Today’s games

[Gibbo 131]

Going back to the point about the Swansea defence, I do feel we'd likely have the meanest defence had Krul not been injured.  

[Crabbycanary3 994]

2 minutes ago, Gibbo said:

Going back to the point about the Swansea defence, I do feel we'd likely have the meanest defence had Krul not been injured.  

What goals conceded could you attribute to the keepers we had in, when Krul was absent?

We currently have the 3rd best defence, and Swansea have played a game less, and Watford have some really hard games to play. 

We may well end up having the meanest defence over the whole season

[Branston Pickle 3,635]

It is certainly true that the run without Krul - where to be fair we had most of a side out - we did seem to concede a fair few.  I’m not necessarily putting the blame on McGovern but we let in 2 at Stoke (more Emi’s fault for being red carded) and 3 at Luton (few fit players!).

Edited February 27, 2021 by Branston Pickle

[AJ 1,218]

Whilst today has certainly not been bad for us, we just concentrate on our own games and get the business done. That's what I liked best about Farke, he has his targets to hit and we won't look back until we've breached those 90 required. 

Re the post above, I certainly think Krul is mighty important, both in terms of in the dressing room and on the pitch. He was badly missed, and McGovern is a bit flappy when it comes to the basics sometimes. It's fair to say our GD would have been a bit better across the games he has missed. Gibson has been a sensational signing as well

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

10 minutes ago, Crabbycanary3 said:

What goals conceded could you attribute to the keepers we had in, when Krul was absent?

Krul is a leader at the back though. Yes there is not much you could fault McGovern for when looking at his efforts at a surface level, but I think there is an intangible aspect in how much our defence values Krul’s presence when he is in - which we missed dearly without him. It visibly shook the team when Krul got injured in that Stoke game! It’s no coincidence we conceded goals at a higher rate during that spell of games than both before and after! 

[Crabbycanary3 994]

1 minute ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

Krul is a leader at the back though. Yes there is not much you could fault McGovern for when looking at his efforts at a surface level, but I think there is an intangible aspect in how much our defence values Krul’s presence when he is in - which we missed dearly without him. It visibly shook the team when Krul got injured in that Stoke game! It’s no coincidence we conceded goals at a higher rate during that spell of games than both before and after! 

I agree about Krul being a leader, but I am on about just goals conceded and I genuinely do not know how many goals were conceded that were directly McGovern's (or Barden's) fault

[pete 318]

Mcgovern only blatantly at fault for Luton's second goal, failed to clear setting up Hanley hand ball which was due to being pushed by cheating Luton player

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

Just now, Crabbycanary3 said:

I agree about Krul being a leader, but I am on about just goals conceded and I genuinely do not know how many goals were conceded that were directly McGovern's (or Barden's) fault

Yes I agree, nothing directly their fault (the Watford goal was pretty poor by McGovern but that’s about it).

Just having a look at the stats-

With Krul in goal, we have conceded 12 goals in 22 games.

Without Krul in goal, we have conceded 11 goals in 10 games.

So we concede double the goals without the big man at the back. That’s not a criticism of the other GKs either - more to say how just good Krul is for us. We clearly defend much better as a team with him there.

Whether that’s his experience, leadership, organisation, presence, kicking, commandment of the box - we don’t know - but probably a combination of all of the above!

But I would agree from a shot stopping perspective I don’t really think Krul would’ve saved much if any goals that McGovern let in. However I do think in those games we’d have defended better overall with Krul in goal and probably not been put in those same situations as much.

 

[Pukki Blinders 96]

Definitely a good day, will take 2 of the 3 teams directly below us losing every week!

Now even if Swansea win both their games in hand (which isn't looking likely given their inconsistent form recently), they'll be 5 points behind us. Brentford 7 points and Watford 10. If we can beat Brentford on Wednesday, and win tomorrow as well obviously, then it would take a massive collapse from us to not go up automatically.

[Gibbo 131]

Yeah, it wasn't a pop st McGovern or Barden, both did a good job of filling the void after a slightly shakey start.

More that Krul adds something extra and and us probably worth 0.5 goals per game over 95% of other keepers in the champ or bottom half 8f the prem.

[cambridgeshire canary 6,675]

2 hours ago, pete said:

Mcgovern only blatantly at fault for Luton's second goal, failed to clear setting up Hanley hand ball which was due to being pushed by cheating Luton player

I tend to have critisized Mcgovern in the past but in his defence when he replaced Krul earlier in the season he was great

[Petriix 2,834]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that a number of the goals that we've conceded have occurred very shortly after one of our players has been fouled but the referee has inexplicably not given it. We're incredibly good defensively and have struck a balance between attack and defence better than any other team; that's why we're top of the league.

We're particularly good at transitioning from defence to attack and create significantly more chances than anyone else. The main criticism is that we somehow contrive to miss a high proportion of the chances we create. Thankfully our profligacy is not costing us significantly because we're still winning more games than anyone else.

You could criticise our defence over the last couple of seasons (although I would lay the blame squarely in the midfield) but, this season, we're so incredibly much better defensively that it's nonsensical to have a go at the defensive unit. We've sold ~ £40M of defenders and somehow improved. That's pretty exceptional management.

[Alex Moss 2,165]

Any Norwich City ‘supporters’ still want to call Brentford the ‘best team in the division’? Y’know, the same team that spent the first couple of months trying to get out of 15th place?

How utterly embarrassing.

Their bang average defence is far from solid against even the weaker Championship sides. They’re in for a rude awakening on Wednesday. Massively.