Defence

J

JimmiJazzChairs

Trialist
Over 1/3 of the season gone and we've got the 6th best defensive record in the premier league - now that's something for the doommongers to chew on surely.
 
We have built a defence around Begovic and Ake

Two players who absolutely inspire confidence...great signings and indicative of our excellent transfer policy... :thumbsup:

...and its gone strangely quiet on that front

 
I feel that I have more hope in that we will be scoring more goals soon, than the hope in the previous 2 seasons of improving the defence where we seemed to always look like conceding at least one a game.

I also hope I'm not wrong and that we end up struggling because we're drawing 0-0\losing 1-0 during the season.

 
It hasn’t gone strangely quiet on that front...

When I talk about it, it annoys people.
When I don’t, I’ve gone strangely quiet. Difficult to please everyone I guess.

I’ve never said every transfer we have made is bad. Just that we don’t target the right positions and have wasted too much cash on too many poor players.

We have needed central midfielders for years. People say I am a stuck record but then slag off Surman, Arter and Gosling.....

I also have said we need a number ten to link central midfield and the forwards. Apparently you are not allowed to say that but it’s alright to moan about the front two being isolated. Guess why they are isolated...

We should be higher than we are with the base of squad we have and the money we have had to spend. We are as good as Burnley and Watford....let’s not settle for less.
 
Neil Dawson - 26/11/2017 21:16

It hasn’t gone strangely quiet on that front...

When I talk about it, it annoys people.
When I don’t, I’ve gone strangely quiet. Difficult to please everyone I guess.
Click to expand...

Give over Neil.

You only talk about it when things dont go right...and then its all down to the transfer policy

Why aren't you talking about it tonight instead of praising the insane amount of work that's obviously happened on the training ground
 
In fairness Neil that only sums up half of what you've 'been saying for years' and it is only relatively recently you've talked about the number ten and central midfield. The mainstay of your poor transfer policy mantra has been our poor/lack of signings in central defence.

A goalkeeper wasn't needed either apparently - talking of which, where's barkeeper these days?

Edit - Autocorrect thinks he's called barkeeper so who am I to argue.
 
OK - the topic is recruitment. The window is close now and acquisitions important, especially with some of the squad - Francis, Pugh - clearly slowing down and not much sign of players coming through from the junior sides (maybe Simpson excepted).

The defence is improved, largely down to Ake - we might struggle without him and lack FB cover (whatever happened to B Smith?). Arter still not convincing ... would Eddie play L Cook if we had a stronger midfielder alongside him? And we completely lack a so-called linking number 10 (Stanislas is the nearest we've got but too often injured).

Time to move on from our League One favourites - important decisions for Eddie in January.
 
We keep trying to play new players...we always though go back to the ones we know and trust. That tells you everything you need to know about the ones we’ve brought in.

SDD/red house my argument has evolved as the seasons have gone on because the situation has changed. The players we are bringing in are better. We can all see that. So, the club has improved on that front which is great. We now need to look at the positiions we bring in. Losing Wilshere from last years squad and not recruiting a replacement is a backward step. We all thought Cook would take his place but Eddie doesn’t seem to agree with us...so he should have signed someone else imo. It’s our weakest area the midfield four. Pugh, ibe, Surman, Arter with Gosling and Fraser as first changes is championship not PL.
 
Its only our weakest area when we persist in playing 2 in centre midfield (any 2) and 2 out wide. Swansea swamped us in centre midfield second half and won every second ball.
Play 3 in the centre. Stanislas would be great if we can keep him fit.
December will show a lot of changes with so many games in so short a time.
 
Neil Dawson - 27/11/2017 10:03

We keep trying to play new players...we always though go back to the ones we know and trust. That tells you everything you need to know about the ones we’ve brought in.

SDD/red house my argument has evolved as the seasons have gone on because the situation has changed. The players we are bringing in are better. We can all see that. So, the club has improved on that front which is great. We now need to look at the positiions we bring in. Losing Wilshere from last years squad and not recruiting a replacement is a backward step. We all thought Cook would take his place but Eddie doesn’t seem to agree with us...so he should have signed someone else imo. It’s our weakest area the midfield four. Pugh, ibe, Surman, Arter with Gosling and Fraser as first changes is championship not PL.
Click to expand...

We will always need to sign players and not all signings are going to work.

We have made a decent central midfield signing and EH is picking what he thinks best side for each game - we might not agree with him on that but the table agrees with him.

I don't think EH wants that type of number ten - Wilshere is the best player we've had in that role but he fell out of favour because he didn't create or score enough. That's an Eddie preference thing rather than a recruitment thing. Same as our lack of a tough tackling defensive midfielder - EH just isn't looking for that type of player if the last five years are anything to go by.

Our main weakness now is, believe it or not, wingers. This is what he tried to sign in the summer and probably where he'll go in January. I, like you, also think we need a right back.
 
I don't think we're better than Burnley or Watford.

They have better midfield's than ours and that's where our only problem lies. We are the playing the same one we've had for 4 years. It does an adequate job still but it isn't as good as half the teams in the division at least.
We've made great signings all around the pitch except for this one area. We signed one superb creative midfielder from Leeds, but we don't play him so there we go.

Happy with 15th to 17th this year so 13th at the moment is fine. I said on here when the doom merchants were about in September we'd need 18-20 points by New Year's Eve and we will have that.
 
redharry - 27/11/2017 10:11

Its only our weakest area when we persist in playing 2 in centre midfield (any 2) and 2 out wide. Swansea swamped us in centre midfield second half and won every second ball.
Play 3 in the centre. Stanislas would be great if we can keep him fit.
Click to expand...
Exactly right. We can't afford to play with two wingers at the expense of midfield. Four in a line gives no scope for creating the sort of triangles that enable a team to move up the pitch by passing the ball around.
It seems to me that a 4-3-3 formation with one roving winger would suit us best with the players we have available.
 
I agree with West Moors Cherry - at the moment we are not better than Burnley or Watford - we've certainly improved defensively but overall from what I've seen this season we haven't really pushed on from last season - still too many average performances .
 
In defence we are better than last season, Ake and Begovic have seen to that.

The midfield and especially wingers have gone backwards. The wings have gone from arguably our strength to arguably our weakness.
 
This is a good, constructive exchange of opinions. Reading the posts above convinces me that our priority remains a strong, energetic midfielder. This might allow Eddie to play L Cook in a three-man midfield, with the new player linking more effectively to the forwards. Yes - Stanislas can play this role but is injury prone and there's no one else to take on the job ... hence the problems evident at Swansea, where the forwards got little service.

Surely we can't go yet another season without adding a forceful midfielder? I can't believe there's no one out there ready to come to DC, especially in the light of our recent high-profile signings.
 
We had a three man midfield for the majority of last season with Wilshere...Surman...Arter and struggled to create chances...saying that i wouldn't mind us playing 4-3-3 although it might be to the detriment of King.
 
Defensively we have massively improved. If/when the attack follows I think some teams will get mullered by us and we’ll sneak the odd result against the big boys.

Midfield is my only real concern at the moment but more strength in depth and the Lewis Cook conundrum.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

;