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Richard_Cadette

The Realist
This isn't really a new point, but as it's topical based on today, thought I'd bring it up again - if nothing else, it gets me nearer to 1,000 posts on here :)

Yorkshire Blue and myself (actually, probably most people) have long been saying the problem we have yet to properly resolve with our team is the lack of a creative spark in midfield, and never was that more evident than today. With Lee Sawyer, although no Glenn Hoddle in the passing stakes, we created a lot of opportunities, and scored a fair few goals, from his overall attacking play. He had the ability to make things happen, whether it be through an incisive pass, hassling someone in midfield, or busying himself around the edge of the box.

Today, up until just after we scored, we pretty much controlled the game, but apart from the one spark of magic to create our goal, really didn't create anywhere near as much as we should have with the excellent possession we enjoyed. With no Sawyer until at least January 1st, it worries me that we will start to struggle to create and score goals with Christophe and Macca in the middle. Both excellent players in their own right, but neither are going to cause sides too many problems with their accurate and ultimately incisive passing.

I would hope that Tilly will venture into the loan market again this week to bring someone in who can perhaps fill that void, because if not, and the goals start to dry up, it could be a long run until the beginning of January.

Secondly, and I guess more obviously, is our inability at the moment to defend with any sort of conviction. Whilst it almost went under the radar while we were not losing games, it was again clear to see today it remains our achiles heel. We are conceding at least 2 goals everytime we go onto the pitch in a League game at the moment, and that is undermining everything we do as a team. Today, for instance, is a prime example. In a game where we struggled to create, when we did finally score, we ought to have been able to see the game out, but somehow, threw it away.

The Colchester game should have been dead and buried by half time, and yet staggering, we almost lost it. Another 2 goals shipped at Tranmere, and without Feds, it could have been a whole lot more, conceding 4 against Ricky Lambert, sorry Bristol Rover and another 2 today - whilst we did keep a clean sheet at home to Telford, which is no great shakes, without Mildenhall, that could easily have gone wrong.

There are many theories as to why we are so lapse in this area, is it the back four, is it the fact we don't defend well as a team, are we lacking a commanding centre half, but whatever the reason, Tilly absolutely has to address this otherwise we have zero chance of competing for honours come May. Everything you do is underpinned by your defence - a good one allows you to win tight games 1-0, or sneak a 0-0 when you could have otherwise lost, and at the moment, we need to score 3 goals a game to win - and that is not sustainable.

Tilly has many, many virtues as a manager, and continues to surprise me with the positive things he does, but this has been this way for some time, and whether he is blind to it, or he simply has other priorities, surely he now must be thinking we have to try and do something to make us more water tight?

I probably could have chosen to post this at another time as opposed to just after a defeat - this is not a knee jerk, doom and gloom, post, but it's certainly relevant.
 
all i will say about our defending is its got worse since Dean Austin was put in charge of the youths and made the defensive coach for the first team
 
Why can't every one on here make sensible posts such as this.

I seem to remember doing some research about a year ago, which showed that we have had something like the 85th worst defence in the country over the past 2 and a half seasons.

Nothing has changed, especially away from home, and it seems that this is leaking into our home form too now.

We haven't played well since Freedman got injured against Orient (Leeds apart) and have been papering over the cracks with a quality goalkeeper making blinding saves and last minute equaliser's.

I am sure we will be OK when Barnard and Freedman are back so we will score 4 every game.
 
I've already said this this evening, but we've looked fragile ever since the loss of Sodje/Prior... We lack that aerial dominance/no nonsense approach that they brought to the defense and have suffered immensely because of it.

Barrett and Clarke just don't work well together, but Tilson is obliged to play both a) The club captain and fans favourite and b) The defender that cost us £300k to save face.
 
Barrett and Clarke just don't work well together, but Tilson is obliged to play both a) The club captain and fans favourite and b) The defender that cost us £300k to save face.

They combined well today to gift Oldham their second goal and lose us the game. Clarke gave away the needless free-kick and Barrett totally ignored Hughes and left him un-marked making it easy for the lethal finisher to score an easy goal.
 
I have no idea how Tilly can't see that the defence needs sorting. Baffling.

Probably does realise...probably dosnt have the cash to get anything really much better. Loans are ok, but not an answer long term
 
We had Gary Richards last season though and we sold him. Ok he wasn't amazing but he looked like he could do a job. At least he pushed Clarke or Barrett for a first team place.
 
When asked if he was concerned about the amount of goals we were conceding the other week Tillys reply was basically "not as long as are scoring more than the other team" which suggests he isnt too bothered about the defence hence why he only buys rubbish squad players like Sankofa and not genuine competition.
 
Spot on RC. Mark Gower:'(:'( has never been replaced. Having said that, I thought today was one of our best passing performances of the season. The opening goal was a real treat.

Not quite sure why today we looked better passing the ball, other than they had Maher in midfield(!). I think Revell is a huge player in our passing game so to have him and his one touch intelligent lay offs was a huge boost to us. I also think having Walker was a boost, as his dropping 5 yards off the centre-half gave us an extra dimension (and angle to our play) that we've been lacking since he helped guide us to the play-offs last season. Add in McCormack resembling a professional footballer for the first time this season and Milson's intelligent if understated play and I thought we looked as good passing the ball about as we have all year.
 
I've already said this this evening, but we've looked fragile ever since the loss of Sodje/Prior... We lack that aerial dominance/no nonsense approach that they brought to the defense and have suffered immensely because of it.

Barrett and Clarke just don't work well together, but Tilson is obliged to play both a) The club captain and fans favourite and b) The defender that cost us £300k to save face.

You can trace it back to March 2006 and Bournemouth away. We were in complete control until Hayter broke Efe's leg. With the legendary Spinner out injured we coughed and spluttered our way to the title. We tried to replace Prior
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and Sodje with Clarke, a disastrous and expensive mistake from which we have never recovered.
 
we do not have a problem in defence until corners and free kicks and we have had this problem for the past two seasons, tilson must rectify this the marking of opposing players is terrible, barrett as captain should be controlling his defence and he is not, he is also just as much to blame for the poor marking, i believe maybe as a temporary measure he should be stripped of his captaincy and mccormack should be given a chance to take that armband, which will give barrett less responsibility for the whole team and so concentrate more on his and his team mates defensive job. p.s barrett and co if you read this forum practise your set pieces
 
I totally agree with all the thoughts on our defence mentioned above, and yesterday was a prime demonstration why a place in the play offs, I believe would be an over achievement this season. The second goal and Barretts aimless pointing to no-one that Lee Hughes was unmarked sums up our defending from set pieces. And as said above, the fact that the free-kick, like so many others was needlessly given away puts added pressure on our already fragile defence.

However to defend Tilly, not that he should need to much defending, I talked to him at the AGM about team strength's and weaknesses, I'm obviously not going to go into detail, and name specific players, but he knows what positions and has targets for Jan, obviously that's not to say he will get them, but he is certainly not blind to the weaknesses of the team and it is not something he is ignoring.
 
Spot on RC. Mark Gower:'(:'( has never been replaced. Having said that, I thought today was one of our best passing performances of the season. The opening goal was a real treat.

Not quite sure why today we looked better passing the ball, other than they had Maher in midfield(!). I think Revell is a huge player in our passing game so to have him and his one touch intelligent lay offs was a huge boost to us. I also think having Walker was a boost, as his dropping 5 yards off the centre-half gave us an extra dimension (and angle to our play) that we've been lacking since he helped guide us to the play-offs last season. Add in McCormack resembling a professional footballer for the first time this season and Milson's intelligent if understated play and I thought we looked as good passing the ball about as we have all year.


Fair comment. Is it our tactics of seeking to defend a one goal lead rather than retaining the control and trying to get a two goal cushion that is contributing to our own downfall ?

To an extent I have always liked the tactic, but only providing we can offer a real pace threat to score the second on the counter, when opponents over commit. The lack of pace and ability to ball carry to relieve defensive pressure is a major problem with continuing to adopt these tactics.

Until and if Sawyer may become available, would it not be worth recalling Moussa from loan ?
 
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we do not have a problem in defence until corners and free kicks and we have had this problem for the past two seasons

I used to think that was true up until recently, but I would go further than that and say our overall defending is not adequate.

You're quite right, the two goals yesterday came directly from set pieces, and it wasn't pretty to watch, but we are also conceding too many goals from open play at the moment, which is something that wasn't happening quite so much at the back end of last season.

I think we are vulnerable from set pieces because we have a lack of aerial prowess in our defensive line, so teams will target that and try and exploit it, but too often the right side of our defence is affording opposition teams too much time and space to get into good positions, and against Tranmere for example, we were all at sea on that side of the pitch in the first half.

I don't want to target individual players, but Franno is a weak spot for me - going forward he is probably one of the best attaching full backs in this league - his cross for the goal yesterday is the stuff that strikers dream of, but his primary responsibilioty has to be to defend, and too often he gets caught out of position or is left wanting when trying to defend a half decent left sided player. Just one person can cause the rest of the defence to be in trouble, as it means Peter Clarke can often be left in a no win situation, does he come across and cover Franno, and leave a gaping hole in the middle, or does he hold his position and allow the guy on the ball a free run into the area.

With the personnel we have, I don't see as Tilly has many options to change it around at the back, apart from maybe on the training pitch - defensivre coaching could be an option, but with Dean Austin on the books, you would have thought that a given.

I don't think any of us on here truly believe that Tilly is willing to break up the Clarke/Barrett partnership, and so therefore, unless radical improvement happens, I can see this trend continuing indefinitely.
 
Fair comment. Is it our tactics of seeking to defend a one goal lead rather than retaining the control and trying to get a two goal cushion that is contributing to our own downfall ?

To an extent I have always liked the tactic, but only providing we can offer a real pace threat to score the second on the counter, when opponents over commit. The lack of pace and ability to ball carry to relieve defensive pressure is a major problem with continuing to adopt these tactics.

Until and if Sawyer may become available, would it not be worth recalling Moussa from loan ?

I don't know whether or not we actually set out to hold onto a 1-0 lead, or whether or not we get caught somewhere in the middle of not knowing quite what to do. I said yesterday, we are a very good team at 0-0 - we can play all day long at that scoreline and look like we have conviction in everything we do, but as soon as we go ahead, we seem to fall between two stalls, and it can sometimes take a goal or a near miss by the opposition to kick start us again.

I think if we actively chose to seek the second goal, or sit on the lead and **** the game out, we might be OK, but yesterday, it was almost a bit like the players did not know quite what to do, and against a side containing the quality of players like Lee Hughes and Darren Bydield, that is asking for trouble.

Personally, at home, I think without being cavalier, you need to try and get the second goal to make life easier for yourself, but as I have said previously in this thread, it is difficult to do when defending is undermining everything the team does attacking wise.
 
I don't think any of us on here truly believe that Tilly is willing to break up the Clarke/Barrett partnership, and so therefore, unless radical improvement happens, I can see this trend continuing indefinitely.


I think Tilly will do the best he can for the club with the resources he is given. If the opoortunity presets itself to strengthen the middle of defence then that's exactly what he will do.
 
Fair comment. Is it our tactics of seeking to defend a one goal lead rather than retaining the control and trying to get a two goal cushion that is contributing to our own downfall ?

To an extent I have always liked the tactic, but only providing we can offer a real pace threat to score the second on the counter, when opponents over commit. The lack of pace and ability to ball carry to relieve defensive pressure is a major problem with continuing to adopt these tactics.

Interesting question. I expect part of the problem is confidence. I also think teams when trailing start to get more desperate and lump the ball forward more which as we lack a big centre-half is one of our most vulnerable areas.
 
I don't know whether or not we actually set out to hold onto a 1-0 lead, or whether or not we get caught somewhere in the middle of not knowing quite what to do. I said yesterday, we are a very good team at 0-0 - we can play all day long at that scoreline and look like we have conviction in everything we do, but as soon as we go ahead, we seem to fall between two stalls, and it can sometimes take a goal or a near miss by the opposition to kick start us again.

I think if we actively chose to seek the second goal, or sit on the lead and **** the game out, we might be OK, but yesterday, it was almost a bit like the players did not know quite what to do, and against a side containing the quality of players like Lee Hughes and Darren Bydield, that is asking for trouble.

Personally, at home, I think without being cavalier, you need to try and get the second goal to make life easier for yourself, but as I have said previously in this thread, it is difficult to do when defending is undermining everything the team does attacking wise.


If we accept that our defence is not as strong as it has been in the past, should we not be playing to our strengths of passing the ball to death, movement and maintaining a higher defensive line, particularly when taking a lead at home.

To do so requires at least one of our full backs to sit, as they have as much pace as anyone to counter any ball over the top.

The dropping back of "the line" is IMO a deliberate tactic and one which we seem to continue to adopt having taken the lead, home or away. Playing on the counter has not been working too well for some time yet we seem entrenched to play that same way.

Whilst our two principal strikers are out, we are sadly exposed to conceeding too many and not scoring enough.
 
Interesting question. I expect part of the problem is confidence. I also think teams when trailing start to get more desperate and lump the ball forward more which as we lack a big centre-half is one of our most vulnerable areas.

I think that's the main problem, and why we do worse in the second half. When the opposition are pushing for a goal, we struggle to cope physically, especially in the air. It was evident against Colchester, was also shown in the Swindon game, where we got away with it, despite their midfielder Peacock winning everything above our centre-halves.
 
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