Ninos Posted December 28, 2016 Share Posted December 28, 2016 4 minutes ago, feisty said: Well a 4-2-3-1 would be the obvious way to do that. But we won't do that and I don't think we should either. Would mess up the team balance and style. Thorne is, sadly, injury prone. And there is no point building a side / formation around a player that doesn't stay fit. I know that when he is on top form he is incredible but it just means that we miss him all the more when we build a side around him and he gets injured for another 9 months. I think he should battle it out with BJ for the DM role. It wouldn't mess anything up and I don't think we are that much more creative with Butterfield in there either. If Thorne is fit he needs to be in there and you can't drop johnson fighting vehicle or the magic man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1967Ram Posted December 28, 2016 Share Posted December 28, 2016 12 hours ago, Alpha said: What's surprised me most is that Johnson has been so happy to keep it simple. He's always been an all action player who plays percentages. Whether playing LM for Norwich or central for Leeds he's always been very aggressive, put the ball in the right areas (more so than to teammates) and liked to get shots off Obviously DM is about always being there to back the team up. Not really join in. You can't be a glory hunter because it's all about discipline. You can't charge off Mascarell style because you're there to protect your CB's. And much of the ball time is keeping it simple while the team manoeuvres the opponent. Simple but you're under pressure to go forward as often as possible. That goes against what Johnson has always done. Thorne loves it. Being a superb passer he's loved having the whole team ahead of him to try and pick out. Eustace was no fuss and would quickly move it on. But Johnson has always been a dodgy passer. He's never been one to do any passing quickly. He's never been one to ignore a tackle to get into position. To see him now, getting into shape, not glory hunting, keeping it simple, organising others, taking the ball under pressure... it's quite a change. And when the ball does land in his zone he's obviously like a steam train. And if the opposition start to panic pass and invite us to press he gets his little moments of glory. Just surprising that such a character is happy to do boring but vital stuff. Doesn't suit him at all. But he's had to do it for the team and I think the guy is doing it as if he's a different Bradley Johnson. He could well grab PotY if this is a regular standard he's set in the last 10 games I agree that it wouldn't have suited the way Johnson played a few seasons back but it seems to suit him brilliantly now. He's a joy to watch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
t'oldu Posted December 28, 2016 Share Posted December 28, 2016 Sky picked up on the fact that Keogh is free to surge forwards because BJ automatically drops back to cover for him so the defence retains its shape. Powell is doing a very good coaching job with our defence. SM said after the game the work on sorting the defence predated his own arrival Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rynny Posted December 28, 2016 Share Posted December 28, 2016 2 hours ago, Ninos said: Clean sheets isn't a true measure, it's a nostalgic fiction to bang on just about clean sheets. If the other team scored a wonder goal does that diminish the defensive performance? If a team gives up one goal or less it's a damn good defence. Basically we didn't concede under Pearson, but we pretty much never scored. Under Mac we continue to not concede and we score a bit. That's sort of the point that @Rampage was making. If you look at my reply to @Rampage we have had a good defence for a few seasons. We averaged conceding a goal a game under Mac's last season until the last 3 games. Last season we conced less than a goal a game. 13/14 it was just over a a goal a game. We have had one of the best defences in the league for a while, it was no where near as bad as we seemed to think it was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninos Posted December 28, 2016 Share Posted December 28, 2016 19 minutes ago, rynny said: If you look at my reply to @Rampage we have had a good defence for a few seasons. We averaged conceding a goal a game under Mac's last season until the last 3 games. Last season we conced less than a goal a game. 13/14 it was just over a a goal a game. We have had one of the best defences in the league for a while, it was no where near as bad as we seemed to think it was. You can't exclude the last 3 games. But am I missing something or are we breaking defensive records right now? Bigger than that is the feeling you get which is that it's almost funny how hard it is for teams to score on us. They may as well not take their corners we are that good at the back. Hopefully it won't go to our heads but this is the best team defence we've had. Keep it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rynny Posted December 28, 2016 Share Posted December 28, 2016 30 minutes ago, Ninos said: You can't exclude the last 3 games. But am I missing something or are we breaking defensive records right now? Bigger than that is the feeling you get which is that it's almost funny how hard it is for teams to score on us. They may as well not take their corners we are that good at the back. Hopefully it won't go to our heads but this is the best team defence we've had. Keep it up. I'm not excluding them, just showing how good we were defensively until we started chopping and changing the defence. And when we conceded 10 in the last 3 games. Don't forget we broke a clean sheet record under Mac's last season for consecutive matches, home and away. I'm not saying we aren't good defensively now, just saying it isn't down to Pearson as we had the basis there already and Pearson didn't add much to it, if anything at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
archied Posted December 28, 2016 Share Posted December 28, 2016 Defensive record (clean sheets) can sometimes be a little clouded by how well we have played in terms of attack and posetion in short there were spells when opposition did nt score as we were so good going forward but in all honesty we still all ( mostly) felt we were fragile when under pressure or not firing in attack and passing wise , I don't think we ever looked so solid and defensively confident in games or spells in games wher we did nt have a lot of the ball and teams come at us as we do now ,, the clean sheets stats don't tell the whole story Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperDerbySuperRams Posted December 28, 2016 Share Posted December 28, 2016 Loves getting stuck in. Crunched two of them in 20 seconds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparkle Posted December 28, 2016 Share Posted December 28, 2016 2 hours ago, SuperDerbySuperRams said: Loves getting stuck in. Crunched two of them in 20 seconds. Too true and has made me chuckle in a few games recently and you can visibly see some of the opposition players moving away from him when the ball is approaching! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PodgeyRam Posted December 28, 2016 Share Posted December 28, 2016 7 hours ago, Ninos said: Clean sheets isn't a true measure, it's a nostalgic fiction to bang on just about clean sheets. If the other team scored a wonder goal does that diminish the defensive performance? If a team gives up one goal or less it's a damn good defence. Basically we didn't concede under Pearson, but we pretty much never scored. Under Mac we continue to not concede and we score a bit. That's sort of the point that @Rampage was making. We didn't really concede under Pearson, but I wouldn't say that was down to good defending. We were so open under Pearson, time and time again the opposition would just walk through the centre of our midfield (Bryson and Hughes) and drive at Pearce and Keogh. Fortunately Powell and McClaren put an end to that madness by dropping Johnson in midfield before any serious damage could be done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warren Hobhead Posted December 28, 2016 Share Posted December 28, 2016 My POTY so far, edging out Pearce slightly. You can see the fear in opposition players once they've seen him at his destructive best. It's brilliant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramarena Posted December 28, 2016 Share Posted December 28, 2016 I've been wanting us to sign a dominant/aggressive defensive midfielder for a long while, looks like we may have finally, inadvertently found him. You can see he lifts the rest of the midfield when we are battling to get a grip in the middle of the park, all it takes is couple of crunching tackles and the other lads know he's got their backs, letting them get on with the business further up the pitch. People comment on his poor passing, I wouldn't say it's poor, just that we have so much talent in that department that he looks a little out of place. However his passing is no worse than half the midfielders in this division. He's fast becoming an integral part of the current setup, long may it continue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RadioactiveWaste Posted December 28, 2016 Share Posted December 28, 2016 I've said it once before about Johnson's passing, his brain is better than his feet, in that he can see and knows what to do, he reads the game well, just can seem a bit clumsy in execution sometimes (passing anyway). I'm just so pleased he's found his part in the team. And like others have said, he's bringing his determination and leadership to bare now he's found his proper place and earned the trust and respect of his team mates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philmycock Posted December 28, 2016 Share Posted December 28, 2016 Bradley makes Lansbury look like a hipster amateur Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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