Collective Defending

[Chris Mills]

I think that Steve McClaren has put it perfectly in his pre-match interview today. We are going to make mistakes at the back, you can slate Keogh and Christie whoever you like as much as you want, but the key is that we need to be a better team if we are to go up. And that's not just defensively, that's front to back. 

Let's stop slating individuals for their mistakes and look at "what could the team have done better to avoid that situation?". Was the ball turned over further up the field whilst we had men forwards? Was it a cheap free kick that we gave away? Did the initial pass put the player under pressure in the first place? 

I believe we have what it takes to go up, now it's up to the team to go out there and prove it, starting tomorrow.

[Alph]

I don't get all the fuss over our defence anyway. Or even our defending as a team. It's not that bad. People act like we're in a crisis. I don't understand. 

Mistakes happen individually all over the pitch. Just the further back you get the more noticeable it is. What matters to McClaren is the whole picture. 

In that picture our defending is alright. I think we can and will improve. Which is exciting because we're already the 3rd tightest team in the league. And 2nd are Sheffield Wednesday...

[Ramos]

I think people are just overreacting through frustration that we aren't whatever amount of points clear we feel we should be. With the failed end to last season, I think compared with Boro and Bournemouth we as supporters and as a club are putting more pressure on ourselves to get promotion and everyone seems to just want to get there as soon as possible, understandably. However we just need to be patient and continually criticising individual players and the team won't help us. 

I am sure we will go on a positive run starting tomorrow, we just need to keep our concentration and we should be fine. We have more than enough quality in the squad to get in the top two. We are only one point behind Boro and with back to back home games who knows what the table will look like come wednesday morning. Bournemouth have two away games and I can see them dropping points. So we just need to make sure we can win both of these next two games.

Tomorrows atmosphere should be really good and hope we as fans get behind the team for the rest of the season. 

[Mostyn6]

of course you analyse the different players for different parts of the game! You would criticise (or at least talk about) your striker if he missed a lot of sitters, in fact, many here slate Connor Sammon for exactly that! You wouldn't say "don't you dare criticise Sammon, we score as a team!", 

I doubt very much that McClaren refuses to judge individual playing errors. If he did, he wouldn't have bought new players and made selection changes.

[TroyDyer]

McClaren is a manager, and is managing a situation. He will be very aware that the likes of Christie and Keogh have been coming under fire, and not without reason. I would be alarmed if he hadn't himself thought "**** me, young Cyrus and Richard have been making some horror cock ups". It's his job to notice that. 

It is also his job to protect his players and I respect that. For me, he has left it too late with Keogh. I would have dropped him weeks ago, given him a few games (mental) rest and gone from there. As much as I don't rate him, I think with all the furore, the #askkeogh debacle, and the tweets to his wife, that dropping Keogh now may actually finish the lad. At Derby anyway. I can't see him doing that. 

[wixman1884]

I would never dream of booing a player or abusing them online, but if we can't acknowledge and critique individual performances then why exactly are we here? We can't discuss games with "derby were good", "derby were average". If players can be praised for stellar performances they should be criticized for blunders.

 

[Alph]

The opposite of a blunder isn't a good performance. You can have both

like v Bournemouth, Hughes got caught out on the ball when everyone was forward and Bournemouth nearly scored. That's an error. But he was good for the rest of the game. 

Anyone can make a mistake. Like Grant for the Rotherham 2nd. But it has to be taken in with the rest of the performance. 

Anyone and everyone can make mistakes. They happen all over the pitch. But it's the overall performance that you look at. 

Sammon wasn't rubbish because he made the odd mistake. He was rubbish because he made the odd decent contribution. He was a 89minutes pm mistake. 

 

[The Scarlet Pimpernel]

McClaren is a manager, and is managing a situation. He will be very aware that the likes of Christie and Keogh have been coming under fire, and not without reason. I would be alarmed if he hadn't himself thought "**** me, young Cyrus and Richard have been making some horror cock ups". It's his job to notice that. 

It is also his job to protect his players and I respect that. For me, he has left it too late with Keogh. I would have dropped him weeks ago, given him a few games (mental) rest and gone from there. As much as I don't rate him, I think with all the furore, the #askkeogh debacle, and the tweets to his wife, that dropping Keogh now may actually finish the lad. At Derby anyway. I can't see him doing that. 

[curb]

The opposite of a blunder isn't a good performance. You can have both

like v Bournemouth, Hughes got caught out on the ball when everyone was forward and Bournemouth nearly scored. That's an error. But he was good for the rest of the game. 

Anyone can make a mistake. Like Grant for the Rotherham 2nd. But it has to be taken in with the rest of the performance. 

Anyone and everyone can make mistakes. They happen all over the pitch. But it's the overall performance that you look at. 

Sammon wasn't rubbish because he made the odd mistake. He was rubbish because he made the odd decent contribution. He was a 89minutes pm mistake. 

 

[unclej]

The implementation of collective defending has to have come as a response to the way Green was left alone in the box on Tuesday.  Makes sense Steve.

[TroyDyer]

​I know when someone is being singled out and picked on and Keogh is being picked on. The critique he receives is often vicious. He doesn't deserve it and personally I think its detrimental to the team.

[TroyDyer]

Spot on mate, are we going to shout Roos at Grant today every time the ball goes near him? No, he's made one error in a game, but he's saved us so many times, including a world class save a little bit later in the same game that contributed to us saving a point.

Criticising anyone in the back four for an individual error is just as ridiculous because they've all contributed massively to us getting where we are this season. 

[Chris Mills]

​Same could be said for Sammon the season before last. Agree or not, the players performances lead to that. 

I never boo or abuse Keogh at games. I give him the same level of "Come ooooon!" as every other player. I can however, see why some fans question his ability to lead, and defend in general. 

I was asking those questions way before the playoff final last year. I always feared that him and Forsyth were capable of a suicide ball/howler at any moment. Unfortunately they did happen and in Keoghs case, on the biggest of occasions. As much as that broke my heart that day, in hindsight I think it was the best thing that could have happened to us in the long run, so no hatred or bias based on that mistake. Actually think it helped us. 

I have said many times that it is mental with him. Physically  he has all the attributes, and after Ipswich I was left thinking that we had that defender AT LAST.

I would have taken him out the firing line weeks ago, given him a couple of games off to rest himself mentally, get over Wembley, and let any unrest a****st the fans simmer down. Like I said it's too late for that now, and I hope McClaren has got this one right. 

I sincerely hope Keogh becomes the defender we all want him to, and know he can be. I take no pleasure in his howlers, and don't enjoy saying "I told you so" when he cocks up regularly. I want him to be ******* brilliant. I want us to win the league. I want to see Barker and Keogh lifting the League trophy after we rip Reading a new one. 

*I dread to think what face RK will pull though.  

[TroyDyer]

​I'm pretty sure he is over Wembley already - and he is susceptible to a mistake but so is everyone in the Championship, Premier League, La Liga, Champions league. You see it all the time.

What people negate however, is the contributions he makes to the team. As with anything you remember bad things much more easily than good things. Remember against Cardiff at home when they went through on goal and he made probably the best tackle of the season from behind to pretty much get us the point? I cheered that like a goal and I rememeber the rest of the stadium did too. Even I struggle to think of more situations like this throughout the season, however, I'm pretty sure if you looked back and added them all up it's pretty close to his "mistakes" tally. That was a tackle that many PL players couldn't have pulled off and is testament to what he offers to the team.

[Ram a lamb a ding dong]

Makes at least one rick per game that either costs us a goal or  should cost us a goal but for poor finishing (of opponents). Then again Bucko has cost us a goal in his last 2 appearances

[Srg]

​I don't agree with that. I think there is a difference between occasionally making a mistake, and regularly making a mistake. He makes one howler a game. I wouldn't say that is the case for every player across those divisions. 

I didn't see the Cardiff challenge but I have no doubt it was top notch. He has that in his locker. But then he also has the brainfade pass to Kenwyn Jones... 

I don't think 4 or 5 good challenges a game counteract 1 howler a game. Not when there are players at lower lever championship clubs that don't make a howler a game. 

This isn't a Keogh thread anyway. Hopefully a solid win today, a clean sheet, no howler, and he chips in with a goal. Think he could do with one. 

[winchesteram]

Keogh is a very capable defender, we all know that, just as they do over at Coventry.

You'd hope that, as a professional, he'd be able to laugh of fans' sniping from the sidelines but, like all of us, he's human and his confidence will probably be dented by the over-the-top criticism.

As has been pointed out above, we have the third meanest defence in the Championship. That's not an accident.

Keogh is central, literally and metaphorically, to its ongoing success. Who's to say one or two of the recent daft goals we've shipped aren't attributable to gnawing doubts in Keogh's mind fuelled by the critics.

Just a thought...

[Chris Mills]

Keogh is a very capable defender, we all know that, just as they do over at Coventry.

You'd hope that, as a professional, he'd be able to laugh of fans' sniping from the sidelines but, like all of us, he's human and his confidence will probably be dented by the over-the-top criticism.

As has been pointed out above, we have the third meanest defence in the Championship. That's not an accident.

Keogh is central, literally and metaphorically, to its ongoing success. Who's to say one or two of the recent daft goals we've shipped aren't attributable to gnawing doubts in Keogh's mind fuelled by the critics.

Just a thought...

[TroyDyer]

Keogh is a very capable defender, we all know that, just as they do over at Coventry.

You'd hope that, as a professional, he'd be able to laugh of fans' sniping from the sidelines but, like all of us, he's human and his confidence will probably be dented by the over-the-top criticism.

As has been pointed out above, we have the third meanest defence in the Championship. That's not an accident.

Keogh is central, literally and metaphorically, to its ongoing success. Who's to say one or two of the recent daft goals we've shipped aren't attributable to gnawing doubts in Keogh's mind fuelled by the critics.

Just a thought...

[Mostyn6]

​I know when someone is being singled out and picked on and Keogh is being picked on. The critique he receives is often vicious. He doesn't deserve it and personally I think its detrimental to the team.