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Yellow Rider

What about the defence?

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All the talk (and hope) from many fans is ''right sided midfielder'', ''big target man'', ''central midfielder'' and ''right back''. Now I tend to agree with most of those but surely we are all missing the crucial area of the back five as whole where we are decidedly dodgy and have been for last 84 games!

Look at the facts:

Last season - conceded 77, we had the worst defensive record of all 20 clubs both home and away. FACT 

This season - conceded 65!!, 40 of which were away from home. Only Crewe conceded more on their travels. FACT

Robert Green has played in 80 of those 84 games. FACT (although he went off after about 60 mins. at Charlton last season).

Any cursory glance at those appalling stats. should be sufficient reason alone to say goodbye to NW but as we know he (somehow) continues to survive.  

Why is it that Green seems to carry no responsibilty for this appalling record? He has never been dropped in the last two years, clearly does not want to be here (IMO) and is also (again IMO) a shadow of the outstanding keeper he was developing into in the promotion season. Sure there is still the occasional point blank reflex save or acrobatic tip over but has his distribution improved? Has his anticipation on crosses or coming off his line improved? I leave others to judge.

The reasons for the terrible defensive record are many and varied and it would be unfair for Greeno to be singled out but then he never is, is he? We all know the conveyor belt of players tried at right back, we know of the different combinations of Flem, Charlie, Doc and Shacks in the middle and Drury / Charlie at left back. Worthy has tried to find the right combination in the back four (with no success I might add) but has NEVER dropped Green in these last two miserable years. Why not?

PG has shown enough to suggest he is a perfectly adequate replacement so why was he not tried until Worthy was FORCED into it with the Green injury?  

As for the back four itself:

Clearly louie-jean was unlucky with his very serious inury. Is he likely to fully recover from that? Jurgen has struggled positionally and Flem is just a stopper who is ok with no-one to mark but gets taken to the cleaners by any left sided attacker with pace.

The Doc is steady but no-more than that. Shacks has potential but has (IMO) not been adequately coached re his right foot - watch him, he is TOTALLY left footed and needlessly concedes corners, throw ins etc. when the situation requires basic use of his right foot / leg. Sorry, but that fundamental flaw is inhibiting his develpoment and is a BASIC coaching issue. Don''t get me wrong, I was one of the first to call for Shacks (last summer) only to be treated with derision on this board as ''he''s too young'', ''he''s never played in the Premiership'' etc.

Now that JB and Charlie have gone there is no left back cover (unless you use Rossi Jarvis?).

In summary, we may have to buy at least one if not two keepers this summer. PG is likely to go to Scotland whilst Worthy will desperately try to hang on to a disillusioned Green presumably?  Only Flem is first team cover for centre back (which is a worry!).

Given this sorry state of affairs, the priority for Worthy (or any new manager) MUST be to strengthen the entire back five. If we continue to ship goals then it doesn''t matter how many strikers or midfielders we buy does it? Keep the backdoor shut and you can build from there. 

 

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i do agree. i mean, look at preston, they''ve got an amazing defensive record. only 30 goals conceded. if you do that, your basically going to be top 6.

at the moment, i think if we get a new right-back, or MLJ turns out to be good and gallacher is kept, then i think gallacher, drury, doc, shacks, MLJ could be a good back 5 for next season.

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Fair points made here.

It''s freshing to hear that other fans feel that Green has to take some of the blame, though as you''ve metioned, it''s not all his fault.

Green has become almost a critical free zone and I don''t know why this has become so. He doesn''t want to be here - FACT - and the team has partly suffered as a result. Worthington has dropped him in the past and he came back a better ''keeper, but has played every game since ( when fit ).

Worthington hasn''t put the pressure on Green in the last couple of seasons. By refusing to drop him, he has become complacent and has an air of apathy about him.

There will be better times for Rob Green, but sadly not at Carrow Road...

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I agree the defence needs strengthening Rider.  We could really do with some real pace at the back, we could then hopefully say goodbye to watching Doherty "cuddling" opposition strikers to death

I do think it''s unfair though to rest the blame with Green and the defence on a whole and the problem is deep rooted in the whole team not just the back five.  Although Green conceded the most goals in the Premiership last season, I am pretty certain he also made the most saves.  If teams are getting in shot after shot in on your goal, sooner or later you are going to concede.  Again this season we have conceded a lot of chances, including at home so it''s not surprising we have conceded a lot of goals.  Shots equals goals, simple as that.

I agree the defence needs strengthening Rider.  We could really do with some real pace at the back, we could then hopefully say goodbye to watching Doherty "cuddling" opposition strikers to death

I do think it''s unfair though to rest the blame with Green and the defence on a whole and the problem is deep rooted in the whole team not just the back five.  Although Green conceded the most goals in the Premiership last season, I am pretty certain he also made the most saves.  If teams are getting in shot after shot in on your goal, sooner or later you are going to concede.  Again this season we have conceded a lot of chances, including at home so it''s not surprising we have conceded a lot of goals.  Shots equals goals, simple as that.

I think part of the problem of our poor defensive record is our midfield, who continually sit deep and force the defence back.  The opposition can get a long way into our half before they meet any resistance and this is something that after 5 years I can only assume is the way Worthy wants it.  This causes us so many problems.  The fact that the midfield and defence are so close together means a lot of time the only outlet is the long ball up field which generally results in the ball coming straight back up field and us being under pressure.  We also find it hard to pick up runs from deep from the opposition.  Example being McBride for Fulham last year, Francis thought Shackell had him and Shackell thought Francis had him.  Why, because they were no more than a few yards apart.

The bottom line for me is that throughout the whole team there appears to be a lack of organisation defensively.  You don''t need 11 world class players to be organised and I can''t believe Worthy has struggled so much to get the team to play as a team and not 11 players.  Therein lies the problem for me, a lot could be done with the defence if the team worked better as a unit.

 

 

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I can offer some reasons for the poor defensive reord:1) No-one takes charge - a task that Malky used to do well. Coordination is lacking and some drift out of position.2) Either the training is inadequate, players memories poor, or panic sets in - perhaps all three. It should not be too difficult to develop a defensive sytem that is difficult to break down. A lot of teams weaker than ours achieve this - we are just among the poorest at it. 3) The midfield is weak, and takes little pressure off the defence. Hoofball is a reflection, in part, of the midfield absence or lack of coherence. How many times this season have we seen a four man midfield overrun our three, and come through with little opposition?4) Our defence, and midfield with the ex eption of Safri, back off instead of tackling. All too often it''s a last-ditch wrestling contest with our POTS, and free-kicks on the edge of the area.5) One of our worst failures is that we create very little from set-pieces, free kicks and corners, and we are very bad at defending against them. Do they work out a strategy during training, or do they forget or panic?Perhaps we lack one or two top class defenders like Davenport, but even with what we have I am disappointed that we do not seem to have evolved a system which the players can junderstand. Perhaps a new manager?

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IMO...

We need a new right back. Gary Doherty isn''t good enough and needs to be replaced. Drury is OK. Shackell has potential but needs a pacey, clever partner to help him out.

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For me the two seasons had distinctly different problems.

Last season we had Flem & Eddy playing above their level and were found wanting far too frequently, yet playedin teh vast majority of games.  The manager failed to identify or rectify these issues and tried every combination of central defender except the one who was most out of his depth.   This was compounded by having Holt in midfield for far too long - like the first two, a hard working honest player who was out of his depth, and tactically leaving huge gaps in front of left back by playing huckerby as a midfielder. This left us vulnerable through the middle and down both flanks.  We also struggled to deal with the real of pace of prem forwards until Shackell was picked.

This season for me the only issue with the defence for me has been one of over exposure.  Froma  defensive point of view the midfield has provided not sheild unless Safri has played.  The hucks situation remains and decent managers watching last year match of the day exploited it this season.   In addition they found we had no barrier in central midfield for a huge number of games as the likes of JJ,Etuhu, Hughes and Robinson were too lightweight.   On the right flank they either found no one in their way (Hughes performance away at reading will haunt me and Jurgen Colin for years) or at best an out of position central midfielder (Jarretts first half against Millwall) or another striker recreating the huckerby syndrome on the right - good going forward but the death of to many full backs.

I do think all our defenders have played ok given the enormous workload they have faced - all our full backs have been overexposed week in week out, meaning too many crosses coming in, meaning our central defenders will eventually be caught ouo under weight of numbers.   On top of this theyhave faced rampaging central midfielders walking through the side (as early as the home game against crewe) causing out numbering situations.

I do agree that the defensive approach we take does not help - we defend too deep and continually back off until the 18 yard line; that seems to be the modern coaching certificated style.  Yes our defenders do get dragged out of shape and yes we can do with more pace in the middle.   Having said that apart from the classy Lescott (£4m rated) and a battling Purse  the only other defensive partnrship that impressed me more than our own was Prestons - where the players have now been partners for a couple of seasons.

The number of goals conceeding is shocking but a huge number were in ''capitulation games'' when the whole side gave up hope. 

I remain less concerned about our defence at this level that I do about our tactical approach and the composition of our midfield - if we can get the latter sorted and stocked by real midfielders rather than converted strikers or defenders then I am confident our defenders will keep more clean sheets next season.

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