Defensive Shambles

[Babylon]

45 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

You're right. The back four look shaky.

Like we were under Pearson, I ask again..WHY?

A defence that looked utterly solid last season now looks like a League 1 outfit.

Babs explains it well but I still think they aren't covered by any sort of midfield. 

We know our back four, when put under an onslaught will buckle. And they are. I recall some brilliant blocks made by Wes on Saturday but there's TOO MANY of them. Personally I think Huth has been worse. Little mention has been made of how he was nutmegged for their final goal. It was funny to see. Or it would be if I weren't a City fan.

As I've said a few times, we rarely looked THIS bad defensively under Pearson and that's without Kante and with much worse players at his disposal all over the pitch, players who now struggle in the champ and league one. And that's why I'll keep bleating on about there being more issues than just the loss of Kante.

 

There are loads of issues, the loss of Kante being one of them. That's what I was getting at the other day when I said it's not about just 4-4-2, or one player. It's a combination of lots of small and large things. Some of them are things we can control, some we can't as it's down to the opposition figuring out a way that exposes us. Then you have stupid individual errors like the first two Chelsea goals, total inability to defend set pieces.

 

Teams are allowing us to open up knowing it leaves us at our most vunerable. No matter how good Kante was, he couldn't be everywhere. He wouldn't have stopped what 7/8 set piece goals, he can't stop people switching play and bypassing him. Arsenal played around him in the 5-2 game so he's human despite doing a good impression of not being so sometimes.

 

Teams changing how they play us was one of the most obvious things to happen this season, you could see it happen at the end of last year as we got more and more of the ball, teams got deeper and deeper and we got less and less effective and games became more and more of a struggle. I thought then we needed to look at our technical side of the game and improve how we pass it. That's why I think most people thought a 10 was needed so badly... yet all we've done is stock pile strikers who lead the line and none of them have a great deal of technical ability.

[Ollie93]

1 hour ago, Babylon said:

As I've said a few times, we rarely looked THIS bad defensively under Pearson and that's without Kante and with much worse players at his disposal all over the pitch, players who now struggle in the champ and league one. And that's why I'll keep bleating on about there being more issues than just the loss of Kante.

 

There are loads of issues, the loss of Kante being one of them. That's what I was getting at the other day when I said it's not about just 4-4-2, or one player. It's a combination of lots of small and large things. Some of them are things we can control, some we can't as it's down to the opposition figuring out a way that exposes us. Then you have stupid individual errors like the first two Chelsea goals, total inability to defend set pieces.

 

Teams are allowing us to open up knowing it leaves us at our most vunerable. No matter how good Kante was, he couldn't be everywhere. He wouldn't have stopped what 7/8 set piece goals, he can't stop people switching play and bypassing him. Arsenal played around him in the 5-2 game so he's human despite doing a good impression of not being so sometimes.

 

Teams changing how they play us was one of the most obvious things to happen this season, you could see it happen at the end of last year as we got more and more of the ball, teams got deeper and deeper and we got less and less effective and games became more and more of a struggle. I thought then we needed to look at our technical side of the game and improve how we pass it. That's why I think most people thought a 10 was needed so badly... yet all we've done is stock pile strikers who lead the line and none of them have a great deal of technical ability.

If i remember correctly, under Pearson when we went on that bad run, loosing a lot of games. We never really got hammered, not like we have done this season by Liverpool and Chelsea. I'm not saying Pearson is a better manager than Ranieri, however, i do think the tinkerman needs to start tinkering.