Where has our defensive structure gone?

Los Pollos Hermanos said:
We returned from the winter break and won ten on the bounce, we then hit March and Motherwell, a game we dominated and should have won.
Double header against Benfica and it all started to go to shit, coincidentally when Clement had more time on the training ground with the team.
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Similar happened with Gio and Beale - as soon as they had the players for an extended time on the training pitch it went to shit.

I'd imagine when they first come in, they simplify what the players have to do and then try to implement more detailed tactics - are the players unable to handle more complex instruction?
 
Cooper's left peg said:
Our shape and discipline within that shape has gone to shit since the turn of the year in particular.

Sorry, but Clement has to at least take some responsibility for that. In some parts of games we are all over the place and teams are strolling right through us.

The honeymoon period for Clement is well and truly over. It is only right that he starts coming under more and more scrutiny. What we see week in week out has to improve significantly.
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It's this I like what he has done so far but when injuries starting really hitting he didn't tweak it to compensate

We persisted paying with inverted fbs which doesn't suit the players we have

There was not the energy or physical levels required to keep playing this way it puts way to much pressure on the midfield and cbs of which we don't have a lot of pace to help them cover ground

Benfica was ca sorry with the corners and saying we were doing it because they v were a good side and wanted to gain an advantage..... its the craziest thing I've saw as in open play we created more chances and was the corners that inside us.

There a few things tactically that have been bizarre
 
Think that Tav does not help. He seems to be trying too hard when things go wrong and ends up running all round the pitch. This means that he is not in his right back position.
 
Number 4 said:
4 players in defence.

One finished.
One in terminal decline.
One interchangeable (ie, never made the position his own).
One habitually injured with a disinterested replacement.

Not rocket science.
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The problems aren't necessarily at the back though. How many times do teams just cut us open walking right through our midfield as well?
 
The uncomfortable truth is that the defensive structure has lapsed since we signed Diomande. Before that we tended to play with 2 holding midfielders unless I am totally mistaken.

Not a dig at Diomande but we don’t tend to control the middle of the park now in games
 
Big Vern said:
Similar happened with Gio and Beale - as soon as they had the players for an extended time on the training pitch it went to shit.

I'd imagine when they first come in, they simplify what the players have to do and then try to implement more detailed tactics - are the players unable to handle more complex instruction?
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Beale I always wondered what happened to him that summer, had done pretty well in the league, goes away for his holidays and comes back with that narrow 4-2-2-2 formation yet he was always a 4-3-3 guy, maybe trying to be too clever?
 
cranky said:
The uncomfortable truth is that the defensive structure has lapsed since we signed Diomande. Before that we tended to play with 2 holding midfielders unless I am totally mistaken.

Not a dig at Diomande but we don’t tend to control the middle of the park now in games
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We won all our games in February?
 
Almost every ball into our box either from long throws or any other dead ball situation the first contact is almost always the opposition player.
 
basiltherat said:
Over38 league games we conceded two more goals than Celtic who had conceded the least
The next best team conceded 10 more than us
To say the defence has been a shambles all season is a clear example of recency bias
For most of the season it was pretty robust
Having said that there have been very worrying signs recently with similar types of goals being conceded particularly as these have not been the result of intricate sophisticated play from our opponents
Long balls over the top the centre backs haven't dealt with, crosses - particularly from the right - with the opposite full back unaware of players lurking behind them and failing to track or pick up players waiting on the 18 yard line for a pot shot are the very basics of defending which we have been failing at. Perhaps too many players just don't give a shit any more to do the hard yards but if we can get some new guys in it should be possible to drill the basics in and cure the issuue
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Conceding 2 more goals than a poor Celtic defence is hardly an achievement, especially as they have been without Carter-Vickers for quite a bit.
 
cranky said:
The uncomfortable truth is that the defensive structure has lapsed since we signed Diomande. Before that we tended to play with 2 holding midfielders unless I am totally mistaken.

Not a dig at Diomande but we don’t tend to control the middle of the park now in games
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Los Pollos Hermanos said:
We won all our games in February?
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There an element of this but biggest thing was we moved silva to left and mcausland got injured.

One that happened silva doesn't track back enough leaving midfield more exposed and it was a lucky bag draw for right hand side.

Is basically left us playing 424 most weekends.

With front 4 that was static in a line of dio followed to your left with Lundstram in midfield alone then defence and the others chasing back.

Not enough movement and tracking back up front one man midfield and defence that's all over the place.

Players have to take responsibility but Clement as well

Losing sima/cortez/mcausland/matondo really hurt us

We havnt been playing to the players we have at disposal at the time when injuries started pulling up we were better suited to go 3-5-2
 
Goldson has been covering Tav for years, that's become very evident as our other (poor) defensive opportunities can't even cover themselves and are a bomb scares themselves, other than Balogun who's injured.
 
in February even though we were not great against St Johnstone and Kilmarnock we won both games and conceded very few chances against either.

March is where we've fallen apart losing 18 of our 32 league goals in last 10 games.

We all have different thoughts but for me losing Sima, Cortes and McAusland from the possible 3 behind Dessers leaving any combination of mainly Silva, Lawrence, Dowell, Cantwell have left our defence badly exposed as too often if the ball goes by them they simply give up on chasing back.

Throw in injuries to the entire defence bar Tavernier, the team having half the outfield players changing every game resulting in loss of understanding and rythym, loss of confidence and possible attitude of certain players is the best guess I can make of our end of season performances.
 
Spudgun said:
Too many players just seeing their time out.

Concentration levels have dropped.
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100%. For games we have had Tav and Barisic at full back with zero interest in closing anyone down or stopping a cross in. Barisic was humiliating within the first 40 seconds of the last derby.
 
Centralbear said:
in February even though we were not great against St Johnstone and Kilmarnock we won both games and conceded very few chances against either.

March is where we've fallen apart losing 18 of our 32 league goals in last 10 games.

We all have different thoughts but for me losing Sima, Cortes and McAusland from the possible 3 behind Dessers leaving any combination of mainly Silva, Lawrence, Dowell, Cantwell have left our defence badly exposed as too often if the ball goes by them they simply give up on chasing back.

Throw in injuries to the entire defence bar Tavernier, the team having half the outfield players changing every game resulting in loss of understanding and rythym, loss of confidence and possible attitude of certain players is the best guess I can make of our end of season performances.
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I think Cantwell does a lot more tracking back and hard work than the others.
 
Los Pollos Hermanos said:
Beale I always wondered what happened to him that summer, had done pretty well in the league, goes away for his holidays and comes back with that narrow 4-2-2-2 formation yet he was always a 4-3-3 guy, maybe trying to be too clever?
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He should have used the 6 months of his first season after taking over building a formation, style, shape etc. The fact he changed it in the summer meant that time for forward planning was lost.
 
GovanFront4 said:
I think Cantwell does a lot more tracking back and hard work than the others.
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Cantwell does track back, but generally when chasing the guy who has just dispossessed him, and it’s not pretty he simply can’t tackle and you know the 20 second pursuit is going to end with him giving away a foul.
 
bucks72 said:
Because Goldson is missing. Is it not obvious to everyone he has been covering the RB area failings for years.
Now he is out of the team, the root cause of the problem has been glaringly obvious I'm afraid.
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Yep Goldson is and has been our best defender for years.

We need better than him but the shite he gets on here is ridiculous.
 
GovanFront4 said:
He should have used the 6 months of his first season after taking over building a formation, style, shape etc. The fact he changed it in the summer meant that time for forward planning was lost.
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The 433 he played against the filth at Ibrox with the press from all over had me excited.

Then the fanny decimated our squad
 
2 reasons

We are not defending as well from the front and not attacking as well from the front, it has a knock effect throughout the team

The dearth of goals and assists from our squad that lost Sima and others to injury has meant the team are forcing the issue rather than the build up we had been doing before that. It leaves the defence wide open as we have committed too many forward
 
SecondBestIsNothing said:
Why do you 'highly doubt' that? He hooked Cantwell after half an hour for not following instructions, he's hardly going to let a guy do that week-in, week-out.

He's also changed him to play an inverted role at times & Tav picks up they positions, again proof he's following the tactical instructions. He's been done more often when in position in recent weeks than being out of position, again signalling that he may need more protection.
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He doesn't need more protection - he needs replaced
 
SecondBestIsNothing said:
If we continue with him next season he does & if he is replaced, then you need to replace his build-up chances create, assists & goals.

Replacing him isn't as easy as folk are making it out to be.
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I am aware of that but we cant keep leaking dreadful goals from the RB position, he is doing more harm than good I'm afraid.
 
bucks72 said:
I am aware of that but we cant keep leaking dreadful goals from the RB position, he is doing more harm than good I'm afraid.
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Recency bias comes into play there as he's in poor form. But his replacement won't be able to cover the ground we're asking him to cover.

He needs phased out but to just rip the plaster off will do us more harm than good.
 
SecondBestIsNothing said:
Recency bias comes into play there as he's in poor form. But his replacement won't be able to cover the ground we're asking him to cover.

He needs phased out but to just rip the plaster off will do us more harm than good.
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That’s a massive assumption in your first sentence there.
 
ICA_86 said:
That’s a massive assumption in your first sentence there.
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It really isn't. Before March, he was part of an excellent defence. You could highlight hiccups, but you could do the same if you looked at any defence at any club with a fine-tooth comb.

I think we conceded something like 14 goals in 28 league games until March. That is a ridiculous record & better than most seasons.
 
All this season our defensive structure has been a good goalkeeper behind a second rate defence. He was superb . They were shite. Lost far too many easy goals especially from right hand side and being unable to stop crosses into box
 
SecondBestIsNothing said:
It really isn't. Before March, he was part of an excellent defence. You could highlight hiccups, but you could do the same if you looked at any defence at any club with a fine-tooth comb.

I think we conceded something like 14 goals in 28 league games until March. That is a ridiculous record & better than most seasons.
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You don’t know who his replacement would be if he was to leave, so yes, it quite literally is the definition of a massive assumption :D
 
ICA_86 said:
You don’t know who his replacement would be if he was to leave, so yes, it quite literally is the definition of a massive assumption :D
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My point is no one can, as we're expecting a player to do 2 jobs. We're asking him at times to be one of the highest players up the pitch, then to be in the backline seconds later if we lose possession.

The current system is setting players up to fail in its current state.
 
Angrybluebear said:
Cantwell does track back, but generally when chasing the guy who has just dispossessed him, and it’s not pretty he simply can’t tackle and you know the 20 second pursuit is going to end with him giving away a foul.
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Ross County he rescued us early on with a great defensive tackle. He doesn't get enough credit for his off the ball work.
 
Clement is already on record describing what he wants out the squad.

This is to have them play the same way irrespective who is playing. I believe he said something along the lines of “Components may change but the machine goes on”

All very well when you have a full and fit squad of interchangeable players but this hits a wall when half the “ Components “ are unavailable.
 
BSPECIAL said:
All this season our defensive structure has been a good goalkeeper behind a second rate defence. He was superb . They were shite. Lost far too many easy goals especially from right hand side and being unable to stop crosses into box
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Souttar gets away with murder for some reason too. Even going back to the first game of the season he was slow to react costing a goal.
 
SecondBestIsNothing said:
My point is no one can, as we're expecting a player to do 2 jobs. We're asking him at times to be one of the highest players up the pitch, then to be in the backline seconds later if we lose possession.

The current system is setting players up to fail in its current state.
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Ah, I see.

I think how we play has to change anyway, with the reliance on a right back for attacking output simply not viable.

It costs us a midfielder for parts of the game, and there’s no surprise that we’ve never had a long term option for that right modfueld slot.

It just makes us a little bit lop-sided.
 
Our FB's don't provide enough protection. Goldson's form tanked. Souttar was then our 'main' defender, and he's got multiple mistakes in him per game. All 4 are defensively frail
 
ICA_86 said:
Ah, I see.

I think how we play has to change anyway, with the reliance on a right back for attacking output simply not viable.

It costs us a midfielder for parts of the game, and there’s no surprise that we’ve never had a long term option for that right modfueld slot.

It just makes us a little bit lop-sided.
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That I can agree on, but anytime we've tried to move on (Gio's 'Keep the zero' system) it has led to us being tame going forward, reverting to type.
 
Cowan_rfc said:
The 433 he played against the filth at Ibrox with the press from all over had me excited.

Then the fanny decimated our squad
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I still can't get my head around Beale's summer. He came in after Gio and did very well. Played decent football and had a go at Celtic with a high press.

Then he gets pre season and decides to change what was working and go with a bizarre narrow shape. Leaves us with no wide options and on the face of it, wtf was he thinking? We face a low block every other game so he wants to make the pitch narrower?

If we had kept the style of play he first played with and just signed better players, we could've had a right good chance.
 
stonewall Jackson said:
Clement is already on record describing what he wants out the squad.

This is to have them play the same way irrespective who is playing. I believe he said something along the lines of “Components may change but the machine goes on”

All very well when you have a full and fit squad of interchangeable players but this hits a wall when half the “ Components “ are unavailable.
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It's do plan a better

Its the one failing off clement so far off the players can't play it change it to what they can play to win

Even gio realised this
 
bucks72 said:
Because Goldson is missing. Is it not obvious to everyone he has been covering the RB area failings for years.
Now he is out of the team, the root cause of the problem has been glaringly obvious I'm afraid.
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I think Goldson gets a lot of unfair stick, especially considering he never had a pre season this year. But he has been off it for months and been a liability at times this season.

I'm not writing him off just yet the way some on here are though. I do think having a pre season and hopefully getting a solid left centre back beside him could see him return to form.

Either that or Souttar is the RCB and we get rid of Goldson.
 
DerHammer88 said:
I still can't get my head around Beale's summer. He came in after Gio and did very well. Played decent football and had a go at Celtic with a high press.

Then he gets pre season and decides to change what was working and go with a bizarre narrow shape. Leaves us with no wide options and on the face of it, wtf was he thinking? We face a low block every other game so he wants to make the pitch narrower?

If we had kept the style of play he first played with and just signed better players, we could've had a right good chance.
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Not excusing it but he's obviously been watching current Brazilian football as that is the common formation and set up in the league there and he worked in Brazil before.

He made a right lady's front bottom of it.
 
DerHammer88 said:
I still can't get my head around Beale's summer. He came in after Gio and did very well. Played decent football and had a go at Celtic with a high press.

Then he gets pre season and decides to change what was working and go with a bizarre narrow shape. Leaves us with no wide options and on the face of it, wtf was he thinking? We face a low block every other game so he wants to make the pitch narrower?

If we had kept the style of play he first played with and just signed better players, we could've had a right good chance.
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He was hired to clear out players and bring in cheaper options

He had no clue what he was doing

We also need to look at impact the players who left had on dressing room Kent Alfie you knew what you got with them but bigger miss for me was Arfield from squad harmony point of view and aggression I think he was a bigger miss than we think yes he wasn't playing much but
 
stonewall Jackson said:
Clement is already on record describing what he wants out the squad.

This is to have them play the same way irrespective who is playing. I believe he said something along the lines of “Components may change but the machine goes on”

All very well when you have a full and fit squad of interchangeable players but this hits a wall when half the “ Components “ are unavailable.
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The dog barks and the caravan keeps going.
 
Big Vern said:
Similar happened with Gio and Beale - as soon as they had the players for an extended time on the training pitch it went to shit.

I'd imagine when they first come in, they simplify what the players have to do and then try to implement more detailed tactics - are the players unable to handle more complex instruction?
Click to expand...

They are in no way similar.

Excluding loans, We sold/released at least 14 first team players from when GvB joined till he left and only signed 6. So he had a much smaller squad to work with.

We had just played the most games in any season in modern time, combined with the shortest preseason to accommodate the World Cup. By the time we had played 12 league games we had played 10 Champions League qualifiers/group games. We were 2 games a week from day 1 of the season till we sacked GvB.

In the lead up to his sacking we had the following all out injured for periods some long term. Helander, Goldson, Souttar, Davies, Yilmaz, Davis, Lawrence, Jack, Arfield, Matondo, Sakala, Morelos.

Due to the fixture congestion we actually played a cup game with a back four of
Devine, Jack, King, Yilmaz, started Ure up front and brought on McCann, Lovelace, Nsio and Stevens.

King started the last 9 matches of GvB’s tenure, mainly partnering a makeshift centre half come midfielder loanee James Sands.

GvB never got a penny of the money for qualifying for the Champions League, but by qualifying it effectively cost him his job. Take out the CL group games as no Manager in recent time had got us to that level and his record isn’t too shabby. Domestically only lost 4 out of 47 (which matched Posticoglu’s first 47) Beale lost 7 out of 38 and Clement is already at 4 out of 36.
 
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Angrybluebear said:
They are in no way similar.

Excluding loans, We sold/released at least 14 first team players from when GvB joined till he left and only signed 6. So he had a much smaller squad to work with.

We had just played the most games in any season in modern time, combined with the shortest preseason to accommodate the World Cup. By the time we had played 12 league games we had played 10 Champions League qualifiers/group games. We were 2 games a week from day 1 of the season till we sacked GvB.

In the lead up to his sacking we had the following all out injured for periods some long term. Helander, Goldson, Souttar, Davies, Yilmaz, Davis, Lawrence, Jack, Arfield, Matondo, Sakala, Morelos.

Due to the fixture congestion we actually played a cup game with a back four of
Devine, Jack, King, Yilmaz, started Ure up front and brought on McCann, Lovelace, Nsio and Stevens.

King started the last 9 matches of GvB’s tenure, mainly partnering a makeshift centre half come midfielder loanee James Sands.

GvB never got a penny of the money for qualifying for the Champions League, but by qualifying it effectively cost him his job. Take out the CL group games as no Manager in recent time had got us to that level and his record isn’t too shabby. Domestically only lost 4 out of 47 (which matched Posticoglu’s first 47) Beale lost 7 out of 38 and Clement is already at 4 out of 36.
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I still feel bad about the Gio situation. He wasn't backed after the CL and looking back now, what an achievement it was beating PSV to reach the groups.

He didn't help himself with the boring 'horseshoe' brand of football but I'll always have fond memories of Gio for the Europa League run. Tactically out thought Dortmund and Leipzig.
 
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