Hughton comments

[St.John Cooper 0]

"At the moment, as a team, we''re not defending well enough."

Stating the obvious I feel, what I want to know CH is what are you doing about it, why are we not defending well enough and when will we keep a clean sheet?  

OTBC

 

PS our team has been so unsettled this year it is as if he does not know his best 11

 

 

[Jacko 0]

I haven''t got an issue with Hughton changing the team depending on form and tactics. Did we ever keep the same starting XI last year under Lambert for more than a couple of matches? So I am not really sure how the team can be unsettled. It must be something they are very used to after last season.

[St.John Cooper 0]

Cambridge, I understand changing a team for tactics but I do not think this is what is happening, I think its changing as he simply does not know, i mean there were 5 changes this week?

[Jacko 0]

I think to be fair to him. Last week against Liverpool was so abject that he really had to make some wholesale changes to send out the message to those that played it wasn''t an acceptable performance. It also wouldn''t have sent out a particularly good message to other squad members if they still couldn''t get a game after last week.

[St.John Cooper 0]

so after another abject performence what does he do now?

[Jacko 0]

That is a very good question St John and one I have absolutely no idea of the answer to. But you see why he had to make the changes after last week.

[morty 0]

Put his boots on and play himself?Seriously what do you expect?

[Mister Chops 7]

The performance yesterday, away at the league leaders & European champions, was an improvement on the Liverpool game and I don''t think we were "abject", though we defended poorly.We need to get through the Arsenal game and then tuck into the following 3 games - if we don''t get a win before this month is out, it will be a bleak season.

[Yellowbeagle 0]

I dont think any fan could agree on a best starting 11, this was something thrown at Lambert aswell. The problem isnt the starting 11 it''s about how they go about playing the matches and set up against the opposition. Worringly we seem defensively weaker if anything than we did last season and it''s not because poorer players are playing, imo alot of it is stemming from the fact teams arnt having to worry about us in a attacking threat as much.

[a1canary 0]

Graeme the Sauce had some interesting comments on R5 yesterday.

That was that we were far too deep and leaving far too much space for their midfielders to run in to, not pressing them up the pitch like we so often did last year. If we don''t fix that very quickly i''ll be fearing the worst. We looked good with the ball yesterday, terrible without it.

I don''t know why people are surprised he doesn''t know his best team yet though. We''re still finding out which players and formations work best. We didnt know if Tettey would be a first choice but he looks like he might be now. Hooly wasn''t first choice in the early games but maybe he is now. Barnett was but I can see him being dropped soon just as Lambert did. We have an almost baffling array of options in midfield it hurts my head trying to work them all out so I think it is going to take a long time to work out which our best ones are. Whatever they are though it won''t matter if we''re not set up right on the pitch. I just hope we see some improvements in our play without the ball.

[Highland Canary 76]

Poor not abject yesterday. I guess for Hughton he needs to stop us leaking 3+ against both Arsenal and Villa. I honestly can''t see us beating Stoke - I think a draw most likely. Reading - they''ll be under pressure as well so that might go either way. My best guess 2 more points before December''s games.

[Hooleyfan 0]

[quote user="Yellowbeagle"]I dont think any fan could agree on a best starting 11, this was something thrown at Lambert aswell. The problem isnt the starting 11 it''s about how they go about playing the matches and set up against the opposition. Worringly we seem defensively weaker if anything than we did last season and it''s not because poorer players are playing, imo alot of it is stemming from the fact teams arnt having to worry about us in a attacking threat as much.[/quote]

A good point...Holt up front on his own was not going to preoccupy all the back line, and with Cole and Ivanovic getting forward so much they were spoilt with attacking options

[York Canary 28]

[quote user="St.John Cooper"]

"At the moment, as a team, we''re not defending well enough."

Stating the obvious I feel, what I want to know CH is what are you doing about it, why are we not defending well enough and when will we keep a clean sheet?  

OTBC

 

PS our team has been so unsettled this year it is as if he does not know his best 11

 

 

[/quote]

 

Already have. But we need more

[Salopian 1]

Last season we managed to keep goal-bound efforts out by good blocking and the best blockers were perhaps Ward, Matin and Bennett, R. This year we seem to be adopting the policy of "two lines of four in defence", to keep opponents at a distance. It could be that with not over-quick defenders the two lines prevent them getting to confront opponents close enough to block satisfactorily.

Martin is playing at RB, rather than CD, and is arguably less effective than Naughton. Bassong seems better than any CD we had last year, and Garrido we thought was at least as good as Tierney. On paper, then, in three of the four positions we should be as good or better. Why then are we conceding so many.

1) Our players generally are not quick enough, and we are suckers for a quick counter attack, like the goal scored soon after a Norwich corner.

2) Our strikers have been wasteful - even against Chelsea, when we had so little possession. Other teams can afford to surge forward in the knowledge that they are not going to be punished by us breaking away.

3) We have weaknesses throughout the side, compared with the top teams. Man-for-man Chelsea had the superior player. We are conceding badly against the teams we suffered from last year. In his famous four games when we played well, CH was surely right to say that with just a little bit of luck we could have had six or seven points there. In the three when we caved in it was outstanding players among the opponents who made the difference.

4) The "two lines of four" defence may help defensively - we saw that in the pre-season games, but it hinders scoring goals. At the moment it is not clear what kind of defence we have, and this may have led to confusion.