FAO Mr Conway and Lee...

How's your gym sessions with Conway? I bet you hang on his every word don't ya?
Have you told him you don't actually go to Oakwell?

 

I don’t want to get rid of them as I see potential in them both but there’s definitely an issue.

They don’t seem to be learning & improving much. Halme looked better alongside both Diaby & Anderson than Diaby & Anderson look together which shouldn’t be the case when Diaby & Anderson have been the most common partnership.

I listened Jon Parkin’s interview with Ian Holloway a while back when we were without a manager & Holloway joked about Parkin putting a good word in for him with the Barnsley job & Parkin said you might not want that it’s a tough job & mentioned us having two 21 year olds at the back with no one to learn off who keep making the same mistakes & it’s still relevant now, 2 months on.

I’d love a more experienced player to come in & play alongside either of them or even for Halme to drop back & let Dougall play in midfield.

 

Halme is the best centre back and he’s not played there!

If we get to the end of January with Diaby and Anderson as the 2 centre half’s we are deliberately making it harder to stop up for ourselves, it’s almost industrial sabotage.

get someone who’s ready now and better bought!

 

Go to Oakwell? I've had a season ticket for 90% of my whole life you loon.

 

We need to be patient with both of them. Two very good players in there. You have to remember they're both just 22 playing in a very difficult league. I hope we bring in a more experienced centre back to help them both along, even if it's just a short-term deal to see us through this season, but if not I think we'll be OK regardless. They will be cracking players in a year or two imo.

 

Both, i think will become decent players in time and if they were introduced to english football in lg1, then the slightly easier break in period would probably have seen them rated as very good signings with the chance to be championship standard if we got promoted. The problem is theyve been chucked into a new country, new team, unforgiving league and a way of playing that is probably the hardest for a central defender to master striaght away. That said, they have been at fault for many a goal and probably will be for more in this important run in. We could do with a snarly 30 year old premiership or championship defender on loan till end of the season to bring em on and hopefully add a bit of solididty. Failure to bring anybody in will make our survival bid harder for me.

 

Interestingly since we broke that long losing streak (2 games into Struber taking over) league results have improved and so have the goals conceded.

Indeed we've only conceded 5 goals in the last 5 league games and lost 2 in the last 10 (including the Cup). I'd still agree we need improvements though.

 

I think a huge part of that is the improvement at full back position along with the emergence of appo halme as an excellent defensive midfielder meaning the two centre backs have a lot less to do compared to at the start of the season rather than it being down to an improvement by the centre backs themselves. Of course I could be wrong but it's just my take on it

 

Oh pi** off, you seem obsessed following me round this board and responding to a lot of my posts cos I have the audacity to question the owners intentions.
FYI, I'm not the only one on this board questioning the quality of our centre backs.

 

Well the website 'whoscored' tracks stats and gives a summary of our strengths and weaknesses. It gets most spot on..

- Weaknesses
Keeping possession of the ball
Weak
Defending against attacks down the wings
Weak
Defending against long shots
Weak
Defending against skillful players
Weak
Protecting the lead
Weak
Aerial duels
Weak
Defending counter attacks
Weak
Defending set pieces
Weak
Avoiding individual errors
Very Weak
Avoiding fouling in dangerous areas
Very Weak

 

Crikey we really are Sh*t according to that.

 

I read aerial duels as aerial duets. Thought I'd missed something!

 

It wasn’t trying to play out from the back that led to their goal though. In fact if he had tried to control it we would perhaps not have conceded. But Diaby just had a wild swing at it and kicked a load of fresh air.

 

In over 40 years of watching the reds we have always had 1 decent centre half with at times another or half decent.
I can't remember ever watching us and thinking theres always going to be a clanger dropped gifting the opposition a goal.
Yesteŕday was no different to the goals we give away .
This as to stop if we are going to give us a chance to stay up.
I agree they are young but sometimes it as to go long .
It's not all about short pretty passing. FFS

 

The stats speak for themselves with regards to Pinnock.
Brentford conceded 21 goals in 27 games, the best defensive record in the league.
No point crying over spilt milk I know, but it does make you wonder where we would be with him in the team.
Not only grown into a composed, solid and clever defender, but also one of the calmest I've seen, on the ball and off it.
The sheer panic not to concede in the last ten minutes of every game this season, regardless of the score at the time, is almost comical with our current centre halves.
But as others have said the lads give their all and we have to work with what we have. Onwards and upwards

 

I follow you around? Really.

We'll leave it then.

 

We're top of the table for 'unsuccessful touches', with 539 this season. That's 63 more than Leeds in 2nd place. They've passed the ball nearly 3,000 times more than us too.

Also 6th for the number of times we've been dispossessed.

 

Not suprising stats given where we are in the table.

 

Fair do's.