Heinz Muller says we were defending too deep.

Tell Simon old ****, cos they are his tactics. </p>

Anyway, 3 more points tec.
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Couldn't believe how deep we played.
Even when the keeper or full back had the ball our striker or wide man never shut them down.

 

Whats he know abart it?

 

He's reight.</p>

Too much playing silly buggers and playing defensive led to us going from 3-0 up and job done to 3-2 wi 20 odd mintes to go an bricking it last neet.</p>

Keep attacking the buggers, reight to t' last whistle.
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Not that I htink we should have continued to attack, but you are right about playing too deep let them back into the game. We needed to close down higher up the pitch than we were, definitely.

 

Simon Davey would not have told the players to play deeper. It was a reaction to being tired. Having said that, both Burnley goals resulted from individual errors. JCR was caught on the ball for the first and Kozluk's lack of a left foot enabled his weak pass to be intercepted for the second. After that, they panicked and our mid-field, apart from Colace, ceased to function in its job of protecting the back four who were subsequently exposed. JCR was exposed defensively, Leon failed miserably to get goal side of their midfield when they had the ball. As for Wall-e, a most apt name. All he does is return passes to the passer. No wonder Kozluk messed up.

 

We started not coming up in numbers for free kicks and corners. There was an occasion when Whalley daren't even come over the half way line to close their full back down. Looked like orders to me.</p>

Tiredness must have been a factor, but imho we gave Burnley the initiative by dropping off.
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I agree that the front players were cut off from their midfield support, but at that stage of the game Burnley had nothing to lose by throwing players forward. They were losing and if Barnsley scored again then they would still be losing. Barnsley on the other hand had everything to lose. They had gone from 3-0 to 3-2 and were in grave danger of throwing away a certain victory, not just in front of a faithful few, but in front of Sky TV millions. They panicked and dropped too deep. IMHO Davey's only error was that he should have accepted the situation 15 minutes earlier and moved Hassell into midfield. Having said that, Hassell seemed to catch the same panic as everyone else and proptly fell back into central defense. Nevertheless, that is what I turned to my mate and said, even before Burnley scored their first.

 

At 3-0 they had done. JCR gets tackled in midfield ( when we were pissing about with the ball) and then the game changes - a change helped greatly by pur change in attitude. At 3-0 I'd have replaced Ode - not cos of all the stuff folk say about him but because he looked knackered and was a passenger in the main. They could afford to leave him pretty much alone, which meant they doubled up on Hassel. I know it's easy with hindsight etc but on too many occasions we surrender space and possession when in a winning/drawing(away) position and it costs us. Davey needs to address that.

 

Don't disagee about changing Odejayi for the reasons you give. However, midfield (Colace and JCR) were getting sucked towards the ball and when it got switched Leon still had not got goal side. Was it Davey's instruction to stay up field? If it was, Wall-e had to be the covering midfield player. Judging from the fact that Leon was subbed, I don't think so. I think he was tired and I think that the tiredness in our midfield resulted from doing so much running without the ball in the first 20 minutes, though I do think that Leon struggles to run for 90 minutes.