Dean Smith

[Vive_La_Villa]

I’ve seen criticism of our Zonal marking from set pieces.  I generally think we’ve been ok from them apart from the odd lapse so I’d be interested to see where we are in the league table for goals conceded this way. 
 

Reading this forum today you’d think we have a fundamental problem with defending set pieces.  

[PaulC]

2 minutes ago, TRO said:

To put it mildly......They are not natural CDM's 

Guess they dont offer anything in terms defending corners or high crosses as they are so short. 

[Vive_La_Villa]

United lost today to the worst team in the league and probably deserved too. These results happen.  Not much of a consolation  but at least we should have won based on how we played.

Southampton have a lot of injuries. Not sure who will be back on Saturday but it’s a good time to play them. 

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

7 minutes ago, PaulC said:

Guess they dont offer anything in terms defending corners or high crosses as they are so short. 

MYself and TRO have been banging this drum about the need for taller midfield player/s for resons such as this.

Its reguarly shot down as " Luiz reading of the game is so incredible he doesn't need to use his height  ".

Missing thhe point completely, different opposition pose different threats. Hence the need for different types of personell both physically and stylistically.

It's also why I chuckle when, after a good game, all of a sudden Man City are 100 percent coming back for Luiz as if he is the best DM/CM in the world.

I like pretty much all our players, but matches like this expose some of their difficiencies.

And yes I know some of the " Best DM's, Kante etc are tiny" , but where they lack, they have the powerhouses to back them up. Ours have often gone wanting.

Edited January 27, 2021 by JAMAICAN-VILLAN

[Rightdm00]

Youngest team in the prem just got taught a very valuable lesson by some middle aged cloggers from Burnley. Dean should be able to gather a couple lessons from this match. 

Edited January 27, 2021 by Rightdm00

[PaulC]

Just now, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

MYself and TRO have been banging this drum about te need for taller midfield player/s for resons suc as this.

Its reguarly shot down as " Luiz reading of te game is so incredible he doesn't need to use his height  ".

Missing thhe point completely, different opposition pose different threats. Hence the need for different types of personell both physically and stylistically.

It's also why I chuckle when, after a good game, all of a sudden Man City are 100 percent coming back for Luiz as if he is the best DM/CM in the world.

I like pretty much all our players, but matches like this expose some of their difficiencies.

So horses for courses. You have to adapt your team selection as to the opposition you are playing,.

[Indigo]

2 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

I’ve seen criticism of our Zonal marking from set pieces.  I generally think we’ve been ok from them apart from the odd lapse so I’d be interested to see where we are in the league table for goals conceded this way. 
 

Reading this forum today you’d think we have a fundamental problem with defending set pieces.  

Very much mid table in that regard just from a cursory glance on WhoScored. Don't think there's any particular fault with how we set up, but if even one player doesn't do their job correctly when defending a set piece then that can be all the opposition need, even worse for us was that two players got caught sleeping.

Vestergaard's against us I thought the set up was bizarre, but otherwise I don't think it's a massively pressing issue. The point of Luiz and Barkley "marking" these players isn't for them to challenge and beat them in the air, it's to block their path and not provide them with a free header at a goal while our own big men are assigned areas in which their job is to attack the ball, unfortunately for Burnley's first goal the pair got drawn to the ball and we paid for it.

Shit happens, we're enormously improved and yet still a work in progress. I'll take battering teams and occasionally being stunned that we've conspired to dropped points over the dross we've put up with for almost as long as I can remember. The bigger picture is far more encouraging. 

[Vive_La_Villa]

15 minutes ago, PaulC said:

So horses for courses. You have to adapt your team selection as to the opposition you are playing,.

You do. But you also need a better squad to be able to do that. 

[Vive_La_Villa]

17 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

MYself and TRO have been banging this drum about the need for taller midfield player/s for resons such as this.

Its reguarly shot down as " Luiz reading of the game is so incredible he doesn't need to use his height  ".

Missing thhe point completely, different opposition pose different threats. Hence the need for different types of personell both physically and stylistically.

It's also why I chuckle when, after a good game, all of a sudden Man City are 100 percent coming back for Luiz as if he is the best DM/CM in the world.

I like pretty much all our players, but matches like this expose some of their difficiencies.

And yes I know some of the " Best DM's, Kante etc are tiny" , but where they lack, they have the powerhouses to back them up. Ours have often gone wanting.

Im glad there aren’t many teams like Burnley in the league. It’s just a battle and constant balls in to the box for the big man. Reliant on one of the best keeper in the league and 2 experienced no nonsense centre halves in front of them to save them for long enough to nick a goal the other end. Today they some how managed to do it 3 times! 

Also worried about one of their dirty challenges injuring  a player.

They have their style and they execute it well. Not many teams enjoy playing them.  I’m glad our 2 games against them are done with.

 

[Mantis]

19 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Im glad there aren’t many teams like Burnley in the league. It’s just a battle and constant balls in to the box for the big man. Reliant on one of the best keeper in the league and 2 experienced no nonsense centre halves in front of them to save them for long enough to nick a goal the other end. Today they some how managed to do it 3 times! 

Also worried about one of their dirty challenges injuring  a player.

They have their style and they execute it well. Not many teams enjoy playing them.  I’m glad our 2 games against them are done with.

 

Yep. I used to absolutely dread playing Stoke and I feel the same way about Burnley, who IMO are even more neanderthal. Like you said though it works for them but thank God most teams don't play like that. They suck the life out of football.

[Zatman]

2 hours ago, TRO said:

To put it mildly......They are not natural CDM's 

Them 9 clean sheets when they played was just a dream

[Zatman]

I think Deano subs were a bit late but the players got cocky just like we did vs Newcastle and it cost us. We were too casual at times in both games even if we scored 4

[TRO]

3 hours ago, PaulC said:

Guess they dont offer anything in terms defending corners or high crosses as they are so short. 

The worry for me Paul is.......outside of Mings and Konsa, every player we have has an attacking instinct.....even our full backs have offensive tendencies...and we are not the biggest, so like you say aerial balls are our achilles.

We need some players in the squad who have a natural defensive instinct.

Edited January 28, 2021 by TRO

[ozvillafan]

42 minutes ago, Zatman said:

I think Deano subs were a bit late but the players got cocky just like we did vs Newcastle and it cost us. We were too casual at times in both games even if we scored 4

Exactly this. After going up 2-1 we switched off at the back being overconfident.

Mind you, that was the perfect opportunity to throw on some fresh legs seeing as Burnley used all 3 subs by the 75th minute. Not doing so cost us.

[TRO]

3 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

You do. But you also need a better squad to be able to do that. 

I am hoping Sanson can help, but we need to sign the right players.....we have so many with attacking tendency and too few with defensive tendency.

it could be argued that we have only Mings and Konsa with natural defensive instinct......all the rest have attacking instinct, inc the full backs.

thats an imbalance.....we need some more robust units to join the squad, to bring on in games like this.......Man U have McTominay/Matic & Pogba playing in their 2......West Ham have Soucek and Rice.....just as an example, these guys can deal with aerial ball and have a presence to stop marauding opponents coming throught he middle......when the ball goes out wide, one can spin off to help the full back, the other sit in the middle...Leicester have Ndidi another physically equipped player to deal with stopping the opposition.

We have to stop crosses coming too, 3 resulted in 3 goals from the left tonight.

 

Edited January 28, 2021 by TRO

[Tomaszk]

To be honest, I think he's reluctant to make subs because there's such a chasm in quality sat on the bench.

I know people have been pleased with form of some this season but the subs today...Davis, Trez, Ghazi...just absolutely garbage when they did come on. Hate watching El Ghazi mess around on it in no space when you can see he's going to lose it as soon as he gets the ball.

Barkley was crap tonight and we still looked even worse without him.

The last 10 mins went by without incident bar a brief dip back to last season with everyone giving it to Jack and him almost pulling out something the bag.

The finishing of many and the effort/fitness of Ross Barkley cost us the match IMO.

[TRO]

7 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

To be honest, I think he's reluctant to make subs because there's such a chasm in quality sat on the bench.

I know people have been pleased with form of some this season but the subs today...Davis, Trez, Ghazi...just absolutely garbage when they did come on. Hate watching El Ghazi mess around on it in no space when you can see he's going to lose it as soon as he gets the ball.

Barkley was crap tonight and we still looked even worse without him.

The last 10 mins went by without incident bar a brief dip back to last season with everyone giving it to Jack and him almost pulling out something the bag.

The finishing of many and the effort/fitness of Ross Barkley cost us the match IMO.

I disagree Tom.....We were 2-1 and in the ascendency.

inept defending cost us......and I don't mean just the back 4

[TRO]

3 hours ago, PaulC said:

Guess they dont offer anything in terms defending corners or high crosses as they are so short. 

but when do they put there foot in a win the ball, how often do they win possession in a duel?.....How often do they win headers to gain territory and turn the ball over?

to be fair to them, they are not CDM's

[Tomaszk]

6 minutes ago, TRO said:

I disagree Tom.....We were 2-1 and in the ascendency.

inept defending cost us......and I don't mean just the back 4

What are you disagreeing with?

The finishing not costing us? We should have scored about 5 goals, of course it did.

At 2-1 up, they scored a fluke cross followed by an incredible header. Bad defending for the first, wouldn't say so for the second or third.

[Dave-R]

Our players all need to be putting more balls into that net, for the shots we have there is a tremendous amount of shots flying directly at the keeper. 

As others have pointed out, you dont put the ball into the back of the net, then scoreline like that happen. Sure we scored two goals but the game should of been around 5 or 6 goals for us in the end. Our players shoot the ball either at the keeper or at the find edges where they think they can score a wonder goal and make it all look fabulous and instead of just making sure it goes in our players are left scratching there heads so much because the balls either gone wide or over the top, hit bar or post or keeper collects it. They were praising that keeper tonight and I dont think it's as easy as that to do. let's be real alot of our shots there keeper just stood there and collected with ease but because we threw so many at him he looked brilliant, in the end it was our players who made the Burnley keeper look world class.

Our defending wasnt good at all in the second half, not naming names I dont think I have to but they will know the goals they could of got to, we simply turned off and they capitalised on it.

Smith has some work to do now, we deserved to lose that if only it was for the reasons of our defending and shot taking and converting to goals, it was all lousy.