Defending corners

[Gaspode]

Is it really so difficult to defend corners (or long throws) into our box?

Recently (and last night in particular), there has been utter confusion whenever we face a set piece. Almost none of the players seem to have a clue who they are picking up - and even when it is clear who was marking someone, the opposition players seemed to have an amazing ability to lose their marker. Combine that with the ridiculous tactic of pulling everyone back into our box for corners and it's no wonder we seem to succumb to pressure so often - we simply invite the opposition to press.

I'd love Radio Derby to ask Mac why he doesn't leave Ince on the halfway line; or whether they ever practice defending set-pieces; but I suspect that may be considered too controversial for the local journalists....

[ollycutts1982]

Just now, Gaspode said:

Is it really so difficult to defend corners (or long throws) into our box?

Recently (and last night in particular), there has been utter confusion whenever we face a set piece. Almost none of the players seem to have a clue who they are picking up - and even when it is clear who was marking someone, the opposition players seemed to have an amazing ability to lose their marker. Combine that with the ridiculous tactic of pulling everyone back into our box for corners and it's no wonder we seem to succumb to pressure so often - we simply invite the opposition to press.

I'd love Radio Derby to ask Mac why he doesn't leave Ince on the halfway line; or whether they ever practice defending set-pieces; but I suspect that may be considered too controversial for the local journalists....

I recently asked an ex pro why teams don't leave players up any more. He said that when defending a corner it is easier to defend a congested box as it is harder for the attacking players to get a good run at the ball. Guess it makes sense. We do look vulnerable at corners though and have done for a very long time. 

[DanDan]

I wish we would take note of how Leeds defend corners, set pieces and long throws coming into the box. They leave the big players such as Kyle Bartley, Chris Wood and Pontus Jansson free from marking duties to attack the ball which seems to be effective.

 

Also, I am sure at one point we left two players up for corners one out wide right and one out wide left which enabled to spring a counter attack quickly, at the min it does seem to be lets get everyone back in the hope we can defend.

[Animal is a Ram]

We miss Chris Martin from corners. In both boxes.

So many times he'd be on the front post and attack the ball to get it away.

[G STAR RAM]

27 minutes ago, DanDan said:

Also, I am sure at one point we left two players up for corners one out wide right and one out wide left which enabled to spring a counter attack quickly, at the min it does seem to be lets get everyone back in the hope we can defend.

You beat me to it on this point. 

In Mac's first spell we would leave Ward and Dawkins on the halfway line, meaning the opposition would have to leave 3 defenders back. 

I have no idea why you would have players like Butterfield, Ince, Vydra, Camara (who have never won a header in their career) in your own box for a corner.

Stick Olsson and another small player on the posts. Let out big players find someone to mark and then leave some space for Carson to command his area.

[Uptherams]

20 minutes ago, DanDan said:

I wish we would take note of how Leeds defend corners, set pieces and long throws coming into the box. They leave the big players such as Kyle Bartley, Chris Wood and Pontus Jansson free from marking duties to attack the ball which seems to be effective.

 

Also, I am sure at one point we left two players up for corners one out wide right and one out wide left which enabled to spring a counter attack quickly, at the min it does seem to be lets get everyone back in the hope we can defend.

I agree. You don't need to win the ball to win the battle. Just don't get overpowered. Simply blocking a player or leaning on them will stop them from making a proper connection or one at all. I used to like it when we left 2 on either wing on the half way line. That always meant they had 3 on the halfway line. So at most only six in our box. But they would always have the player outside the box to stop us breaking and one that has the free role that tends to look for a short cross or blocks the keeper. So really only 4 players actually in the box attacking the ball. 

Too many bodies in our box confuses our players. They lose their man or don't know who it was in the first place and get in each others way and don't know where or what to do when we clear it out the box. 

[Heisenberg]

1 hour ago, G STAR RAM said:

You beat me to it on this point. 

In Mac's first spell we would leave Ward and Dawkins on the halfway line, meaning the opposition would have to leave 3 defenders back. 

I have no idea why you would have players like Butterfield, Ince, Vydra, Camara (who have never won a header in their career) in your own box for a corner.

Stick Olsson and another small player on the posts. Let out big players find someone to mark and then leave some space for Carson to command his area.

Another classic example of this would be Hendrick's goal in the 5-0 win over Forest. A headed clearance by Martin, which was then hit up field by Ward which resulted in Bamford sliding in Hendrick. All in the space of 15 seconds.

 

[cannable]

1 hour ago, G STAR RAM said:

You beat me to it on this point. 

In Mac's first spell we would leave Ward and Dawkins on the halfway line, meaning the opposition would have to leave 3 defenders back. 

I have no idea why you would have players like Butterfield, Ince, Vydra, Camara (who have never won a header in their career) in your own box for a corner.

Stick Olsson and another small player on the posts. Let out big players find someone to mark and then leave some space for Carson to command his area.

I miss Simmo.

People used to say during Mac 1 that he was the one who gave McClaren an attacking influence, convincing him to go for it. Replacing all three attackers with other attackers by the 70 minute mark when winning to pin the opposition back even when winning, 424, I think we even used to keep three up from corners at times didn't we?

We've not really done that since McClaren came back. 

[Tamworthram]

2 hours ago, G STAR RAM said:

You beat me to it on this point. 

In Mac's first spell we would leave Ward and Dawkins on the halfway line, meaning the opposition would have to leave 3 defenders back. 

I have no idea why you would have players like Butterfield, Ince, Vydra, Camara (who have never won a header in their career) in your own box for a corner.

Stick Olsson and another small player on the posts. Let out big players find someone to mark and then leave some space for Carson to command his area.

I don't think they'd have to leave a man back to cover Butters. I reckon I could give him a 20 yard head start and still catch him up 

[Gaspode]

9 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

I don't think they'd have to leave a man back to cover Butters. I reckon I could give him a 20 yard head start and still catch him up 

And then you'd just have to run alongside him and wait for the sideways pass....

[Sparkle]

Apparently we have the worst defence in the league at defending corners having let in ten goals !!!! ( mostly recently as well)

Maybe we should leave 3 up front on the half way line, what difference would it make to us

[SKRam]

On 08/03/2017 at 09:11, Gaspode said:

Is it really so difficult to defend corners (or long throws) into our box?

Recently (and last night in particular), there has been utter confusion whenever we face a set piece. Almost none of the players seem to have a clue who they are picking up - and even when it is clear who was marking someone, the opposition players seemed to have an amazing ability to lose their marker. Combine that with the ridiculous tactic of pulling everyone back into our box for corners and it's no wonder we seem to succumb to pressure so often - we simply invite the opposition to press.

I'd love Radio Derby to ask Mac why he doesn't leave Ince on the halfway line; or whether they ever practice defending set-pieces; but I suspect that may be considered too controversial for the local journalists....

Agreed. This goes way back. I remember it was my biggest frustration with Cox. The more players left upfield the more the opposition will leave defenders back. 

[Alph]

It's not helped that we're pretty weak in the air.

For the time we've been without Johnson in DM we've also been wasting our time with any duel in the air that doesn't include one of our CB's.

Even the free headers or the headers from Pearce and Co... they go in the air and then eventually we lose the ball. 

Unless Johnson plays you can pretty much fire the ball onto Derby and stand a pretty good chance of picking up the ball as it's knocked back. 

De Sart is a chihuahua like Mascarell. Hughes doesn't fancy it. Ince would rather be seen dead, Butters doesn't like it, Russell is smaller than Frodo Baggins and Olsson isn't going to get much distance on anything if you challenge him. Bryson, Vydra, Camara... nah.

Only Johnson that's not a defender can muscle in on anything that's higher than a knee and make the ball ours.

If it's off the floor then we are quite a weak team. That needs addressing. 

[Sparkle]

1 hour ago, Alpha said:

It's not helped that we're pretty weak in the air.

For the time we've been without Johnson in DM we've also been wasting our time with any duel in the air that doesn't include one of our CB's.

Even the free headers or the headers from Pearce and Co... they go in the air and then eventually we lose the ball. 

Unless Johnson plays you can pretty much fire the ball onto Derby and stand a pretty good chance of picking up the ball as it's knocked back. 

De Sart is a chihuahua like Mascarell. Hughes doesn't fancy it. Ince would rather be seen dead, Butters doesn't like it, Russell is smaller than Frodo Baggins and Olsson isn't going to get much distance on anything if you challenge him. Bryson, Vydra, Camara... nah.

Only Johnson that's not a defender can muscle in on anything that's higher than a knee and make the ball ours.

If it's off the floor then we are quite a weak team. That needs addressing. 

Mainly all true there alpha which is why as soon as we went all panic at the end of the summer transfer window and sold Hendrick and lost Martin and brought the very small Vydra and Anya we had to be picking Johnson and mainly Bent in nearly every game which has limited opportunity to others and various options ultimately we were left dreadfully unbalanced 

[angieram]

2 hours ago, Alpha said:

 

If it's off the floor then we are quite a weak team. That needs addressing. 

Thorne,  Martin, Forsyth. Job done! 

Seriously, I am sure the club know this and maybe that was one of the reasons they targeted Lansbury in January. 

 

[Alph]

8 hours ago, angieram said:

Thorne,  Martin, Forsyth. Job done! 

Seriously, I am sure the club know this and maybe that was one of the reasons they targeted Lansbury in January. 

 

Yeah, can't wait to have those back. Was frustrating though not having Johnson in DM for so long. 

To be that poor in the air you have to be extra good on the floor. This head tennis we sometimes play only has one winner without Johnson in our team

[angieram]

9 minutes ago, Alpha said:

Yeah, can't wait to have those back. Was frustrating though not having Johnson in DM for so long. 

To be that poor in the air you have to be extra good on the floor. This head tennis we sometimes play only has one winner without Johnson in our team

I think we sometimes get caught up in the head tennis instead of bringing it down. Miss Hughes for this but understand why he hasn't been playing recently.

Pearce had a couple of opportunities against Preston where he had time and space to bring the ball down -  don't know if he isn't getting the shout from another player or he lacks confidence to do it.

[shonkz]

Hey I believe football is the same at any level, just the quality is different. When l played, at a reasonable level may I add, for corners we used to leave between four and five players, the smaller guys, outside the box and up field, the opposition just couldn't take a chance that either we cleared it with a header or the keeper caught the ball and released it straight away so they would only put two or three players in the box which worked quite well. Maybe it is a bit risky but no more so than the way dcfc defend corners now...

[Woodypecker]

We're feeble in both boxes from set-pieces, conceding more goals from corners than any other team in the Championship this season (10). Our defenders offer little threat in attack at the other end either - so few goals have come about from them. 

Whilst I'm at it, the throw-in goals we crucially let in were scandalously bad! Utterly inept defending.

I'd take 'em all onto a local pitch a la Warnock and have them defending corners for 4 hours. 

Then throw-ins, next session - plus a twist; I'd rotate every player throwing in a few times, to find the longest thrower - and drill the forwards to get on the end of it and take some daft goals off the opposition!

What's good for the goose is good for the gander

We spend so much time back-tracking to give the opposition ample time to retreat to their preferred formation, or fluffing the final ball, or cocking up easy chances, a bit of simple variety won't go amiss. 

Signing some tall 'beasts' would help: we are out-muscled all over the pitch at the moment. Perversely, we are still among the best defensive records in the League!

Big summer ahead for the club...