Defending

wanderlust wrote:Burton negated the shit pitch by keeping the ball off it and the long throws and corners paid off.
We on the other hand, have a team that is built to pass and move - and the pitch limited our chances of doing that - hence more pressure on our goal.
So if it comes down to picking tall attackers to supplement the CBs when they lob it into the box (or we are forced to lob it into theirs) there has to be an understanding about who is doing what and if the ball is anywhere near them, they have to attack it - but it seemed as if nobody was attacking the ball - apart from the Burton players.
Looked like zonal marking gone bad to me, with everyone standing around saying "after you!"
Get back on to the training ground, supplement the CBs with Baka and Bod, and lob the ball into the box until everyone knows what they're doing and they all take responsibility for attacking the ball if comes near them.
Because teams will have watched that so you can bet your bottom dollar we're going to get plenty more of it.

wanderlust wrote:
Get back on to the training ground, supplement the CBs with Baka and Bod, and lob the ball into the box until everyone knows what they're doing 

Sluffy wrote:

Nah, if that was the case they would have been a danger all through the match and the fact was that they weren't.  

Something clearly changed for the good with our defence with the same players on the pitch who defended so poorly in that first 20 minutes.

The stats show that Burton had 8 corners and they scored from their first 2 so clearly we defended them a great deal better than whatever it was that caused us the problems in that six/seven minute spell.

The stats also show us with 61% possession, so whatever our perception of the game was we played a lot of the game on the ground, so being aerial wasn't the only option for the two teams.

I'm tending to think that problem was more to do with the integration and bedding in of all the new players, playing together on the pitch possibly for the first time as such (including training perhaps - or at least not that often as yet?).

For instance Jones was missing, we've only recently started with a back three again and the last time Aimson played he was on the left of the three and yesterday on the right, that Dempsey and not Morley was there to track runners into the box, that Dadi and Baka probably had less defensive training together as they would both more likely have had Charles as the other player in the drills with them, and so on.

That's my take on things anyway.

Biggie wrote:

Impossible for us to practice this because we can't cross properly. 

Otherwise. Good points.

Whitesince63 wrote:
I think the reason we didn’t concede more was luck rather than any improvement at the back Sluffy. There were several other panicky moments that we got away with. We did settle down but to be fair, at 3 up Burton didn’t need to commit more players forward as they did early on. I think Lusty is spot on that we don’t attack the ball, either in attack or defence. Considering the size of Baka and Bod, they are totally ineffective in both areas in regards to heading the ball and it’s a weakness we need to overcome in the summer. 

We need a big dominant centre half, the same at centre forward and also for me an experienced, commanding goalkeeper, which Trafford isn’t. Why Evatt seems to be so fixated with teenagers I just don’t know but frankly, Trafford doesn’t look any better than Crellin. He rarely comes for a cross and soon panics, which surely can’t be good for the defenders. There’s a lot of good about the team but defensively we’re nowhere near, especially when Jones is missing.