Midfield not doing job defensively

Cost us 2 goals yesterday. I think it was a discussion with someone on here a few week ago (Might’ve been Jay) who highlighted our midfield is slow to get back and mark the runners.

As you can see from this first image:

The lad who eventually taps it in to an open net from the post is about 10 yard behind Mowatt when Hugill touches the ball down initially, this lad sprints past Mowatt who realised too late and is unable to catch him.

The second goal again is from an unfortunate deflection falling to one of their players in the box but if you look at this image:


The lad who ends up putting the ball in the net is the free man outside the area who nobody is paying attention to, again midfielders not doing their job defensively and picking up the men.

By the time the 3rd went in the game was dead and buried so Won’t overly examine that one, it was a smart turn and finish inside the box by their lad. Should Mowatt have been closer to the player? Maybe. But he had just legged it round the pitch for 90 minutes and we were 5-2 up so I’ll excuse him from that one.

All in all it was a fantastic game attacking wise yesterday, but leaves a lot to work on defensively.

Onto Millwall. You reds!

 

Agreed. I looked at some previous goals a few weeks ago and we had so many men back but they just failed to pick up anyone, or the person who ended scoring.

There was one from a corner and we had 7 men to their 3 or 4 and still someone scored. On the upside it's fixable, or should be.

 

Watch mcgeehan just stop for the 3rd goal. He just shrugs and walks away. Needs getting rid of that lad. Williams doesn't cover himself in glory either. Defense is a major issue but its old news. 1st game where we were winning 4-2 and i was nervous ha!

 

Mcgeehan does nothing there. He’s two choices, cover the fullback or peel off into the box to intercept the low cross. Does neither, just trots along. He had zero excuse seeing as he’d only been on the pitch 11 whole minutes!
My Son said “why Is Mcgeehan coming on when we are defending a lead? He can’t defend!” He’s 14 and even he can see it!

 

I honestly think we are a Kevin Long or Peter Ramage type loan signing away from being able to climb out of the bottom three.
We're not to bad a creating and scoring so if someone could come and add some leadership, at the back, things should improve.

 

I thought mowatt should have anticipated the first one definitely, as you say he ran straight past him to tap in. We certainly could do with more quality in the central midfield area

 

I agree about midfield defensively but look at QPR's 3rd the lad goes past William's far too easy swap William's for cavare and people would be going mad.

 

Cavare wouldn't be in our half

 

If Halme slots in at CB, then maybe look at moving Diaby to RB, bombing up and down that wing? Either that or have both Hame and Dougall as defensive midfielders? Might be a bit more solid.

 

Hey!! My tactical awareness must be improving I saw that too for the first goal but thought I would not comment -cos someone might tell me it wasn't his job.

 

The first one was a joke, powderpuff challenge edge of the box he shot and every bugger in red stopped the QPR lad kept going though.There was a hell of a gap before any reaction from ours then it was too late

 

Shopping list....

Left back and right back with pace.
Experienced centre back, preferably left sided.
Box to box midfielder with 3 lungs
6’3” sh*thouse centre forward.

Hopefully Santa might have a few in his sack

 

William's might aswell not have been either.

 

It does read a bit like moving the deckchairs on the Titanic.
This defence is truly awful and if it stays together much longer is pretty certain to take us down. The only hope is a combination of better coaching and the players defending like professionals might help us out of this mess. I would add some additions in January would be good but that would be ignoring previous evidence of the Club’s recruitment ‘policy’ so i’m not getting my hopes up.

 

I thought the first was harsh on the defence. You can't really defend it, it could go anywhere off the post - 1 in 10 chance it falls straight to their man. I thought Radlinger made himself look about 4ft tall with his attempt at saving it.

In the second still and where the ball is at, at that point Xavi wouldn't have given a second thought at marking him.

 

You are right, the midfield never track back and pick the men coming in
Nobody marks the back post, your photos show it exactly

 

Aye we do need a cdm who can track back to let mowatt continue his role

 

Theres alot of talk about the defence, which i agree with but if we are to progress we need better in midfield also.

 

We have a midfield 4 that includes Mowatt, Bahre and Woodrow. I know Mowatt is supposed to be playing a box to box role, but he's better in the opponents half than his own. The other two were playing up front last season.

Question is, if we put an extra defensive player in midfield, say, replace Bahre with Halme, would the improvement in defence outweigh what we lose in attack?