The Defence

[wibs]

One clean sheet in eleven matches.

We are top so does it matter?

Is our mental strength and firepower so good that we can keep conceding.without blowing promotion?

It does seem unusual for a team in such a long unbeaten run to concede to virtually they team they play.

I don't care if we concede five every game if we go up, I just wonder if it may become an issue.

 

[Ealing Bee]

One clean sheet in eleven matches.

We are top so does it matter?

Is our mental strength and firepower so good that we can keep conceding.without blowing promotion?

It does seem unusual for a team in such a long unbeaten run to concede to virtually they team they play.

I don't care if we concede five every game if we go up, I just wonder if it may become an issue.

You raise a valid point, but in building a team, you can't do everything all at once. So that if we can maintain the midfield competitiveness and attacking power we've built to date, then the defence can catch up.

If nothing else, the return of Pontus and Christian should stiffen our ranks. Which is not a criticism of MBS and Vitaly - they've been excellent to date, but it would be a huge ask for two such young and inexperienced players to maintain their consistency right through to the end of a 46 game season.

In any case, there can be no doubt that Thomas and his team are already on the case, with the luxury of knowing that while the boys at the other end of the pitch are taking care of business, they (coaches) can work with the defence.

 

[Invipai]

I notice a pattern that we tend to have the best defensive record during spells where we aren't playing well... i.e. we compensate for our lack of attacking fluidity by staying extra firm at the back. I would much rather our current play, than the dire one near the start that didn't concede many.

Of course we also don't have much time to practice set pieces (in particular defending them) as most of our work will be recovery work at the moment. Hopefully if we can stamp out a few of the set piece goals it will help us out further.

 

[AB]

Success in football is about not conceding too many and not scoring too few goals. At the moment we’re doing just that. Earlier in the season we were conceding fewer but also scoring fewer. If we can concede fewer again without that being at the cost of scoring enough, that’s great.

My feeling is that we could reduce the goals conceded a bit by just some small improvements in individual performances (eg compare Raya’s confidence catching, punching and commanding the area v Reading to the previous few games) but this won’t do much because so many recent goals have come from erroneously awarded set pieces (eg the penalty for Reading looked on replay to have come from the Reading player kicking the ground and tripping himself in the general vicinity of Dalsgaard, there’s not much you can do about that in the absence of VAR). The audacity of Pinnock’s sliding tackle suggests that the players are not worried about bad decisions and just do what they ought. They could play to avoid such refereeing errors by being more tentative unless absolutely sure no foul could be perceived or by cutting out opponents higher up the pitch. The former would be disastrous as we’d be stepping off on a regular basis (do we really want MBS to have given Lowe more room and avoided the FK but risked freeing him to make a cross at pace?). The latter is part of the midfield dominance and link to attack we already do.

 

[upnorthbee]

The goals we’ve conceded recently have been a joke. I’d go as far as saying, the majority of them would have been ruled out in the premier league by VAR due to poor refereeing.

I agree that we need to stop conceding, but holy sh*t, how poor has the refereeing been recently!??!

 

[psg150]

I tend to agree with AB here. A lotnof the goals we have conceded recently have been from marginal refereeing decisions and/or individual errors. I don't think we have been under the cosh in any game except perhaps Boro. Today, Reading did a great job in the first half but created very little and scored from a dodgy pen. You could argue the defence played really well.

On top of that, in the last 10 games we've played everyone in the top 7 except Norwich. We've also played Bristol and Cardiff who are no mugs. If we're going to conceded, these will be the games you would expect it to happen in. It will be interesting to see how we fare over the next run of games.

 

[horshambees]

28 goals conceded in 28 games.
Not too shabby as only 4 other teams have conceded less and a goal a game average is acceptable.
Defensive coaches will do their job, but look at the goals we have let in and you will see that these are those that are listed as"not a lot we could do about that".

 

[Nada Bee]

Considering how we’ve been playing recently with Rico and Henrik being outside forwards at some points. I think we defend remarkably well. Also Mads has how many? 35 pro games in his career? Fantastic return IMO. Long May it continue.

win 6-3 every week for all I care ?

 

[RAF_Patto]

I think the issue here is more around conceding first. Whilst we have come back on several occasions now, which will clearly aid our mentality, my concern centres around when we eventually meet a team that can hang on. How do we respond then? Will our bubble be burst or will we shake it off?

No issue in conceding a goal a game, but I would rather they come late on when we are 2 or 3 up.

 

[jlove]

Dalgaard, Pinnock, Sørensen and Henry have been the mainstay of the back four, apart from minor breaks, for a long time now. That punishing schedule, particularly without Nørgaard on patrol (although Jenelt is an adequate deputy), is bound to take its toll, more mentally than physically.

We've got some less intense games coming up, Roerselv and Reid getting up to speed and the slight possibility of Goode and/or Racic to appear before Jansson. The chances of a bit of R&R are looking better and the chances of improvement will come out of that.

 

[Guildford Bee]

I thought we looked far more solid at the back last night than in the previous three games

 

[Leonardo]

I thought we looked far more solid at the back last night than in the previous three games

I agree and it was only a soft penalty that they were able to score from.