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Defensive frailties


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Everything  you allude to is valid.........it's just things like assigning Vyner to mark the best striker in the Championship, that frustrate me.  To me it's just an obvious error, as was leaving out Atkinson.   I understand all you are saying, it is just   to me, what at times appear to be glaring errors, from a manager who played his entire career at centre back?

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14 minutes ago, maxjak said:

Everything  you allude to is valid.........it's just things like assigning Vyner to mark the best striker in the Championship, that frustrate me.  To me it's just an obvious error, as was leaving out Atkinson.   I understand all you are saying, it is just   to me, what at times appear to be glaring errors, from a manager who played his entire career at centre back?

Yep, unfortunately none of the CBs he has at his disposal are probably anywhere near the quality of CBs he partnered for the vast majority of his career! ???

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7 hours ago, 1960maaan said:

A bit of short term perspective.
Last week, Fulham (9changes) put out a 'decent' Championship team. We competed well, caused problems and dominated the ball for long spells. This week, Full first team out which would probably be lower Prem standard. Our midfield couldn't dominate, the forward line was too good , but we still caused problems.
IMO Pearson made mistakes with the line up, easy in hindsight, but I couldn't see how we were going to win the ball in MF. Very technical side chosen, and in Nige's opinion Vyner had been a stand out CB so chose him over Atkinson. He also wanted COD in the side, which I understand . What I would have wanted, after a very good game last week, why not have - Vyner/Kalas/Atkinson ? Stronger in the air. If you want Pring in, move Vyner to RWB. The only real physical battle we lost yesterday was Mitrovic, who was just too good for all our defence. I don't think we lost out all over. 

I think Nige is getting stuck between 2 stools. Wanting to get certain players involved, while wanting a system that doesn't suit. Not having a RB/RWB is really causing problems. Simpson must be absolute garbage in training.
 

The fact he thinks Vyner has been standout is the most worrying part of all this, said it before and il say it again. League 1 at very best, weak as piss

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6 hours ago, Shuffle said:

To only have one team conceding more than us clearly shows where our problems are.  The frustrating thing is that as Pearson is a central defender, I thought we would be hard to beat and score against and that’s my biggest disappointment. As @Davefevssaid to play Vyner central after Brum was plain stupid.  

I'm not so sure it was stupid. I think we are in a position where (for the most part) we will be working with what we have.

Vyner needs to develop skills against more physical players and there is only so much you can teach in training - You can defiantly train to improve physicality and watching for movement, but we don't have a Mitrovic to train against, you are only going to learn what thats like against those players.

Pearson literally said that in a way games like this are free games. Challenging players to step up and then working with them on what they got right and/or wrong after could massively help development. 

Vyner is fine as a lower half championship player, and maybe in an ideal world he moves on and we bring in someone better, but that is not our reality right now. So developing players like him is going to be important. I'm not saying this is what NP was doing, but overall there is signs of individual improvements and very obvious signs of team improvements. 

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2 minutes ago, BCFC Richard said:

Pearson literally said that in a way games like this are free games. Challenging players to step up and then working with them on what they got right and/or wrong after could massively help development. 

I get what you mean but that's not the right attitude to go into a league match with. We could have competed with Fulham for 90 minutes. We did it in the first two meetings with them this season and we did it for the first 30 minutes of yesterday. It was the complete collapse of Kalas/Vyner that threw the game away. Yes they were against excellent players, but it wasn't any opposition magic that lost us the game.

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1 minute ago, KegCity said:

I get what you mean but that's not the right attitude to go into a league match with. We could have competed with Fulham for 90 minutes. We did it in the first two meetings with them this season and we did it for the first 30 minutes of yesterday. It was the complete collapse of Kalas/Vyner that threw the game away. Yes they were against excellent players, but it wasn't any opposition magic that lost us the game.

I think form a fans perspective this is true I would much rather watch us be competitive, but if you're the manager and your  overall job is competing week in week out so that we get back to being genuine contenders for promotion again (I mean in the long term - before this gets taken out of context) then it makes sense to take opportunities to develop the players we have. The only way to gage how far players have come is by giving them opportunities and letting them learn harsh lessons. Look at Semenyo - lots of people (including club staff/coaches) have talked about how finishes so well in training. The Fulham game was the first time he has really demonstrated that in a match (although I'm a fan of his and the signs have been there). With a different manger or if we had money to spend in Jan he could easily have missed his chance and be out, or at least benched. If we except that we mostly need to work with the players we have then developing them and testing them is going to be a vital part of that. 

 

I would think he probably expected a better showing than he got, but when Kalas also struggles physically we don't exactly have better options.

 

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53 minutes ago, BCFC Richard said:

I think form a fans perspective this is true I would much rather watch us be competitive, but if you're the manager and your  overall job is competing week in week out so that we get back to being genuine contenders for promotion again (I mean in the long term - before this gets taken out of context) then it makes sense to take opportunities to develop the players we have. The only way to gage how far players have come is by giving them opportunities and letting them learn harsh lessons. Look at Semenyo - lots of people (including club staff/coaches) have talked about how finishes so well in training. The Fulham game was the first time he has really demonstrated that in a match (although I'm a fan of his and the signs have been there). With a different manger or if we had money to spend in Jan he could easily have missed his chance and be out, or at least benched. If we except that we mostly need to work with the players we have then developing them and testing them is going to be a vital part of that. 

 

I would think he probably expected a better showing than he got, but when Kalas also struggles physically we don't exactly have better options.

 

Definitely some “wins” in some of the squad’s individual performances.  Semenyo and Scott most definitely.  We will reap the benefit of giving them minutes, in Scott’s case it’s out of position, but it will also prove invaluable to his own development to appreciate positional play of his teammates going forward.  In OTIB’s eyes Semenyo is out of position too! ???

Whikst not forgetting Tanner, playing ahead of expectation, Benarous.  Atkinson probably wasn’t expected to take as many minutes from Kalas and Baker, and will come again.

The long game (and I’m not talking hoof-ball) is in operation.  We have to hold our nerve!

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2 hours ago, Bs4Red said:

The fact he thinks Vyner has been standout is the most worrying part of all this, said it before and il say it again. League 1 at very best, weak as piss

I was  not aware that NP  said that about Vyner?...........if that is truly the case, it's not only astonishing, but also a concern.  It's one thing to support a player to increase his confidence, but another to be blinkered and misguided?

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4 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Yep, unfortunately none of the CBs he has at his disposal are probably anywhere near the quality of CBs he partnered for the vast majority of his career! ???

Agreed but even considering the decent all round improvement in the last 3 months sometimes the "detail" of some of the game plans and tactics does seem lacking.

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7 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Yep, unfortunately none of the CBs he has at his disposal are probably anywhere near the quality of CBs he partnered for the vast majority of his career! ???

Fair point, but then again surely one of the tasks of a coach (Sorry of course Nige is a manager?) is to pass on his experience, tactical nous and hopefully, some tricks of the trade, to his players that occupy the same position as he once did?  I have seen little evidence of any improvement in our ability to defend?   Despite the obvious class  of the Fulham strikers, we were naive and postionally inept for most of the time in the game that mattered.  As for Vyner, I don't want to even go there....ha!!

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20 minutes ago, maxjak said:

Fair point, but then again surely one of the tasks of a coach (Sorry of course Nige is a manager?) is to pass on his experience, tactical nous and hopefully, some tricks of the trade, to his players that occupy the same position as he once did?  I have seen little evidence of any improvement in our ability to defend?   Despite the obvious class  of the Fulham strikers, we were naive and postionally inept for most of the time in the game that mattered.  As for Vyner, I don't want to even go there....ha!!

Yep, agree.  Johnson, Holden nor Pearson have been able to get Vyner to be more physical though!  Whatever goal it was where Mitrovic stood his ground under a high ball in the centre circle was a prime example of a defender not willing to “get physical”.  It was a prime opportunity to either get in position and be fouled or have the advantage on a header challenge.  Zak did neither, Mitrovic took a bad touch sideways, but he shouldn’t have even got that much on it.

I like Zak as it goes, just not centrally against a physical opponent…prefer him RB or RCB3.

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15 hours ago, maxjak said:

I was  not aware that NP  said that about Vyner?...........if that is truly the case, it's not only astonishing, but also a concern.  It's one thing to support a player to increase his confidence, but another to be blinkered and misguided?

I think there are three considerations here;

1. NP quoted that to defend the player.

2. NP quoted that to justify his selection.

3. NP quoted that as Vyner had a couple of games where he did well with Atkinson out of form/recovering from illness. But those decent performances were not as a CB playing in the middle of a three.

I really didn't think he would match up Vyner with Mitrovic and it was a big mistake that certainly cost us. I'm not too bothered about what NP says, but it is a concern to have selected Vyner matched to Mitrovic, he should know Vyners strengths and weaknesses.

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Just now, bcfc01 said:

I think there are three considerations here;

1. NP quoted that to defend the player.

2. NP quoted that to justify his selection.

3. NP quoted that as Vyner had a couple of games where he did well with Atkinson out of form/recovering from illness. But those decent performances were not as a CB playing in the middle of a three.

I really didn't think he would match up Vyner with Mitrovic and it was a big mistake that certainly cost us. I'm not too bothered about what NP says, but it is a concern to have selected Vyner matched to Mitrovic, he should know Vyners strengths and weaknesses.

Cashier number 2 ?

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One thing I've noticed when defending a high ball into the box, is our defenders are constantly looking at their man and not the flight of the ball.

The attacker is watching the ball coming in, adjusting, putting himself in the best position to attack the ball with strength, aggression and a strong jump to head the ball.

Our defenders, watch the player, attempt to block him, but it's often way to weak. The end result is a weak unbalanced leap to try and head the ball from a standing position. It's useless...so weak in both aspects.

They very rarely watch the flight of the ball ( more concerned with their man ). They rarely give themselves a chance to attack the ball with height, strength and aggression, unless it's a ' free header'.

It's very poor imo.

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17 hours ago, BCFC Richard said:

I'm not so sure it was stupid. I think we are in a position where (for the most part) we will be working with what we have.

Vyner needs to develop skills against more physical players and there is only so much you can teach in training - You can defiantly train to improve physicality and watching for movement, but we don't have a Mitrovic to train against, you are only going to learn what thats like against those players.

Pearson literally said that in a way games like this are free games. Challenging players to step up and then working with them on what they got right and/or wrong after could massively help development. 

Vyner is fine as a lower half championship player, and maybe in an ideal world he moves on and we bring in someone better, but that is not our reality right now. So developing players like him is going to be important. I'm not saying this is what NP was doing, but overall there is signs of individual improvements and very obvious signs of team improvements. 

Without going into the debate about whether NP thought ZV vs AM was the best match up or not.

I've felt for a while NP is doing exactly what you've said above - this is a manager who knows his job is pretty damn safe, knows his remit is to work with and develop what we have, with little to no expectations on league position, baring, don't go down.

We've seen how he isn't afraid to throw players into matches, sink or swim scenarios. 

Several are responding to that, Semenyo, Scott etc. Perhaps matching him up against the division's best could well have been part of his thinking with Vyner's development last weekend. Let's see what you've got.

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7 minutes ago, spudski said:

One thing I've noticed when defending a high ball into the box, is our defenders are constantly looking at their man and not the flight of the ball.

The attacker is watching the ball coming in, adjusting, putting himself in the best position to attack the ball with strength, aggression and a strong jump to head the ball.

Our defenders, watch the player, attempt to block him, but it's often way to weak. The end result is a weak unbalanced leap to try and head the ball from a standing position. It's useless...so weak in both aspects.

They very rarely watch the flight of the ball ( more concerned with their man ). They rarely give themselves a chance to attack the ball with height, strength and aggression, unless it's a ' free header'.

It's very poor imo.

You’ve got to be able to do both!

The other thing I bleat on about a lot is against big strong aerial threats, you have to jump a split second earlier than normal.  It sounds stupid, but an ex-pro taught me that.  It stops them using any contact as leverage, or in Mitrovic’s case a little “push” to stop you jumping at all or mistiming it.  He’s bloody good at it, and in fairness to Kalas he usually does get up early (sometimes loses his balance as a result), but Vyner often doesn’t get off the ground at all as a result.

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27 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

You’ve got to be able to do both!

The other thing I bleat on about a lot is against big strong aerial threats, you have to jump a split second earlier than normal.  It sounds stupid, but an ex-pro taught me that.  It stops them using any contact as leverage, or in Mitrovic’s case a little “push” to stop you jumping at all or mistiming it.  He’s bloody good at it, and in fairness to Kalas he usually does get up early (sometimes loses his balance as a result), but Vyner often doesn’t get off the ground at all as a result.

Exactly...but our lot at the moment seem incapable of doing that. Vyner is like a wet weekend. Timing and strength weak imo. Look at the lead up to Fulham's second goal where CoD slipped. Before that, Vyner was defending one on one the goal keepers clearance. He might as well have not been there...literally just stood next to I think Mitrovic...no attempt to win header or put him off balance. As I've said before, our positioning is often ' symbolic'...the coach can't have a go for not being in position or marking their man...but that's it. Very little aggression, or attempt to tackle, put off balance, or stop a cross. It's weak...what's the point of doing the hard stuff, concentrating and getting in the right position, if you do very little when in that position...like I said, Symbolic. 

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10 minutes ago, spudski said:

Exactly...but our lot at the moment seem incapable of doing that. Vyner is like a wet weekend. Timing and strength weak imo. Look at the lead up to Fulham's second goal where CoD slipped. Before that, Vyner was defending one on one the goal keepers clearance. He might as well have not been there...literally just stood next to I think Mitrovic...no attempt to win header or put him off balance. As I've said before, our positioning is often ' symbolic'...the coach can't have a go for not being in position or marking their man...but that's it. Very little aggression, or attempt to tackle, put off balance, or stop a cross. It's weak...what's the point of doing the hard stuff, concentrating and getting in the right position, if you do very little when in that position...like I said, Symbolic. 

Completely agree with this. It’s really frustrating how our players are “there” without actually doing anything to make it difficult for the opposition. Fulham’s first goal - Vyner was so weak. Yes he got a nudge from Mitrovic, but surely we do our homework and know that’s what he does? It was made so easy. The third goal - their player ran with the ball in tons of space with only a weak attempt at stopping him from King, who was the wrong side. Their sixth goal - what the hell was COD doing running in that weird circle?

Yes, it’s all token. Not actual determination to win the ball  

 

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