3 goals or more let in at home

[Yorkshire Blue]

We also defend deeper than any other team.
This puts undue pressure on us, and gives the opposition the upper hand.
Stating the obvious i know, but it is rarely mentioned.

I expect teams hold a higher line against us, than against teams who have a threat who can get in behind defences. Eastwood doesn't like to play on the shoulder of the last defender, and when we've forced him to do so, we haven't made the most of his abilities. When Goater or Gray played on the shoulder of the last defender, it created the space that Freddy thrives in.

Defensively we have to play deep to cover a keeper who is poor at leaving his line (whether its crosses, or judging when to close an attacker down), and often two centre-backs who aren't dominant in the air, nor are particularly quick. Plus we also lack experienced leaders to get the defence (and our deep lying captain) to hold a line further up the pitch.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

I find it very hard to believe that we conceded 3 goals in any game where Lord Adam Barrett was playing :p

Surely with him giving 100% in every game, having blue blood and willing to die for the cause our back 4 should have been invincible.

ORM, I find it very hard to believe that we conceded 3 goals in any game where Kevin Maher was playing.

Surely with him giving 100% in every game in the defensive midfield position, having blue blood (he turned down a move to Orient don't you know) and willing to die for the cause our back 4 should have been fully protected?

 

[THE SEVENTIES NORTH BANK]

We also defend deeper than any other team.
This puts undue pressure on us, and gives the opposition the upper hand.
Stating the obvious i know, but it is rarely mentioned.

Spot on gazza ,especially away from home .

At Home ,Tilly wants the Full Backs to bomb forward all the time to add to our Attacking play and this has cost us so many Goals Against as they constantly get caught up field leaving us exposed as our useless Forwards (Bradbury ,Foran or Harrold) lose the Ball .
If we had another regular Goal Scoring central Striker then the Full Backs could stay in their positions more to hold a stronger defensive line
.How many times this Season have we seen Darryl completely exposed with a Forward bearing down on him in a One on One situation ,which he usually loses as he is not very good in this situation and seems easy to score against .

 

[Cricko2]

Eastwood doesn't like to play on the shoulder of the last defender, and when we've forced him to do so, we haven't made the most of his abilities. When Goater or Gray played on the shoulder of the last defender

Bet they were sick as Parrots playing there:D

 

[* ORM *]

ORM, I find it very hard to believe that we conceded 3 goals in any game where Kevin Maher was playing.

Surely with him giving 100% in every game in the defensive midfield position, having blue blood (he turned down a move to Orient don't you know) and willing to die for the cause our back 4 should have been fully protected?

Thankfully Kev prevented us from conceding 5 or 6 goals in these games :D

 

[KrustyTheKray]

Well Tilly and Brush should be wanting to shore up the defence for next season.

If i was them, i'd be looking to bring in at least two quality defenders.
A centre half, and someone that can play centre half and revert to full back if needed.

I'd let Clarke go, he only wants Championship football anyway. Surely we could get some decent fee for him. He's hardly been consistent has he.

I'd keep Sodje, just for his experience of that league and he's used to the rough and tumble league one football brings. But by all accounts Tilly is showing him the door at the end of the season anyway. Letting him go would be a shame.

Barrett will stay and rightly so.

Hammell and Francis i'd let go. Lots of the goals conceded this season have been down to their poor defending.

Maybe keep Francis and use him in a more attacking role, thats what is good about his play. He's a good crosser and has an attacking mind, it's just his defending that lets him down.

Hammell is off because of his get out clause, so no great loss there. Time for Che to come back in and prove his worth.

 

[Interpol Shrimper]

Well Tilly and Brush should be wanting to shore up the defence for next season.

If i was them, i'd be looking to bring in at least two quality defenders.
A centre half, and someone that can play centre half and revert to full back if needed.

I'd let Clarke go, he only wants Championship football anyway. Surely we could get some decent fee for him. He's hardly been consistent has he.

I'd keep Sodje, just for his experience of that league and he's used to the rough and tumble league one football brings. But by all accounts Tilly is showing him the door at the end of the season anyway. Letting him go would be a shame.

Barrett will stay and rightly so.

Hammell and Francis i'd let go. Lots of the goals conceded this season have been down to their poor defending.

Maybe keep Francis and use him in a more attacking role, thats what is good about his play. He's a good crosser and has an attacking mind, it's just his defending that lets him down.

Hammell is off because of his get out clause, so no great loss there. Time for Che to come back in and prove his worth.

So basically then you are advocating pretty much a whole new back 4?
Hmmm, surely that was partly the reason why we went on that long miserable winless run at the start of this season, which ultimately cost us.

Francis will be solid in L1 so there's no point shipping him out, just look at how he performed for Tranmere and how MtS (& you too IIRC). Sodje & Wilson despite being great srvants in the promotion years need to go to (unless Efe is prepared to stay in a backup Spinner kind of role)!

Clarkey & Hammell may well want out, but as stated in many other threads, are people going to be battering down Ron's door to offer hard cash for them?

 

[sufcintheprem]

Whilst the home form is poor, it is a general defensive malaise that we have that enables us to ship goals at will. Unless this tightens up we won't do anything next year.

Bang on. It's not our home form nor our away form, it was the way we managed to concede frequently from a variety of different types of goals both home and away.

Althought we should have done better at home, we rarely had the defensive certainty to give us the base from which to win games.

 

[sufcintheprem]

Well Tilly and Brush should be wanting to shore up the defence for next season.

If i was them, i'd be looking to bring in at least two quality defenders.
A centre half, and someone that can play centre half and revert to full back if needed.

I'd let Clarke go, he only wants Championship football anyway. Surely we could get some decent fee for him. He's hardly been consistent has he.

I'd keep Sodje, just for his experience of that league and he's used to the rough and tumble league one football brings. But by all accounts Tilly is showing him the door at the end of the season anyway. Letting him go would be a shame.

Barrett will stay and rightly so.

Hammell and Francis i'd let go. Lots of the goals conceded this season have been down to their poor defending.

Maybe keep Francis and use him in a more attacking role, thats what is good about his play. He's a good crosser and has an attacking mind, it's just his defending that lets him down.

Hammell is off because of his get out clause, so no great loss there. Time for Che to come back in and prove his worth.

It's probably worth bearing in mind that by many accounts, Francis and Clarke were two of the finest defensive performers in League One last season. I don't understand how you can advocate Sodje's place in the League One team and not include these two on the same merit.

Hammell out for Wilson is definitely not something I want to see us doing unless absolutely forced

 

[Beefy]

The thing we forget about Francis is that he is still so young. Yeah he makes mistakes but he's shown enough this season, particularly since getting back into the side, to suggest that he could be a very good player for someone.