be improved? There seem to be three problems:.

• Loss of concentration - This may be partly connected to the following point, but it does seem that on occasions that they do not seem to appreciate imminent danger.
• Lack of leadership -We badly need someone to take control, shout and warn, and generally lead by example
• Lack of pace - This is a serious problem. Recently we have lost out to teams who contain our lumbering attacks, and then spring and beat us on the counter-attack. Even when the defence is in position, the lack of pace shows itself in the ability of the opponents to gain half a yard on our defenders and then get a shot, cross or pass away. We are too slow to close down.

Leadership seems to be a difficult problem, and no candidate seems able to replace Martin, so he has to be urged to take more control.

Little can be done about pace when players lack it, except for them to anticipate better. Turner, who used to, Hooiveld, Martin, Whittaker and Garrido are all lacking pace to some extent. Is it time to consider Miguel, who at least is left footed and can play CB or LB. The return of Bennett can not be too soon. Could Bassong get his head right?

 

[Dubai Mark]

I really dont think it is simply "the defence" that is our problem.......defending is our problem, the defending as a team, as a unit as a result of poor tactics is the issue. The players ARE good enough, just look at them individually, we have several regular international players and also several hardened pro's who know what its about at this level............plus, we do have pace within the side and through the side, Martin is not slow when he rampages up the right and Olsson has real pace, both of these play in the back four. Leadership is perhaps a problem, but these days I am not so sure that's as important as it used to be....providing the team is set up correctly,knows what it is doing and is MOTIVATED then individual leadership is not so crucial,.......three things that we seem to be lacking now the season has progressed. 

The City Notice Boards should be on fire right now, but they are not......this worries me.....are a lot of our fans just accepting the situation?

 

[Salopian]

I accept that some of our forwards, especially Redders and Josh, have little skill at defending, that midfielders like Howson and Johnson get well forward in our attacking emphasis, and that this often leaves the defence exposed to counter-attack.

What I was suggesting is that our defenders seem slow off the mark, as well as being short of pace when chasing a winger down the wing. It is one thing for Marshall and Whittaker to surge gently forward when the opposing defence is retreating to its two lines of four, it's another when a slick counter-attack gets the ball out to their wings quickly. Our defenders seem often slow to react to the presence of opposing attackers, and slow to close them down and block shots.

We can debate how far poor defending, as in the last two home games, is from a lack of organisation and leadership, or bad decisions from individual defenders, including Ruddy, or a failure to get close to attacking players, but the fact remains that over the last 10 games or so the points lost/dropped, have regularly been due to defensive failure. But for this failure we could have had several more points and not be now in a mini crisis.

Last season, under a manager who was criticised for being too defensively minded, our defence struggled against the quality of Premiership attackers.This year, with much less able attackers confronting them, they are again struggling, perhaps not all the time but certainly often enough to overcome the best efforts which led to goals for us.

Strikers off form, defenders too lax? Blame it all on the manager! I believe that he still has much to learn, but I also believe that he was right often enough to claim that we played better than the score suggested.Last Saturday a tall young novice was gifted two goals, because there was no-one near enough to offer effective challenge to him.

My motive in posting was not to lambaste the team yet again, but to suggest where and how things could be improved. I would be very happy if Phelan's arrival manages to improve matters without paying attention to any of my criticisms.

 

[Yellow Fever]

IMO, this thread is at the heart of the matter. For the most part (Boro aside), the players aren't playing badly, but they are paying for odd mistakes that are then punished. As I said on another thread, like others, I want to see a reaction from the players, who to my mind are at the heart of the problem, not because they are bad players, but just the opposite. Because of this they seem to take the opposition lightly at times and this casualness produces sloppy goals. Reading never looked like scoring apart from those two corners where the marking was too casual and the goals conceded. Neither was down to the management and now we need to see a reaction fron the players with a performance full of intensity and concentration against Wigan. 95% isn't enough - it has to be through the whole game.

 

[Paul Handscombe]

For me it's the tactics, a lack of a plan B and inept manager.

It is plain to see by any fan that the formation we play and the players we put in some positions are clearly wrong.  The main problem is the left side of midfield.  We have no one that can play on the left wing, we have tried Wes, Howson, Johnson and for the most bizarre reason Lafferty.

This leaves Olsson really exposed and doing the job of two men as he is often isolated as the for-mentioned players all drift into the centre of midfield, leaving Olsson on the left on his own so when he does  ge tthe ball he has to either wait for players to move over or just stop because he knows if he tries to take on players and loses the ball there is no cover.  Now you either play Josh from the start or play Garrido as left back and put olsson in midfield.

The other big debate is Russ, imo still our best defender and our leader and rightly so, I don't mind him at centre back or right back, but prefer right back as Whittaker is absolute garbage and we have much more of an attacking threat with Russ on the overlap.

We have gone back to the Hughton days of having no clue when we get in the final third and we have no cutting edge and seem to stop when we get towards the penalty area.  There is no urgency or spark apart from the odd run from Redmond and even then his crossing has gone back to being really poor.  How many corners hit the first man from him and howson on saturday.

There is no plan B and if we lose to Wigan on Saturday the board have to act and get in Tony Pulis.  He would get us promoted and keep us there.

 

[Yellow Fever]

Some good points Paul, but some overstatements as well. Lafferty played on the left all his time at Palermo, so it isn't that odd, and he is good at tracking back, which can't be said about Josh yet. IMO, we don't need to make formation changes as the defence works most of the time, it's just eliminating the lapses that cost goals. As for the attack, it's hard to tell whether it's the tactics or the players slipping back into the possession passing used last year. I agree that we need to break with pace more before the opposition gets settled in defence. I'm not as keen on Pulis as you are, but in any case the main need for me is the players upping their game and eliminating the lapses.

 

[eatonparkboy]

Some good points Paul, but some overstatements as well. Lafferty played on the left all his time at Palermo, so it isn't that odd, and he is good at tracking back, which can't be said about Josh yet. IMO, we don't need to make formation changes as the defence works most of the time, it's just eliminating the lapses that cost goals. As for the attack, it's hard to tell whether it's the tactics or the players slipping back into the possession passing used last year. I agree that we need to break with pace more before the opposition gets settled in defence. I'm not as keen on Pulis as you are, but in any case the main need for me is the players upping their game and eliminating the lapses.

I think eleven goals conceded in the last 4 matches is a bit more than the defence working most of the time.

 

[GJP]

The other big debate is Russ, imo still our best defender and our leader and rightly 

Is he our best defender? I'm not really sure he is.

 

[Yellow Fever]

I think eleven goals conceded in the last 4 matches is a bit more than the defence working most of the time.

That's fair enough, EPB, but Boro aside, most of those goals were odd mistakes against sides posing little threat through the game as a whole. I still think that it's primarily about eliminating the lapses through improved concentration for the entire game. Managers and coaches can work on this, but it's down to the players during the game.

 

[eatonparkboy]

That's fair enough, EPB, but Boro aside, most of those goals were odd mistakes against sides posing little threat through the game as a whole. I still think that it's primarily about eliminating the lapses through improved concentration for the entire game. Managers and coaches can work on this, but it's down to the players during the game.

I don't always blame the back four for "defensive" mistakes. So many of ours start from silly little things like Redmond losing it in his own third and putting the side under pressure. If we play, as we have done, two defensive central midfielders, I don't know why we are prone to being caught on the break which leads to most of those conceded. Saturday's goals were bad errors is all.

 

[GJP]

Is Redmond prone to losing it in our third?

 

[Canaryboy]

I think Adams unwillingness to play conventional wide midfielders is a huge part of our problem, leaves our full backs seriously exposed and the drags our centre backs out of position. The first goal conceded last week illustrated this perfectly with Turner being dragged out to the right to cover for Russell Martin, then the ball being played to the back post where for some reason (presumably a belief that it wasn't his job) Redmond had not tracked his man and left Olsson our full back to be beaten in the air where Hooiveld may well have been if Turner wasn't dragged out wide.

The answer for me would be to try 4-4-2, if we had suitable wide midfielders. Unfortunately we don't have the required players, because we can argue all day about whether Lafferty can play as a left sided forward, but there can be no arguing that what he certainly is not is a left sided midfielder. Unlike last season when at some stage an injury crisis left us short of wide midfielders, this situation has been created by design. Adams has intentionally set out to play with this 4-2-3-1 or 4-2-2-2 or 4-2-4, whatever you want to call it and sold all of his wide players.

I just wonder whether we are the only club in the league who can't revert to a simple 4-4-2, it may be a largely redundant tactic in the Premier League but as far as I'm aware it is still commonly used and can be very effective in the Championship. Lambert used it, Worthington used it, I just don't understand why Adams (a former wide player for Norwich City, often in a 4-4-2) would consider it beneath him and why he'd ever consider it a good idea to drastically limit his tactical options in a stubborn and misguided belief that his tactic was definitely going to work out. He isn't Louis Van Gaal and we aren't Manchester United.

 

[eatonparkboy]

Is Redmond prone to losing it in our third?

I'm afraid so. He is probably doing it in Wes's absence.

 

[morty]

I'm afraid so. He is probably doing it in Wes's absence.

I have genuinely never noticed this.

 

[GJP]

Utter tosh, in my opinion.

Very rarely does Redmond give the ball away in dangerous areas.

Infact he's very sensible in possession.

 

[Din]

Utter tosh, in my opinion.

Very rarely does Redmond give the ball away in dangerous areas.

Infact he's very sensible in possession.

I agree. Redmond does have his faults but on the whole I don't think that his retention of the ball is one of them. 

 

[Jimmy smith]

Redmond contributes more than enough defensively given where he plays. One of the things Hughton actually did alright was make Redmond a more rounded player. I saw it even in the Boro game where he was basically doing his own job and Whittakers job down the right.

 

[eatonparkboy]

Utter tosh, in my opinion.

Very rarely does Redmond give the ball away in dangerous areas.

Infact he's very sensible in possession.

You need to watch the dull boring parts of the game when there is slow build up and he tries to pass with the outside of his foot or play a one-two and gives it away. Might not lead to a goal but alters the flow of the game and stops defenders pushing up. And I believe that is one of the reasons Turner sits so deep as he is used to seeing our midfield giving it away too often.

 

[GJP]

That seems slightly different to what you said about him losing it in our third.

 

[RhythmicTheory]

I don't think Adams has a lack of a plan B, he seems to have tried quite a few different formations, even within matches, but since Wes injury hasnt really settled for one that suits our current fit personnel.  That combined with using Martin at centre back, which is then displacing Turner (good defender on his favoured side).  Whittaker has proven to be a liability more than he has had good performances and both Ruddy and Olsson have been in poor form this season.

Playing Lafferty on the left of a front three is fine, he's spent most of his career coming in from wide and I saw enough of him during the Watford game to know he will track back, Murphy is also more than capable and I would like him given a sustained run.

I think our season so far can be summed up as, Adams favoured formation with first choice personnel worked, I think he was guilty of trying to fit both grabban and jerome into a side for the switch to 442, which he got away with initially (so you could argue it was correct), but that doesn't give enough movement further down the pitch, which led to various lockouts as its easier to defend (so he stuck with it too long).  

This led to a loss of confidence (in both the team and the manager in his own decisions) and has spiralled.  He hasnt been helped by the loss of form mentioned above but some of that has been self inflicted.  I think the situation is retrievable but it all comes down to whether he starts making the tough decisions and stop trying to please everyone in the squad.  I also think we need a left back and left side central defender come Jan, if the players we signed but havent played are deemed not up to it (left back regardless).

Hooper should be up top (now hes fit, lazy *bleep*) and then you either play out and out wingers with murphy / redmond on their natural sides with Jerome partnering, or you play howson just behind the striker with lafferty wide and redmond.