Defensive Coach

[Keepyuppy]

I’m lead to believe we have a specific ‘defensive coach ‘ at the club. I’d like to ask, what the hell they actually do , because in my eyes , we concede that same type of goals game after game. Strikers and runners not being picked up, usually at the back post. 
Also after we’ve conceded m, there are usually 2 or 3 of the back 4 stood in very close proximity, marking actually nobody.  How can this be ?Hie come it keeps happening ? How come nothing seems to be happening to resolve this, game after game. 
Do we operate a ‘zonal’ marking system or are defenders basically not able to understand and defend end properly ? 
 

[hintonsboots]

Think our defensive record has been better than average over the last 15 games bar Cardiff. I would be more concerned with the offensive coach.

[CornwallRam]

Our defence is easily good enough for mid table. It's our attacking coach that needs to be questioned.

[Ghost of Clough]

By "back post" do you mean the area Wisdom and Byrne are supposed to be defending? I can't figure out why we concede so many in the air in that area of the pitch ?

[RamNut]

The Stoke goal would never have happened if max bird had stopped the cross.

[Brammie Steve]

5 minutes ago, RamNut said:

The Stoke goal would never have happened if max bird had stopped the cross.

Or Kelle had stopped it going across the line.

Or Jacob Brown hadn't headed it into the net.

Or......... that's football that is!

[SSD]

The defence has been solid since Rooney took over. Creatively and attacking wise, the team have been abysmal. Zero confidence to be brave and attack the opposition.

[Rammy03]

Not concerned about the defence at all. You can't expect them to keep clean sheet after clean sheet every single game, but that's what they're having to do because we can't score. It's suicide. If we could actually score goals this thread wouldn't exist.

[Chris_Martin]

17 hours ago, hintonsboots said:

Think our defensive record has been better than average over the last 15 games bar Cardiff. I would be more concerned with the offensive coach.

there isn't one. 

[Bob Gnarly]

Our kryptonite is high crosses into the box. Has been for years. Lack of height at the back perhaps? 

[Yani P]

17 hours ago, hintonsboots said:

Think our defensive record has been better than average over the last 15 games bar Cardiff. I would be more concerned with the offensive coach.

Maybe it's the same fella to save a few quid 

[Tyler Durden]

22 hours ago, Keepyuppy said:

I’m lead to believe we have a specific ‘defensive coach ‘ at the club. I’d like to ask, what the hell they actually do , because in my eyes , we concede that same type of goals game after game. Strikers and runners not being picked up, usually at the back post. 
Also after we’ve conceded m, there are usually 2 or 3 of the back 4 stood in very close proximity, marking actually nobody.  How can this be ?Hie come it keeps happening ? How come nothing seems to be happening to resolve this, game after game. 
Do we operate a ‘zonal’ marking system or are defenders basically not able to understand and defend end properly ? 
 

Do you believe in fairy stories too.

[Millenniumram]

I wasn’t aware of a specific “defensive coach”. Whoever they are aren’t doing too bad a job in general though, our defensive record hasn’t been the problem, it’s been our lack of goals. I’d be more inclined to call whoever is coaching our attacking movement into question, because that has been absolutely woeful this season.

Do agree on our defending of aerial balls mind. We seem to clock off far too often - it’s been a problem for years though, as long as I can remember, and we never seem to be able to sort it. Maybe we just have very dozy players.

[Van der MoodHoover]

43 minutes ago, Millenniumram said:

I wasn’t aware of a specific “defensive coach”. Whoever they are aren’t doing too bad a job in general though, our defensive record hasn’t been the problem, it’s been our lack of goals. I’d be more inclined to call whoever is coaching our attacking movement into question, because that has been absolutely woeful this season.

Do agree on our defending of aerial balls mind. We seem to clock off far too often - it’s been a problem for years though, as long as I can remember, and we never seem to be able to sort it. Maybe we just have very dozy players.

Out of interest, our goals against by season recently is... 

2013-14 52

2014-15 56

2015-16 43

2016-17 50

2017-18 48

2018-19 54

2019-20 64

2020-21 42 so far..... 

Suppose we end this season conceding around 50. Then we will not have conceded significantly fewer goals than an average over past several seasons despite playing with a higher number of defensive players than we used to. 

I would conclude that our defence is NOT solid and in order to keep goals against down to average levels we have packed the side with defenders. 

[Millenniumram]

1 hour ago, Van der MoodHoover said:

Out of interest, our goals against by season recently is... 

2013-14 52

2014-15 56

2015-16 43

2016-17 50

2017-18 48

2018-19 54

2019-20 64

2020-21 42 so far..... 

Suppose we end this season conceding around 50. Then we will not have conceded significantly fewer goals than an average over past several seasons despite playing with a higher number of defensive players than we used to. 

I would conclude that our defence is NOT solid and in order to keep goals against down to average levels we have packed the side with defenders. 

Not sure it’s as simple as that though. More defenders doesn’t necessarily make your defence better. There’s nothing to say that our goals against tally would have been any worse had we played with more forwards and controlled games a bit more. All those stats really tell me is that our defence hasn’t got much worse, but our attack has - therefore the issue is obvious.

[Van der MoodHoover]

32 minutes ago, Millenniumram said:

Not sure it’s as simple as that though. More defenders doesn’t necessarily make your defence better. There’s nothing to say that our goals against tally would have been any worse had we played with more forwards and controlled games a bit more. All those stats really tell me is that our defence hasn’t got much worse, but our attack has - therefore the issue is obvious.

You miss the point and the causal link. 

As the defence has deteriorated, in order keep the goals down the defence has been shored up with extra personnel. 

To the detriment of our forward play. 

Playing 6 or 7 defensive minded players to achieve similar defensive solidity to what we had achieved with 4 or 5 at most. 

[Millenniumram]

2 hours ago, Van der MoodHoover said:

You miss the point and the causal link. 

As the defence has deteriorated, in order keep the goals down the defence has been shored up with extra personnel. 

To the detriment of our forward play. 

Playing 6 or 7 defensive minded players to achieve similar defensive solidity to what we had achieved with 4 or 5 at most. 

Nah I get the point, I just disagree with it haha. There’s nothing to suggest our defence has deteriorated if we stopped playing so defensive - we haven’t actually tried playing more attacking to test it out! 

[brady1993]

19 hours ago, Millenniumram said:

Nah I get the point, I just disagree with it haha. There’s nothing to suggest our defence has deteriorated if we stopped playing so defensive - we haven’t actually tried playing more attacking to test it out! 

To also add onto this, I'd guess there is a reasonable proportion of the goals we concede are down to individual mistakes*. With so little going forward and so little in the way of control of the game you just are going to be much more susceptible to such a goal and packing the defence doesn't alter it all that much. But then again I'm of the perhaps counter-intuitive opinion that if an opponent doesn't have the ball they can't score and if they are worried about you they are far less likely to commit in numbers going forward.

*There is a reasonable argument  that  most goals have an individual mistake (or 5) in them but what I'm trying to get at is a fair few we've conceded have been very clearly down to a single individual e.g. Byrne against Coventry, Marshall against Forest.

[Van der MoodHoover]

46 minutes ago, brady1993 said:

To also add onto this, I'd guess there is a reasonable proportion of the goals we concede are down to individual mistakes*. With so little going forward and so little in the way of control of the game you just are going to be much more susceptible to such a goal and packing the defence doesn't alter it all that much. But then again I'm of the perhaps counter-intuitive opinion that if an opponent doesn't have the ball they can't score and if they are worried about you they are far less likely to commit in numbers going forward.

*There is a reasonable argument  that  most goals have an individual mistake (or 5) in them but what I'm trying to get at is a fair few we've conceded have been very clearly down to a single individual e.g. Byrne against Coventry, Marshall against Forest.

Couple of seasons ago (Frank) we played a back 4 and a cdm - huddlestone - who was more a quarterback than a defensive shield. 

Start of this season under Cocu we had a back 4 and 2 cdm pivots (bird and Rooney) who were attempting to be playmakers. We lost lots and Blackburn waltzed through to score 4.

Now we set up with 3 cbs, plus 2 alleged wing backs who in reality don't get forward much more than standard full backs. Our 2cdms are now Shinnie and knight who are scrappers rather than playmakers. 

My belief is that the team have become set up progressively more defensively. Presumably as we have failed to keep clean sheets. Whilst this approach has to some extent shored up our goals conceded, it has weakened our midfield and completely detached our front 2/3 which has crippled our goal scoring. 

[brady1993]

9 minutes ago, Van der MoodHoover said:

Start of this season under Cocu we had a back 4 and 2 cdm pivots (bird and Rooney) who were attempting to be playmakers. We lost lots and Blackburn waltzed through to score 4.

This isn't entirely accurate. We only ever set up this with a double pivot of Bird and Rooney in 1 and half games (second half at Luton and Blackburn). It's also worthwhile noting there was a fair amount of chopping and changing both in midfield positions and at the back. It's also worth highlighting that Rooney came back really unfit.

 

11 minutes ago, Van der MoodHoover said:

Now we set up with 3 cbs, plus 2 alleged wing backs who in reality don't get forward much more than standard full backs. Our 2cdms are now Shinnie and knight who are scrappers rather than playmakers. 

My belief is that the team have become set up progressively more defensively. Presumably as we have failed to keep clean sheets. Whilst this approach has to some extent shored up our goals conceded, it has weakened our midfield and completely detached our front 2/3 which has crippled our goal scoring. 

I'd almost completely agree with that other than the why. I think shoring up post Blackburn going into Norwich makes some sense but the thing that nags me from that time is following Blackburn there was talk that some of the players and coaching staff strongly suggested we play in a "style more suited to the championship". Which could be easily interpreted as being more pragmatic and playing the %s more especially with the personal who came more to the fore following this. 

What I find interesting is that as a style (if you can call it that) has arguably been pursued somewhat dogmatically post Rooney formally taking over with a big emphasis on "matching" or "stopping" the opponent all the while the record in front of goal never really improving. Which I suspect comes from in part fear and partly a lack of an idea what we should coach towards given the complete lack of experience in the coaching staff. There is an element of trying to be clever tactically for the sake of it.

I think the trend towards an increase in defensive minded players is more philisophical driven than it is based on how we've actually defended or the results. In fact I'd argue a large part of why we've looked increasingly more defensively rocky recently is there has been so much shifting around back there to pursue that aforementioned philosophy.