I know Kevin long made a big difference when he was here but it's carried on since he went..... Long may it continue!!! Did the arrival of brownhill offer better cover than Pearson? Taking pressure off the back four?
I think playing with Long improved Mawson a lot and Brownhill makes a lot less mistakes than Pearson. When he plays White makes a massive difference with him supporting Hamill not much time for attacking down that side. I also think both Bree and Williams are better defensive right backs than Wabara.
Brownhill coming in has contributed. Taking the captaincy from Mawson and giving it back to Hourihane has improved both of their games I feel. George Williams and James Bree coming into the side was a vast improvement defensively even if Wabara and White offered more going forward. Roberts was good if not a little inexperienced at the start of the season so it's been no shock that he's come in and been good. Defensively we've got a great back 5 (including Davies) at present. Sent from my I-Oven using the internets
Confidence, belief and a touch of luck. I seemed to recall during the shocking run, we made mistakes and were punished pretty much every time. This meant players were terrified of making mistakes which hampered their thought process, made them tentative, made them less ambitious, made them take safe side to side options.
My memory of the bad run is that perhaps every other goal (at least) came from a stupid mistake. I thought that we always seemed a smart finish and a misplaced pass away from a win rather than a defeat. We now seem to have fixed both, and have rocketed up the table as a result.
I really like Roberts. Very solid player with no little ability seizing the chance that has come his way. He has had his ups and downs as you would expect of a player making a big step up but seemed to benefit from some time on the sidelines learning and developing and looks very solid since he came back in.
Marc's upped his game, OK his distribution needs to be worked on but he's going to be a top defender for us. Him from West Yorkshire will disagree
Initially it was having more talented players in the back 4 with the arrivals of Long, White & Bree replacing Wabara. However since then credit has to go to Paul Heckinbottom who's improved both of Roberts & Williams a lot. He's clearly done a lot of work on shape, earlier in the season we'd lose the ball high up the pitch & as the other team countered we'd do silly things like have two men chase the same player who had the ball whilst leaving another player unmarked
I dont want to take too much of the credit but in the pre christmas dinner grace I did ask for us to stop being less w**k. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Not one reason but includes in my mind... - The stability in formation second half of season - unfamiliar players have gelled - the team have worked hard in training to correct mistakes - stability in goal - confidence all round - a balance to the team line up - growth in experience - players form improvement - good luck as opposed to bad luck
Since we became more attack minded the defence had less to do over the 90 mins. Another for the list.
I think this has a lot to do with it, we always defend better out of opposition shooting range Probably been defending better as a unit though and I think our luck changed a bit, previously everything seemed to go in recently the opposition have blown a few good chances. Its about time like if its going to balance out!
