Another needless my point of vie thread

[HUGHIE REED31]

In respect of point 1 I look at Liverpool under Klopp. The defence and keeper just weren't at the required level and no amount of "training" improved them. Liverpool are going great guns now that they have replaced those players with decent players.

So I would say don't expect our defending to improve until we have brought in better defenders.

The voice of reason well said
It's being a bugbear of mine sort the defence out.

We seem to have an obsession for getting wide players at the moment
(much like someone nameless who liked centre halfs)

I say it again, Goalkeeper, Centre Half and tackling midfield leader will sort
out most of our problems for now.

[Peachy]

What is strikingly strange re' point 1 Shabby is we have two very well seasoned and experienced Defenders on the main coaching team in Slaven and Julian. One would have certainly thought defensive errors would have been thoroughly ironed out by now. Any can accept a genuine mistake at the back, but the consistent fug ups and lapses in concentration are starting to grain the fans.

It's a mystery as to why these fug ups and concentration lapses are continually allowed to happen!

Didn't we say / think similar when we last had a solid defender in as manager? Ermmm last season. Maybe our defensive players just aren't as good as we think...

I think our forward play earlier this season with Phillips, Grady and Pereira ripping everyone to shreds covered up the defensive problems.

We simply have to sort it out. We do seem to be fannying around with the ball at the back much more than we did early season too. 

There were lots of comments earlier this season about how refreshing it was that we were getting rid of the ball quickly rather than trying to play it out. We have regressed in this respect imo. We just need to go back to no nonsense basics imo.

[MassDebater]

What is strikingly strange re' point 1 Shabby is we have two very well seasoned and experienced Defenders on the main coaching team in Slaven and Julian. One would have certainly thought defensive errors would have been thoroughly ironed out by now. Any can accept a genuine mistake at the back, but the consistent fug ups and lapses in concentration are starting to grain the fans.

It's a mystery as to why these fug ups and concentration lapses are continually allowed to happen!

Didn't we say / think similar when we last had a solid defender in as manager? Ermmm last season. Maybe our defensive players just aren't as good as we think...

I think our forward play earlier this season with Phillips, Grady and Pereira ripping everyone to shreds covered up the defensive problems.

We simply have to sort it out. We do seem to be fannying around with the ball at the back much more than we did early season too. 

There were lots of comments earlier this season about how refreshing it was that we were getting rid of the ball quickly rather than trying to play it out. We have regressed in this respect imo. We just need to go back to no nonsense basics imo.

True, but surely that choice must have come from Slav? Maybe it's to do with the nothing up front problem that has come back again? Defence to midfield to defence to keeper to defence, to opposition scoring....

[Ampadu's Left Boot]

I'm not convinced the defence is our biggest issue at the moment. We have conceded 33 goals, which is still the joint 5th best tally in the league. Leeds and Forest have conceded just 7 and 5 goals less than us respectively. Since the beginning of November, we have conceded 16 in 17 games in all competitions. A keeper who commands his area well and a central midfield general would make enough of an improvement to that record. Those two positions, along with a striker with pace, are the three most important positions to improve for us IMO.

The loss of Diangana and latterly Pereira has been the most damaging to our form, but only in so much that we have stuck with the same game plan in their absence, as their being out changes the whole dynamic of the team.

The Sawyers and Livermore pivot is our biggest issue of late. Without Grady and Pereira this area becomes the heart of the team and it isn't anywhere near as effective as it needs to be, either in shielding the back four, or in driving the team forward when we are on the attack. I would be dropping Sawyers but sticking with Livermore. Bring in Barry and Brunt as a midfield three, with Krov and Phillips as the attacking midfielders and Austin up top.

We need to change tack and try and grind out a couple of results to get back on track, then when Pereira and Grady are back we can revert back to the previous system.

Ultimately though, the mentality of the team isn't strong enough and to this end I would drop Johnstone, Bartley, Sawyers and HRK. Sawyers is the best player from this 4, but the others are average Championship players anyway IMO and we need to do better if we want to go up automatically.

[Derek Hardballs]

We have decent defenders, we just don't defend as a team there is a difference.

[coxy134]

I'm not convinced the defence is our biggest issue at the moment. We have conceded 33 goals, which is still the joint 5th best tally in the league. Leeds and Forest have conceded just 7 and 5 goals less than us respectively. Since the beginning of November, we have conceded 16 in 17 games in all competitions. A keeper who commands his area well and a central midfield general would make enough of an improvement to that record. Those two positions, along with a striker with pace, are the three most important positions to improve for us IMO.

The loss of Diangana and latterly Pereira has been the most damaging to our form, but only in so much that we have stuck with the same game plan in their absence, as their being out changes the whole dynamic of the team.

The Sawyers and Livermore pivot is our biggest issue of late. Without Grady and Pereira this area becomes the heart of the team and it isn't anywhere near as effective as it needs to be, either in shielding the back four, or in driving the team forward when we are on the attack. I would be dropping Sawyers but sticking with Livermore. Bring in Barry and Brunt as a midfield three, with Krov and Phillips as the attacking midfielders and Austin up top.

We need to change tack and try and grind out a couple of results to get back on track, then when Pereira and Grady are back we can revert back to the previous system.

Ultimately though, the mentality of the team isn't strong enough and to this end I would drop Johnstone, Bartley, Sawyers and HRK. Sawyers is the best player from this 4, but the others are average Championship players anyway IMO and we need to do better if we want to go up automatically.

But we tend to concede first ofetn on set pieces or give the ball away at the back. Simple stuff really.

[Shabby Russian]

Think your wrong on point 1, by saying less importantly,

A solid defence is MOST important, its your defence thats gets you through times when your attackers arent performing where you scrape out 0-0 or 1-0's.

We concede silly free kicks and are conceding far to many set pieces.

I wonder whether NOT conceding set pieces goes hand in hand with SCORING FROM setpieces? Because we dont score enough of them either.


My worry is Bilic hasnt improved our defence and is only looking at attacking options?

The reason why I made it the less important point was that it is less relevant to our recent run of poor results.

Its the decrease in the number of goals we are scoring, rather than any increase in the number of goals we are conceding that has meant that results have fallen away.

Point 1 is perhaps in the long run more worrying, because at this level good coaching will usually be enough to improve defensive frailties rather than having to get better players - although that would help.

[Tom Joad]

Good points Shabby.
On point 1 I'd say you are correct. The defence hasn't improved a jot. Further, other managers see our weaknesses and exploit them. We seem to concede the same 2 goals every week.  

On point 2, I agree that Austin is our best striker but have to say that HRK has been effective in spells. Also, CA simply ain't gonna do 90 minutes twice a week for 9 months and with Big Ken looking so hit and miss, we absolutely need another option.

Re Champ vs Prem. This has been done to death and the only thing we ever all agree on is that we all like to see Albion win more games than they lose, or more importantly, compete well and look like they may win something. It's about money so it is out of our hands. Whether it's a 2 year project or not, I suspect maybe not). Although Norwich's promotion did take 2 seasons, remember.

Re Slav. I wasn't as impressed as many when appointed. I said on here I thought he inherited a Big Sam team at WHU that was well organised, gave them a free reign and enjoyed some good results until the organisation wore off. I'd now say I really like the guy and whatever this season brings, desperately hope he sorts out this run. He is as big a name as we can ever hope for and FWIW, I'm thoroughly enjoying the season despite the negatives. Stick.

I also think there is a huge over reaction on here to last night's game.  Bad misses from Krov, Phillips and O'Shea plus the crazy efforts in injury time, along with our regular shooting ourselves in the foot, cost us.

[HUGHIE REED31]

I'll be glad when today's over,at least it looks like
we are going to get some money for Ferguson time to
regroup and start again ready for Saturday.

[ferencpuskas]

I back us every week on both teams to score, it's inevitable we'll always concede !!