Here's a (tactical) idea for you Wayne...

[Jimbo Ram]

16 minutes ago, Warwick Ram said:

We should play 3 - 5 - 2 wiry Byrne and Buchanan as the wing backs. We then have Forsyth and Ebolese as back ups. Play Cashin with Davies and Jagielka or even Bird in a back three. Then a midfield three of Knight, Morrison and Shinne (until Bielik is back) with Baldock and Stretton up front (until Kazim is back).

This keeps us defensively secure with more attacking threat as we have two up top. Morrison and Knight would be free to push on with Shinnie covering.

I agree about 3 at the back ?

[DavesaRam]

46 minutes ago, Jimbo Ram said:

I agree about 3 at the back ?

Unfortunately Steve Gibson won't let us play Cashin.

[sage]

On 11/09/2021 at 09:45, jimtastic56 said:

Talking of tactics , I didn’t understand what Bird was doing half way between Curtis and Buchannon. Both goals came from Bird giving passes to players under pressure instead of taking responsibility himself .

Buchanan wasn't under pressure and to blame him for thr 2nd is laughable.  

Edited September 12, 2021 by sage

[jono]

On 10/09/2021 at 22:27, RoyMac5 said:

What doesn't work is no threat up front. #simples

True mate . But just for the record .. I hate 2 DM’s especially when one is Max Bird who is far better employed driving forward cos he’s a bright lad with some talent to offer 

[Jimbo Ram]

45 minutes ago, DavesaRam said:

Unfortunately Steve Gibson won't let us play Cashin.

Stearman ?

[Gee SCREAMER !!]

48 minutes ago, sage said:

Buchanan wasn't under pressure and to blame him for thr 2nd is laughable.  

He wasn't. He actually had time to trap, put it on the other foot and turn the player and move it forward.  It was just crap defending and Davies couldn't cover it in time as he's 100 years old bless him.

[Carl Sagan]

On 10/09/2021 at 22:16, IslandExile said:

Play the full backs in defence.

If you want to play them further forward, as wing backs if you will, then play three central defenders.

This tactic of the two central midfielders covering for the full backs doesn't work. They're coming from a central area, so cannot cut out the run down the wing and the cross into the area. Jagielka and Davies are way too exposed.

I used to laugh that you never saw Roberto Carlos of Brazil ever appearing in his own half. We're not Brazil and Nathan Byrne, much as I like him, is no Roberto.

I'd like to see Byrne's heat map, showing his average position. I did see, time and time again, Birmingham attacks down their left and wondering where the flip is our Nathan? Only for the camera to pan out and, oh there he is, in their half, while they're attacking our goal.

I'm not blaming Byrne. That's the well documented tactic.

It just doesn't work.

4-4-2, 4-2-3-1, 5-3-2, 3-4-3

Take your pick of formation.

But please, no more 2-2-5-1.

I recognize this doesn't address the OP which is about defence, though for me the biggest defensive issue is the crazy way we always try to play "risk and reward" and then, once we've taken the risk and broken our opponent's line, we don't even bother trying to claim the reward but instead turn backwards and start taking risks again. But that's partly because we don't have enough attacking players to hit. What we need if we're going to survive this season is to have much more of an attacking threat, and play to the strengths of our attacking players. And for that I would take 4-3-3 every time:

Roos

Byrne     Jagielka     Davies     Buchanan

Ravel

Sibley     Knight

Jozwiak    Stretton    Lawrence

Subs: Allsopp Stearman Forsyth Bird Watson Shinnie Baldock 

with Bielik coming into Ravel's place once fit and Ravel moved further forward.

[Chester40]

12 hours ago, i-Ram said:

You are being far too sensitive Chester. I was simply grandstanding.

I call your grandstanding... And raise you a posturing with feigned indignation in an attempt to claim the moral highground. 

[DCFC27]

3 hours ago, sage said:

Buchanan wasn't under pressure and to blame him for thr 2nd is laughable.  

He does have a point. Bird all too often plays it sideways instead of turning and playing forwards. Eventually someone gets it under a bit of pressure and the ball goes astray. I’d much rather play the ball forward and loose it than play lots of balls sideways until we loose it. 
In the words of Paul Scholes if you’re going to play in midfield you can’t pass the ball backwards. 
If you play in midfield you have to have enough about you to play the ball forwards 80-90% of your passes. Bird has all the attributes to be a good midfielder he just needs to work out why he’s on the pitch. It is not to keep possession.

Bird isn’t the only one there are others but he is the most frustrating as he could actually do it with the ability he has. 

[We'll be back in 81]

4 hours ago, Warwick Ram said:

We should play 3 - 5 - 2 wiry Byrne and Buchanan as the wing backs. We then have Forsyth and Ebolese as back ups. Play Cashin with Davies and Jagielka or even Bird in a back three. Then a midfield three of Knight, Morrison and Shinne (until Bielik is back) with Baldock and Stretton up front (until Kazim is back).

This keeps us defensively secure with more attacking threat as we have two up top. Morrison and Knight would be free to push on with Shinnie covering.

Agree with this Warwick Ram, not sure about Bird in a back three maybe Stearman. Yeh at the moment the double wingers on each side only have one to aim at in the middle so just go back inside or backwards and across the field so very little chances created. Two up top would encourage the wing backs to cross more. I believe the above system would create more chances.

[sage]

8 minutes ago, DCFC27 said:

He does have a point. Bird all too often plays it sideways instead of turning and playing forwards. Eventually someone gets it under a bit of pressure and the ball goes astray. I’d much rather play the ball forward and loose it than play lots of balls sideways until we loose it. 
In the words of Paul Scholes if you’re going to play in midfield you can’t pass the ball backwards. 
If you play in midfield you have to have enough about you to play the ball forwards 80-90% of your passes. Bird has all the attributes to be a good midfielder he just needs to work out why he’s on the pitch. It is not to keep possession.

Bird isn’t the only one there are others but he is the most frustrating as he could actually do it with the ability he has. 

You can only pass it forwards when someone is available. He once again played the best ball of the game to Lawrence who slightly overhit his pass to Baldock.  

[DCFC27]

3 minutes ago, sage said:

You can only pass it forwards when someone is available. He once again played the best ball of the game to Lawrence who slightly overhit his pass to Baldock.  

Has to do it more often I’m afraid. The passes are almost always there too! It’s so frustrating watching, so often they’ll be a man free in midfield but he doesn’t trust himself to make it. 
 

When he played as a number 10 last season I did feel he looked more confident to make those passes but when he’s deep he just pickes it up and passes around the back 4. 

Im tempted to post some frames of him in possession to share as it really is frustrating.

[sage]

16 minutes ago, DCFC27 said:

Has to do it more often I’m afraid. The passes are almost always there too! It’s so frustrating watching, so often they’ll be a man free in midfield but he doesn’t trust himself to make it. 
 

When he played as a number 10 last season I did feel he looked more confident to make those passes but when he’s deep he just pickes it up and passes around the back 4. 

Im tempted to post some frames of him in possession to share as it really is frustrating.

I refer you to my earlier answer 

[i-Ram]

1 hour ago, Chester40 said:

I call your grandstanding... And raise you a posturing with feigned indignation in an attempt to claim the moral highground. 

 

[Rich84]

As much as Byrne can be a threat in the opposition half he gets caught out defensively too often, even the 2nd goal for Brum, yes it was unlucky that Sibley's tackle ended up a pass, but Byrne is always too slow to recover his position and jogs back, he was 10 yrds behind the man he should have been marking, as soon as Brum won the ball because their fullback was alert to the pass that our guy (can't remember who) was on his heels for, he should have been sprinting back to his defensive position.

I've said before, "nothing good ever comes from passing back" to the keeper, and the 1st goal was a killer on Friday, up until then i thought we'd been ok, no goal threat with Baldock (why didn't he shoot when free in their box?), but had been playing it around quite well, small margins though, if Buchanan had opened his body up when he received the pass he would have been looking fwds and able to move fwds or play the ball down the line, but our FBs too often are facing the edge of our area when they receive the ball, meaning the CH and keeper are the only options,  and when your senior pro points back to the keeper to tell him where to pass it isn't hard for the opposition to gamble and intercept, or put Roos under pressure instantly.

Passing it around at the back won't work until Bielik is back or we recognise Shinnie can't be 1 of the 2 Centre midfielders, he's not good enough technically so it limits the out ball, hence we just recycle it across the backline.

 

[Warwick Ram]

11 hours ago, hiltonram said:

Agree with this Warwick Ram, not sure about Bird in a back three maybe Stearman. Yeh at the moment the double wingers on each side only have one to aim at in the middle so just go back inside or backwards and across the field so very little chances created. Two up top would encourage the wing backs to cross more. I believe the above system would create more chances.

My only reason for not selecting Stearman is we need cover for Davies or Jagielka. On reflection I would opt for Forsyth as our third centre half and use Dylan Williams as cover for Buchanan. 
I think Bird could play there with Davies and Jagielka to learn from.

[brady1993]

16 hours ago, sage said:

Buchanan wasn't under pressure and to blame him for thr 2nd is laughable.  

It's such a weird take to blame Bird's pass for those two goals but there are some interesting to things to observe in the passing leading up to those goals.

First Goal:

• Davies gets the ball has three options: Easy ball to Bird, slightly harder ball to Buchanan, harder ball back inside to Shinnie. He takes the easy option and the easy to read option in Bird.
• Bird gets the ball and is immediately under pressure. As a quick look forwards and sees there is no option forwards (presumably because Lawrence hasn't gotten into space) so knocks the ball to Buchanan in plenty of space and continues his movement to drag his markers with him.
• Buchanan takes the ball,  steps inside to create room and look for a forwards pass to a midfielder... that is flat on his heels in Shinnie and not moving in a way to give an easy pass. Here comes the mistake and I actually don't think in this instance he's looking to pass it back to Roos, I think he's looking for Davies. He passes blindly to where he expects Davies to be but isn't
• Fractions earlier Davies indicates for Buchanan to go back to Roos and then essentially switches off (this is clear from how caught out he is when things go wrong here). Really what he needs to be doing is pulling into the gaping space to give Buchanan another option rather than passing on the responsibility.  

Second Goal:

• Bird gets the ball looks up to see little movement aside from a long ball down the side to Buchanan which may or may not come off (as these balls often don't). Instead goes for the 1-2 with Lawrence who's in space and in order to create space further up the pitch.
• Lawrence instead attempts to drive the ball down the line to Buchanan who's already made his run. This is probably the wrong option given that the pass needs to be excellent to hit Buchanan in that moment. So we lose possession.
• But to stress in this instance we give away possession 60 yards away from goal with around 5-6 players still in a possesion to get back and defend. This goal was down to poor defending more than anything. If you want to blame anyone here ask why is Byrne just ambling back and letting a player get a free run into the box.

[sage]

4 hours ago, brady1993 said:

It's such a weird take to blame Bird's pass for those two goals but there are some interesting to things to observe in the passing leading up to those goals.

First Goal:

• Davies gets the ball has three options: Easy ball to Bird, slightly harder ball to Buchanan, harder ball back inside to Shinnie. He takes the easy option and the easy to read option in Bird.
• Bird gets the ball and is immediately under pressure. As a quick look forwards and sees there is no option forwards (presumably because Lawrence hasn't gotten into space) so knocks the ball to Buchanan in plenty of space and continues his movement to drag his markers with him.
• Buchanan takes the ball,  steps inside to create room and look for a forwards pass to a midfielder... that is flat on his heels in Shinnie and not moving in a way to give an easy pass. Here comes the mistake and I actually don't think in this instance he's looking to pass it back to Roos, I think he's looking for Davies. He passes blindly to where he expects Davies to be but isn't
• Fractions earlier Davies indicates for Buchanan to go back to Roos and then essentially switches off (this is clear from how caught out he is when things go wrong here). Really what he needs to be doing is pulling into the gaping space to give Buchanan another option rather than passing on the responsibility.  

Second Goal:

• Bird gets the ball looks up to see little movement aside from a long ball down the side to Buchanan which may or may not come off (as these balls often don't). Instead goes for the 1-2 with Lawrence who's in space and in order to create space further up the pitch.
• Lawrence instead attempts to drive the ball down the line to Buchanan who's already made his run. This is probably the wrong option given that the pass needs to be excellent to hit Buchanan in that moment. So we lose possession.
• But to stress in this instance we give away possession 60 yards away from goal with around 5-6 players still in a possesion to get back and defend. This goal was down to poor defending more than anything. If you want to blame anyone here ask why is Byrne just ambling back and letting a player get a free run into the box.

I would add the second occurred when we were chasing the game, so there was bound to be an element t of risk in our play.

[Derby blood]

21 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

I recognize this doesn't address the OP which is about defence, though for me the biggest defensive issue is the crazy way we always try to play "risk and reward" and then, once we've taken the risk and broken our opponent's line, we don't even bother trying to claim the reward but instead turn backwards and start taking risks again. But that's partly because we don't have enough attacking players to hit. What we need if we're going to survive this season is to have much more of an attacking threat, and play to the strengths of our attacking players. And for that I would take 4-3-3 every time:

Roos

Byrne     Jagielka     Davies     Buchanan

Ravel

Sibley     Knight

Jozwiak    Stretton    Lawrence

Subs: Allsopp Stearman Forsyth Bird Watson Shinnie Baldock 

with Bielik coming into Ravel's place once fit and Ravel moved further forward.

Don't think Forsyth will be on the bench mate, he is suspended still. Will miss him as well, as WBA like to pump the ball into the box. 

[Derby blood]

Sorry wrong thread thought i was in the WBA away one lol