Defence

[Kitchandro]

The manager puts the team out but he doesn't take sole responsibility - that's stupid. How can you say the bad form was wholly down to Sousa but that the good form last season wasn't wholly down to Pearson - neither are right, you're being terribly selective.

Anyway, you're flogging a dead horse by arguing that we had a better season last year - everyone can see that.

My point is that we were never going to acheive the consistency this season given the start we had and the position Sven took over from, the point is that when we do acheive it under him i'm confident that it will be with a much higher level of performance than we had last season - i think our better performances serve as a taster of what is to come - we've seen what we're capable of, next step is to do that every week. Hopefully with a whole summer to prepare next season will be alot better(more consistent). We'll have to wait and see i guess, but i think criticising Sven at this point is pretty unfair tbh.

That is not stupid at all. The manager is in charge of team affairs, it's his job to make sure the team he puts out is successful. Of course he should take responsibility. If Sousa was disappointed with the players when they crossed the white line - why didn't he pick better ones, in a better formation, i their right positions, etc? The answer is because he was a poor manager.

Why couldn't we achieve consistancy this season? Sven has had 30 league games to find some consistency. He's had 6 months. There wasn't even any pressure on him to reach the play-offs, and he had a decent squad, and money to work with.

Sven deserves a full season to get us up but you an't really make excuses for him this season. We are not good enough and the manager has to take responsibility. It's not like he's had his hands tied. He's clearly made mistakes.

[cc_star]

The manager puts the team out but he doesn't take sole responsibility - that's stupid. How can you say the bad form was wholly down to Sousa but that the good form last season wasn't wholly down to Pearson - neither are right, you're being terribly selective.

Anyway, you're flogging a dead horse by arguing that we had a better season last year - everyone can see that.

My point is that we were never going to acheive the consistency this season given the start we had and the position Sven took over from, the point is that when we do acheive it under him i'm confident that it will be with a much higher level of performance than we had last season - i think our better performances serve as a taster of what is to come - we've seen what we're capable of, next step is to do that every week. Hopefully with a whole summer to prepare next season will be alot better(more consistent). We'll have to wait and see i guess, but i think criticising Sven at this point is pretty unfair tbh.

Sven's clocked up double the defeats of most other teams in the top section of the table (assuming the table started on Sven's first game Oct 16th)

The 'start' that everyone keeps referring to is the only reason their saviour Sven is here, but like I say - since then 9 defeats, if he could have turned 4 or 5 of those into draws like some other teams have, we'd be in the playoffs

We need a close season to judge Sven you're right, until then we can only marvel at the signing of players like Naughton & revel in the fact that Becks, Owen, Heskey & Henry have all been linked with us whilst at the same time be baffled at his inability to see we need a leader at the back (yes, yet another defender) and a ball winner in the middle along with his perceived player favouritism which looks to be costing us when it matters. One thing's for sure, its going to be an interesting summer

[leicester4life]

I want a team put out to win games, not be adventurous. We scored 3 today and conceded 3. We got just 1 point because we couldn't defend properly.

Your argument is silly.

You tried to make the point that we weren't a defensive side under NP.

You're silly. <3

[Guest bennytwohats]

That is not stupid at all. The manager is in charge of team affairs, it's his job to make sure the team he puts out is successful. Of course he should take responsibility. If Sousa was disappointed with the players when they crossed the white line - why didn't he pick better ones, in a better formation, i their right positions, etc? The answer is because he was a poor manager.

Why couldn't we achieve consistancy this season? Sven has had 30 league games to find some consistency. He's had 6 months. There wasn't even any pressure on him to reach the play-offs, and he had a decent squad, and money to work with.

Sven deserves a full season to get us up but you an't really make excuses for him this season. We are not good enough and the manager has to take responsibility. It's not like he's had his hands tied. He's clearly made mistakes.

You're clearly not prepared to listen to reason so i won't bother persisting with this beyond this post.

It is stupid because at the end of the day the game is won or lost by the players - i'm not saying the manager takes no responsibility, i'm saying he doesn't take sole responsibility - i'd have thought that much blindingly obvious to anyone who has ever had a passing interest in football. Do you think fergie could win the league with Wolves? I very much doubt it. Sousa and Leicester were a terrible fit. Just like i don't think Hodgson is a shit manager because he flopped at Liverpool. Not everything is so black and white.

At the risk of repeating myself we are a team that has been thrown together with mostly loan additions, we have had no pre-season and there have been plenty of comings and goings. That is obviously going to lead to inconsistency. Why did he do it? Because we weren't good enough before. Pearson had a whole season before to get the team playing his way and the momentum of winning league one - the two situations aren't even comparable.

Nobody is saying he is infallible - of course he has made mistakes, he is human afterall. The point is that some mistakes were to be expected. I'm saying look at the bigger picture, we probably won't make the playoffs, but it was always going to be an incredibly hard job to get there. The fact that we came close and have seemingly let it slip within a few weeks is testament to how well we had done to get to that position in the first place - we had absolutely no right to be there.

No i'm saying with a full season and summer to do his thing lets hope that he can build on this season's positives and sort out some of his mistakes, rather than focus solely on the negatives and dismiss anything positive - which you seem pretty intent on doing. No point looking backwards.

[Kitchandro]

You tried to make the point that we weren't a defensive side under NP.

You're silly. <3

You tried to make the point that 'all 11 men were focused on defending' under NP. Which is a ridiculous untrue statement.

Unless you've managed to prove otherwise in any comments since?

[Kitchandro]

You're clearly not prepared to listen to reason so i won't bother persisting with this beyond this post.

It is stupid because at the end of the day the game is won or lost by the players - i'm not saying the manager takes no responsibility, i'm saying he doesn't take sole responsibility - i'd have thought that much blindingly obvious to anyone who has ever had a passing interest in football. Do you think fergie could win the league with Wolves? I very much doubt it. Sousa and Leicester were a terrible fit. Just like i don't think Hodgson is a shit manager because he flopped at Liverpool. Not everything is so black and white.

At the risk of repeating myself we are a team that has been thrown together with mostly loans, we have ha no pre-season and there have been plenty of comings and goings. That is obviously going to lead to inconsistency. Why did he do it? Because we weren't good enough before. Pearson ad a whole season before to get the team playing his way and the momentum of winning league one - the two situations aren't even comparable.

Nobody is saying he is infallible - of course he has made mistakes, he is human afterall. The point is that some mistakes were to be expected. I'm saying look at the bigger picture, we probably won't make the playoffs, but it was always going to be an incredibly hard job to get there. The fact that we came close and have seemingly let it slip within a few weeks is testament to how well we had done to get to that position in the first place - we had absolutely no right to be there.

No i'm saying with a full season and summer to do his thing lets hope that he can build on this season's positives and sort out some of his mistakes, rather than focus solely on the negatives and dismiss anything positive - which you seem pretty intent on doing. No point looking backwards.

Firstly, why does everyone say that just because I'm not willing to agree with everything they say? Grow up.

Everything isn't black and white - but I did watch almost all of Sousa's games and he had very very little managerial prowess. Fergie couldn't win the league with Wolves because they are relegation candidates before they start. We were promotion candidates, as the previous year proved. So having us bottom, with just 1 win, no team spirit and well, basically nothing you'd expect a half-decent football team to have, was a very bad job done. The thing was though he'd lost the dressing room. The players didn't believe in him anymore.

The players do take responsibility for what they do on the pitch, but they can only do that as individuals. The manager is in charge and therefore has to take responsibility on the whole. If he keeps picking the players who aren't performing, it's his fault. If the formation isn't right, it's his fault. If there's no team spirit, it's his fault. If results are going badly, it's his fault. etc, etc.

You say the team has been thrown together with loans, but that didn't have to be the case. He had cash in January to spend. He could have brought in less players, but with more quality/hunger/experience for Championship level. He did not have to gamble everything on having a team full of loans, which hasn't worked. We arguably did not have a squad good enough to take us up when he took over but he's still had 6 months (which is like pre-season and the season up until Christmas) to make us good enough. That is enough time to mould a team a find some consistency. There were plenty of other teams that had some consistancy after 6 months of the season.

Our squad was nowhere near as bad as you make it out to have been, and I don't think Sven has had the mammoth task you seem to think he has either.

[cc_star]

No other area of the team has received as much attention from Sven as the defence, he's played everybody on the books at the back and he's signed an unbelievable amount of players, many of whom are no longer with us and those that are still with us won't be in two months time. Despite all of this its worse than its ever been (except under the inept Sousa)

Who gives 2 shits if someone's comfortable on the ball if they make poor defensive decisions the majority of the time that cost us games. We will never be successful unless the defence is sorted out. This has to start at the top with transfer policy dictating we sign the right players as so far we obviously haven't, once signed we coach them defensively the right way as obviously so far we haven't then once these two are in place we need to gain consistency but nothing I've seen since October suggests the manager is capable of even a hint of consistency.

We've chopped & changed this area of the team more than any other, and to what end? We're worse off than ever.

Hobbs made the odd mistake having been pushed out of his position and was promptly decried as poor/weak/even rubbish by the majority of people on here, but every single person since then has made just as many, if not more mistakes and these players aren't even ours, at least if it was Hobbs playing week in & week out making the odd mistake it would be our lad who was learning & therefore our club benefiting from the learning opportunities.

All we can do is grin & bare it until the summer and hope we can do what Keegan's Newcastle used to be able to do, if the opposition score 4 then go ahead & score 5.

I'd go all out to sign Naughton & Mee in the summer and play Naughton - Hobbs (favoured position) - Mee - New Signing

Its a defenders job to primarily defend & until the manager/team learns that we'll always need to score up to 4 or more to win a game

[Guest bennytwohats]

Firstly, why does everyone say that just because I'm not willing to agree with everything they say? Grow up.

Yep, it's definitely everyone else.

[Kitchandro]

Yep, it's definitely everyone else.

Go on then smart arse, find a comment that meant I deserved that

And you're sarcastic enough

[Babylon]

Another tolerant and mature post from Mr Moderator

To answer your point, Ricardo was blamed when he conceded goals because he was at fault for them. Not every one, but a couple, and got away with some other shockers. I am yet to see any evidence that Weale was to blame for any goal today.

But yeh, lets just slate Weale because you feel sorry for Ricardo. That makes sense.

And btw, you keep pushing the same sarcastic point on every thread. Wasn't it you who told me I post the same point too many times?

I'm tolerant and mature with people who deserve it, not people like CC. Being a moderator doesn't mean I can't have an opinion, and my opinion is that CC is miserable git and has been looking for things to moan about since Sven walked in the door.

Ricardo was not just blamed for goals that he conceded that were his fault (was was that one goal?). People along with CC were on his back blaming him for every goal, saying it was his fault for unsettling the defence as that he wasn't organising them. If I get a chance i'll dig out the posts.

I've not slated Weale at all, i've said a dozen times i'd rather have him in goal. But when certain people were blaming everything on Ricardo, there were some of us saying the blame should lie with the defence. So basically the point is, now public enemy number one is out of the way people can see what the problem is as they would never dream of slagging off Weale who is one of the "untouchables" like Waghorn and hobbs.

Obivously i'm not the only one who could see what was going on.... http://www.foxestalk.co.uk/forums/index.php?showtopic=72066

but as usual, idiot is idiot - exaggerating something that doesn't exist to make his point

Sorry, but coming from the man who says Sven has signed 402 defenders, spent £10m, that he HAS to play Bruma and that we HAVE paid massive fees for all our our loans.

[Babylon]

Ricardo was not just blamed for goals that he conceded that were his fault (was was that one goal?). People along with CC were on his back blaming him for every goal, saying it was his fault for unsettling the defence as that he wasn't organising them. If I get a chance i'll dig out the posts.

As I said, I'd dig out some of the posts made about it all being Ricardos fault. Baring in mind these were post match in a game where no goals were his fault. There were 100's and 100's more posts along these lines and I could be here all night posting them.

The defence is at 6's & 7's since he came in, when previously it was stronger how is that not the useless feckin clown's fault?

since Ricardo's come in we've looked at 6's & 7's It's been dreadful that people even think about defending the c**t

[Trav Le Bleu]

Time for the Tunch?

[Narborough_fox]

Vitor and Tunchev (if fit) would be what I'd play on Saturday Bamba isn't all we all thought he was after Manchester City and Vitor is a class above the rest but I think Sven doesn't know what he's doing with the defence in all honesty. He just needs to stop pissing about with it.

[Bettsj2]

Vitor and Tunchev (if fit) would be what I'd play on Saturday Bamba isn't all we all thought he was after Manchester City and Vitor is a class above the rest but I think Sven doesn't know what he's doing with the defence in all honesty. He just needs to stop pissing about with it.

Bamba looks so much better with Mee or Vitor.

Personally i'd play Bamba and Vitor in the centre and Mee at left back.

[FoxyPV]

Dear Sven,

For my birthday I would like a settled Leicester defence.

Yours humbly (and faithfully whether I like it or not),

FoxyPV

[Ashby]

I am sure that if NP were stil at the club with the money that Sven has had leciester would be in a play off position no problem.

Not sure if anyone had noticed but Hobbs has been in the Sun Team of the week for the last two games.

[Houdini Logic]

I am sure that if NP were stil at the club with the money that Sven has had leciester would be in a play off position no problem.

Not sure if anyone had noticed but Hobbs has been in the Sun Team of the week for the last two games.

They haven't won either of their last two and conceded in both to be fair

[cc_star]

As I said, I'd dig out some of the posts made about it all being Ricardos fault. Baring in mind these were post match in a game where no goals were his fault. There were 100's and 100's more posts along these lines and I could be here all night posting them.

And your point about those two quotes is...?

It has looked at 6's & 7's since he was introduced to the team, prior to that we'd given more resolute displays at the back - and shock horror actually won games consecutively.

Are you trying to highlight that I'm right?

What I've later said... is along the lines of "is it the actual players that Sven introduced (Ricardo & Bruma amongst them) to a previously winning side, or is it the action itself of Sven tinkering, chopping & changing?)

The dropping of Vitor is the best example of this, an extremely rare clean-sheet, a MotM display & two goals.

The defence has looked far better with Bamba & Mee or Bamba & Vitor at the back, even if it did concede, it was never abysmal

I've also said "our formation isn't conducive to defending leads" "Sven lacks a plan B in instances like that" "Our defensive coach if we have one should be sacked" "number one priority for summer is that the coaching setup needs looking at, because someone somewhere is failing badly" "we're poor and have bad shape when the opposition has the ball" "is Faz &/or Hamman to blame?" "we lack a leader" "despite signing 867 players Sven has failed to stop the rot at the back, can we trust his judgement in that area?" and many, many more I'd be only too happy to dig out to save you the trouble of pouring through my old posts

You can quote me on any of that in future

[Stevosevic]

I am sure that if NP were stil at the club with the money that Sven has had leciester would be in a play off position no problem.

Not sure if anyone had noticed but Hobbs has been in the Sun Team of the week for the last two games.

He is still our player and will be here next season. He was making a lot of mistakes for us so it was best for him to go away and get them out of his system playing for someone else, gain some form.

[MC Prussian]

No other area of the team has received as much attention from Sven as the defence, he's played everybody on the books at the back and he's signed an unbelievable amount of players, many of whom are no longer with us and those that are still with us won't be in two months time.

Despite all of this its worse than its ever been (except under the inept Sousa).

Who gives 2 shits if someone's comfortable on the ball if they make poor defensive decisions the majority of the time that cost us games. We will never be successful unless the defence is sorted out. This has to start at the top with transfer policy dictating we sign the right players as so far we obviously haven't, once signed we coach them defensively the right way as obviously so far we haven't then once these two are in place we need to gain consistency but nothing I've seen since October suggests the manager is capable of even a hint of consistency.

We've chopped & changed this area of the team more than any other, and to what end? We're worse off than ever.

Hobbs made the odd mistake having been pushed out of his position and was promptly decried as poor/weak/even rubbish by the majority of people on here, but every single person since then has made just as many, if not more mistakes and these players aren't even ours, at least if it was Hobbs playing week in & week out making the odd mistake it would be our lad who was learning & therefore our club benefiting from the learning opportunities.

All we can do is grin & bare it until the summer and hope we can do what Keegan's Newcastle used to be able to do, if the opposition score 4 then go ahead & score 5.

I'd go all out to sign Naughton & Mee in the summer and play Naughton - Hobbs (favoured position) - Mee - New Signing

Its a defenders job to primarily defend & until the manager/team learns that we'll always need to score up to 4 or more to win a game

How come we're "worse off than ever"? Ever seen us play in League One?

How can you not look at five wins in a row between late January and February as a "hint of consistency"? What would qualify as a "hint of consistency" in your books then?

"...he's signed an unbelievable amount of players, many of whom are no longer with us."

What are you saying?

The only loan players gone are Davies, Bednar and Kirkland.Remain Yakubu, Kamara, Bruma, Naughton, Mee and Van Aanholt.

That's 3 who're gone compared to 6 that are still with us - just to get it straight.

As for your points on Hobbs, are you seriously implying that loan players don't learn from their mistakes and don't give it their 100% every game they play, but the so-called "established" ones do???

Have you seen Oakley play this season? Or witnessed some of Weale's flops in the box?

Given the way the loan system works and the January transfer window being Sven's only real option to this day, I don't think signing loan players was a bad move.

The majority of those have proved to be good enough for us to move up the table.

When you say "we'll never be successful unless the defense is sorted out" you're looking at a fourth of the entire problem.

The odd goalkeeper situation, our stale central midfield and the lack of quality strikers being the other three.

Personally, I think our central midfield needs much more attention than the defensive side right now.

Numerous times our axis in the middle gave up possession too easily, leading to quick counterattacks, dangerous scenes in Weale's/Ricardo's box and as a consequence, goals against.

Also, the central midfield has so far often failed to impose its style of play onto the opposition.

How come the moaners and bitchers of lately on here willfully and intentionally exclude our "established" players from criticism?

I don't really read a lot of threads on their own shockers, which is a bit unfair, when you consider the fact that you go up or down as a team.

It's as if they're holy and bad words about their occasional sub-par performances treated like blasphemy - or because Pearson is still Gospel to some?

Looking at this very crude mix of players, still being close to make it to the playoffs (albeit rather theoretically) is an achievement in itself.

As a Leicester City supporter this season, we've been part of an ongoing experiment with new owners, a new manager, a lot of new players and this shuffling around will continue to frustrate some until the end of April (or May).

All I know is, blaming the likes of Sven or Ricardo is a very short-sighted and foolish affair and I'm not losing too much sleep over it.

Yes, I wasn't too happy about throwing a 3-1 lead away against Middlesbrough last Saturday myself or having to watch the poor game against Norwich at the Walkers or the abysmal match versus Portsmouth later on, but I've come to accept that we'll have to live with this sort of game for another couple of weeks.

Knowing that we can still make the cut to the Premier League is more of a bonus thought in the whole scenario.

There are a lot more teams in this division who deserve to go up much more than we do, and that's because their managers and owners have been able to build on a promotion campaign for longer than just half a season.

Always keep that in mind.

[Houdini Logic]

Personally, I think our central midfield needs much more attention than the defensive side right now.

Numerous times our axis in the middle gave up possession too easily, leading to quick counterattacks, dangerous scenes in Weale's/Ricardo's box and as a consequence, goals against.

Exactly my thoughts - Our midfield is clearly the weakest part of the team and this inevitably leads to issues for both our defence and attack

[TheUltimateWinner]

*Cough* Kisnorbo anyone?

[cc_star]

How come we're "worse off than ever"? Ever seen us play in League One?

How can you not look at five wins in a row between late January and February as a "hint of consistency"? What would qualify as a "hint of consistency" in your books then?

"...he's signed an unbelievable amount of players, many of whom are no longer with us."

What are you saying?

The only loan players gone are Davies, Bednar and Kirkland. Remain Yakubu, Kamara, Bruma, Naughton, Mee and Van Aanholt.

That's 3 who're gone compared to 6 that are still with us - just to get it straight.

And given the way the loan system works and the January transfer window being Sven's only real option to this day, I don't think signing loan players was a bad move.

The majority of those have proved to be good enough for us to move up the table.

When you say "we'll never be successful unless the defense is sorted out" you're looking at a fourth of the entire problem.

The odd goalkeeper situation, our crude central midfield and the lack of quality strikers being the other three.

Personally, I think our central midfield needs much more attention than the defensive side right now.

Numerous times our axis in the middle gave up possession too easily, leading to quick counterattacks, dangerous scenes in Weale's/Ricardo's box and as a consequence, goals against.

Also, the central midfield has so far often failed to impose its style of play onto the opposition.

How come the moaners and bitchers of lately on here willfully and intentionally exclude our "established" players from criticism?

I don't really read a lot of threads on their own shockers, which is a bit unfair, when you consider the fact that you go up or down as a team.

It's as if they're holy and bad words about their occasional sub-par performances treated like blasphemy (or because Pearson is Gospel to some).

Looking at this very crude mix of players, still being close to make it to the playoffs (albeit rather theoretically) is an achievement in itself.

As for your points on Hobbs, are you seriously implying that loan players don't learn from their mistakes and don't give it their 100% every game they play, but the so-called "established" ones do???

Have you seen Oakley play this season? Or witnessed some of Weale's flops in the box?

I'm obviously talking about our run since January, which took a turn for the worse when a couple of January's signings broke into the team

Of course I've see us in L1, I'm talking about the last 6 months Sven has been here, not our entire history

Midfield is a problem, I've talked about it at great length before and in many threads. We have 3 players doing a job which is done by 2 players in nearly all other teams. This however is a thread specifically about the defence, so therefore I was talking about the ... defence

You talk about lack of quality strikers, Sven has signed Vassell, Yakubu, Kamara & Bednar - that's 4 players in addition to the forwards that helped us to 5th last time around. I think if we don't have quality strikers (in your words) after all that activity questions must be asked about the person bringing these players in

Elevating from near the bottom to mid-table isn't that great an achievement, many managers would have done it most likely on far less resources than Sven has had, even just by adding organisation back into the side which got lost over the summer after NP departed and the 'never a manager but maybe a coach' Sousa took over

With regards to Hobbs or loan players learning from their mistakes - they're all young so all will (hopefully learn from their mistakes) but in the case of Hobbs is it us who will benefit from that learning not Chelsea or anyone else

Yes, I've seen Oakley play, and I think he's done ok (not great, but certainly not bad) considering he's not had a run in the team... Weale needs improving on that's for sure but we didn't look so fragile when he was in the middle of an extended run in the team.

[B52]

And your point about those two quotes is...?

It has looked at 6's & 7's since he was introduced to the team, prior to that we'd given more resolute displays at the back - and shock horror actually won games consecutively.

Are you trying to highlight that I'm right?

What I've later said... is along the lines of "is it the actual players that Sven introduced (Ricardo & Bruma amongst them) to a previously winning side, or is it the action itself of Sven tinkering, chopping & changing?)

The dropping of Vitor is the best example of this, an extremely rare clean-sheet, a MotM display & two goals.

The defence has looked far better with Bamba & Mee or Bamba & Vitor at the back, even if it did concede, it was never abysmal

I've also said "our formation isn't conducive to defending leads" "Sven lacks a plan B in instances like that" "Our defensive coach if we have one should be sacked" "number one priority for summer is that the coaching setup needs looking at, because someone somewhere is failing badly" "we're poor and have bad shape when the opposition has the ball" "is Faz &/or Hamman to blame?" "we lack a leader" "despite signing 867 players Sven has failed to stop the rot at the back, can we trust his judgement in that area?" and many, many more I'd be only too happy to dig out to save you the trouble of pouring through my old posts

You can quote me on any of that in future

Here's your quote from Les-TA-Jon. He has more sense than any of your posts because you don't care about anything else than your feelings and feelings is a bad judge.

Sven has tinkered a lot. There's no debating that. The back 5 seems to change every game.

However whether his tinkering has been forced, necessary or unnecessary IS debatable.

Sven has been caught in a few "catch 22" situations. Firstly the defense was awful when he first came in, so he had to change it a lot. Which obviously unsettled things but was completely necessary.

Vitor gets injured against Ipswich in the snow. Change Needed.

Then Cunningham got injured and Curtis Davies did a last minute U-Turn. It changes again.

Bruma and Mee come along. Giving him cover and more options = more tinkering.

Bruma played really well against QPR, but then misses the next game (norwich) through injury. Forcing Sven to change things and put berner back in, where he showed his age and decreasing ability at this level.

For the S****horpe game, he brings back in Vitor, which is seemingly unnecessary tinkering, but it worked with Vitor scoring 2.

Then for the following game against portsmouth, after Vitor being solid and scoring 2, he's dropped and bruma comes back in. Seemed somewhat unnecessary.

Then it changes again from Portsmouth for the Boro game because Van Aanholt is fit again. Unnecessary? Hmm i dunno.

-----------------------------------------

The problem is that we don't have the midfield players for a 4 man midfield, so we have to play 3. This in turn means that you HAVE to play attacking full backs otherwise you'd have no width, but unfortunately you have to look for players like Cole, Evra, Ramos etc to have full backs that can both defend and attack and run all day.

Add on top of this Sven's style of football that he wants: Pace, Passing, Ball Control.

With Weale in goal, a lot of our moves can't start from the back, due to his poor distribution, and also a lot of our defending ends with him hoofing it up, leading to less possession in general.

With Ricardo in goal the opposite is largely true (see the first half against derby). However he unsettles the entire back 4.

Note as well that 2 of the goals we conceded against boro were due to (amongst other factors): Weale's poor distribution and Weale's problem with long shots.

[MC Prussian]

I'm obviously talking about our run since January, which took a turn for the worse when a couple of January's signings broke into the team

Of course I've see us in L1, I'm talking about the last 6 months Sven has been here, not our entire history

Midfield is a problem, I've talked about it at great length before and in many threads. We have 3 players doing a job which is done by 2 players in nearly all other teams. This however is a thread specifically about the defence, so therefore I was talking about the ... defence

You talk about lack of quality strikers, Sven has signed Vassell, Yakubu, Kamara & Bednar - that's 4 players in addition to the forwards that helped us to 5th last time around. I think if we don't have quality strikers (in your words) after all that activity questions must be asked about the person bringing these players in

Elevating from near the bottom to mid-table isn't that great an achievement, many managers would have done it most likely on far less resources than Sven has had, even just by adding organisation back into the side which got lost over the summer after NP departed and the 'never a manager but maybe a coach' Sousa took over

With regards to Hobbs or loan players learning from their mistakes - they're all young so all will (hopefully learn from their mistakes) but in the case of Hobbs is it us who will benefit from that learning not Chelsea or anyone else

Yes, I've seen Oakley play, and I think he's done ok (not great, but certainly not bad) considering he's not had a run in the team... Weale needs improving on that's for sure but we didn't look so fragile when he was in the middle of an extended run in the team.

Our good run continued in February, even with the new loan players coming in. If that doesn't disprove your theory, then what?

Well, when I mentioned that we lack quality strikers, I should've added "...quality strikers who have been with this team over a longer period of time under the same manager, playing in a regular system".

How can you rate Bednar as "quality"? He didn't do nothing for us and was deservedly sent back "home".

Vassell is also played on the wing and not in his natural position, but set up Yakubu for his third two days ago. His work rate has improved quite a lot over the past few games and he's close to being back to full fitness.

Kamara has only had one game yet, but shown glimpses of quality with this touch, technique and vision.

Yakubu just scored his first hattrick for us, cheer up. His goals-per-game average is already back up to .500.

My point is that our game cannot count on a reliable central midfield, we lack that very important piece of the puzzle.

This is the reason why our defense is often exposed and also the reason why our strikers lack supply.

And claiming that any manager could've gotten us out of the mess Sousa and Mandaric had left us in is a bit heavy.

Learning from their own mistakes should be helping every single player improving, regardless of their age or contract situation.

Footballers want to play football.

Bruma can learn from this antics last Saturday and so can Van Aanholt, Mee or Naughton get better with each game (which I'd say they have done so far).

Even whilst playing for Leicester City FC.

All this loan player and Ricardo slating is oh so narrow-minded.