Where's the problem - defence or attack?

[canary cherub 1]

As things stand we''re the 11th highest scorers in the Championship.  We''ve even scored more goals than Birmingham.

But only two clubs (Charlton and Watford) have conceded more.

Can it really be that simple?

 

[hoodace76 0]

i was gutted to see that after the 4-0 bashing that we were still on -7 goal difference...IMO its the defence that we need to shore up!

[colneycanary 0]

You only have to look at Tuesday night match against the Saints. Terrible defending yet again cost us 2 very valuble points! The defence this season has been a shambles!

[Sheffield uni Canary 0]

Yeh the defence needs sorting we are conceding far too many soft goals, just like Southampton''s second goal on tuesday

[Mister Chops 7]

The problem is it''s simply too easy to get through us, either by attacking the full backs (neither of whom have been good this season) or by splitting the centre backs with a reasonably simple pass.

[Show Me What You Gooot! 0]

Wheres the problem?

The board

(Someone was going to say it)

[Mr. T 0]

have to agree, we could di with a whole back four

[Yellowbeagle 0]

Most succesful teams are built on a solid defence, you would have thought when Glen Roeder came in being a centre back in his playing days he would have wanted to get the defence sorted first, instead he built a midfield which imo is pretty decent but almost completely neglected the back four and front two. For us to scrape out of this mess we have got to become tougher to get through at the back, one recognised fit centre back at a club the size of ours is nothing short of a disgrace. If we could have stopped just 10 of the stupid goals going in this season we might well have been just outside the playoffs instead of fighting relegation.

[missing in action? 0]

look at it this wayscore 4 but concede 5 = NO POINTSscore none but concede none = at least 1 point''anything after that is building on attack.

[Bungay Canary 0]

look at the  stats for tuesday   attemps on target Southampton 3 Norwich 8  score 2-2 draw you''re  own conclustions is it front or back

[delboycanary 0]

I think the problem is at the back . I had hoped gunn would go for 3 centre backs and let bertrand and semmy play up a little , let hoolahan and crofty play higher and swap over

[djc 0]

[quote user="Bungay Canary"]look at the  stats for tuesday   attemps on target Southampton 3 Norwich 8  score 2-2 draw you''re  own conclustions is it front or back[/quote]

Both. Defence cant keep out 2 of the Saints 3 poor efforts. And up front only 2 scored out of 8, yet the other 6 chances did not trouble their keepr greatly. Also, you missed the 95 minutes of off-side decisions........

[Beauseant 0]

Quite simply its both. With the exception of Doc the back four are poor defensively, but we equally need a big forward for (preferably ) Lupoli to play off. Russell is awful up front and Cureton misses more than he scores, which is not what a true goalscorer does.

[Yellowbeagle 0]

[quote user="djc"]

[quote user="Bungay Canary"]look at the  stats for tuesday   attemps on target Southampton 3 Norwich 8  score 2-2 draw you''re  own conclustions is it front or back[/quote]

Both. Defence cant keep out 2 of the Saints 3 poor efforts. And up front only 2 scored out of 8, yet the other 6 chances did not trouble their keepr greatly. Also, you missed the 95 minutes of off-side decisions........

[/quote]

Even the top teams like chelsea dont convert say 1 in 2 chances, 1 in 4 is not that bad and i dont remember that many really clear cut chances apart from the cureton one, but if you get two goals at home to a poor team you should be able to hold on. We do need a striker but we''re not going to get the level of striker in that will shoot us out of trouble while the defence looks so dodgy. The cheaper option would be to sort out the back four.

[Forever Norwich 0]

Both need a decent right back decent partner with doc

and as for attack a proven goalscorer or atleast a decent big man unlike carl cort!

[grantroederdisaster 0]

Both!

 

The Doc needs a decent partner, Grounds isn''t the person!

 

Up front we''re playing a central midfielder out of position!

[hogesar 9,673]

[quote user="Beauseant"]Quite simply its both. With the exception of Doc the back four are poor defensively, but we equally need a big forward for (preferably ) Lupoli to play off. Russell is awful up front and Cureton misses more than he scores, which is not what a true goalscorer does.[/quote]Russell isn''t awful, but admittedly it isn''t his preferred position for a reason. It''s a question of Cureton or Lupoli. I guess it comes down to who would you want on the end of a through ball one-on-one with the keeper, because they both offer very little else to the team in terms of defence etc.The Doc is a good defender, but lacks pace. I think we need a left footed central defender with height but a bit of pace too, which may be asking for too much. I seriously do not think Semmy defends well enough to be a full-back. If we were playing him as a wing-back he might be more effective. He also doesn''t seem to realise the amount of pace he has, and some of his decision making is very poor. Bertrand / Drury can do a solid enough job at left back i think.

[Branston Pickle 3,659]

IMO we clearly need a better defence, and if it had to be a straight choice of either a defender or a striker it would definitely be the former (though I''d still want both!).   We are not actually having that much of a problem scoring, 11th in the league for goals scored is fair enough but could be better, but to be in the bottom 3 for goals conceded is atrocious.  Good sides are almost always built on sound defence, and that is something we''ve simply not had since our relegation season.

Actually, to put into context how leaky our defence is, compare this season to our title winning season: we let in 39 in that entire league season - this season we passed that figure after just 25 games played....not at all good. 

[Aussie Canary 0]

We need a solid regualr pairing at the back, however the full backs have been very inconsistent this year.

As for upfront - Again a regular partnership is needed, does not neccesarily mean little/large but the team has to play to the front pairings strengths.