The defence is the crux of the problem. AN has bought two in; klose does look like he is an upgrade; however pinto currently only looks like a clone of Olsson, good going forward fast but simply horrible defending - but is likely to improve given he only has two starts.
Of the others none are premier standard defenders due to a combination of pace, concentration, resposnsibility, inconsistency (in each game, hence the individual errors) or discipline issues.
Personally I agree with Neils decisions on Bassong being (significantly) better than Bennett and Brady over Olsson; my first comment applies, they are simply the best options. Olssons lack of positional discipline (basic working back from attacks, tracking run, positional sense & attacking when the right back already bombed forward) and such poor quality delivery doesnt compensate for the thrill of his attacking runs - which seems to cloud most pundits - as for bradys lapses we have seen more and just as often from olsson, but gets less criticism as much of the time he isn't even in the area he should be.
Who we chose at right back is less important, all 4 have issues (Martin solid but the weakest overall, Whittaker as solid defensively, best attacking option but the lack of pace to recover position always exploited, Wisdom the best defender but no attacking threat (and wont develop one) and the early Pinto signs are he has the traits as Olsson, we can only hope that over 5-10 games he improves - the rest have too many appearances and too old to expect improvements now.
With that (10 players to chose from and just 1 good enough) its easy to understand why the starting players have rotated and why the attacking options have been continually eroded to try and shore up the back - stick with Klose Bassong Brady + rb and thats as good as its going to be.
Yesterdays front 6 were a nightmare selection - no pace, limited passing scope, poor tackling and offering NO midfield protection and no movement, huge gap between front 2 and mid 4 with neither pace in the 2 nor ability to hold the ball up top allow the ponderous midfield to catch up. We were never going to create or score - and really didnt look like doing so. It was the worst type of negative - and chosing a 4411 left us low in midfield numbers and putting wes left isolated hm out of the game - effectively doing gardes job for him; when he strayed central he showed what we were missing (demanding the ball and effectively using it) - but we all know he is wasted on the left wing.
My worry at the moment is the move to 4411 based on naismith and mbokani. It driving and increasing long ball game yet mbokani wins less than 50% of his headers, when he does we rarely pick up the second one and rarely holds the ball up. Naismith is neither linking with him well nor providing and midfield ballast in the way wes does. Mbokani is more painfully one footed than wes, immobile, slow to react and offers limited defending press from top. His main attribute seems to be to draw a foul. He seems a modern grant holt without the commitment or goal threat. He is certainly not worth his reputed £80k pw salary nor one I would be looking to sign come the summer.
However I digress, I am not sure mbokani is any worse in the prem than Jerome (grabban, hooper, lafferty) or bamford, so can see him keeping his place with a move back to 4231 or even 4141 as long as we build the attacking outlet around the holy trinity of wes, redmond & naismith. Wes Redmond Naismith off a striker (bamford for me) or wes howson redmond off Naismith also looks very promising.
This is dependent on AN accepting that he HAS tried all the combinations at the back 4 and whichever we chose will concede; look to win games again by scoring rather than not conceding. That epiphany has to happen soon - for the confidence of the teams sake.
