Jewell: Defensive Changes Haven't Helped Us
Thursday, 19th Jan 2012 08:19

Boss Paul Jewell says the Blues’ defensive woes haven’t been helped by regular changes of personnel with Town having fielded four keepers and 10 different centre-half partnerships this season. However, he believes a lack of confidence and psychological factors have also led to the Blues conceding more league goals than anyone else in the division, 51, and having a tendency to let leads slip, with 18 points having been dropped from winning positions.

Jewell says the central defensive situation has been more of an issue than goalkeepers: “We had Stocky at the start of the season before he was called back, so it’s not as if we’ve been chopping and changing goalkeepers every week.

“But other than Danny Collins and Sonko when we won that run of games, we haven’t had any [regular] centre-half pairing, and then Sonks got injured.

“There’s been chopping and changing because of injuries and suspensions. It’s been unfortunate and I think that’s added to the problems.”

The Blues manager says mental issues are perhaps more significant: “I think confidence-wise and psychologically we’ve suffered - as soon as that board goes up you can almost see the trepidation in the players’ faces because we’ve been done so often [late on].

“We’ve just got to get over that hurdle, we’ve got to be strong men, have a stronger mentality. Sometimes we seem to turn a corner. We got a clean sheet against Derby, we were looking decent against Leicester, and again we gave away a daft penalty and it cost us three points.

“Little things. Just when we’ve been making progress we’ve had the rug pulled from under us, and most of it has been down to ourselves, we’ve shot ourselves in the foot.”

Photo: Action Images

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The_suffolk_punch added 08:35 - Jan 19 Same old self flagulation but with no real mention of how we will change. Cheer up Jewell atleast you have a job unlike 2.7 million of the UK (and how you still have your job is a miracle I will never know) BLUE ARMY! Safety is our first concern!
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DurhamTownFan added 08:36 - Jan 19

Agree with PJ, but I would suggest that again, he is to blame for this problem. Short-term loans (Stockdale, Collins) don't contribute to defensive stability, while playing two extremely attacking full-backs (one who actually can't defent that well-Edwards) with apparent license to bomb forward hardly helps us to generate a dogged back-line. For all his successes, it seems some fans on here are too ready to praise Cresswell's progress and absolve him of any blame for some goals we let in. As under Keane, if you chop and change the defence, those players who come in are on a knife-edge all game because any mistake can cost his place in the team next week, or (in Tommy Smith's case vs Peterborough) even longer.

So, I do agree with PJ, but instead of talking on about this to the media, he's got to put a plan in place, and play the same back four week in, week out.

BROTHERBLUE1974 added 08:40 - Jan 19 Try a natural minded right back, and younger center half's.
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Punchless added 08:42 - Jan 19 You have had 12 months to sort out our defence and GK situation and 12 months on we are still no further forward - sorry Mr Jewell but its about time you stopped giving excuses and just got on with the job in making ITFC great again!
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irishtim added 08:44 - Jan 19 Just sort it out. 18 days gone in transfer window still no signings. Same waffle everyday pj.
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BrettenhamBlue added 08:45 - Jan 19 Is this an excuse for not signing any new centre-backs during the transfer window? If so,-poor excuse. Sonko, Delaney, Smith and Edwards will get us relegated this season- mark my words.
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Sir_Bob added 08:46 - Jan 19 How can you moan when you pick the team, the defence was like it when you arrived, you've had a year to change it & you fill it with either loans or incompetence, man up or f*** off
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walberswick added 08:52 - Jan 19 It couldn't possibly be the manager and the defensive coach's fault, could it? Oh, and who is it that changes the whole team week in week out? Get yourself a mirror and have a good look.
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MaySixth added 08:56 - Jan 19 Why didn't you do the obvious in the summer then Jewell? We all knew a) McAuley was off b) We were not good enough in the centre of defence Yet you waited and waited, picked up some average loans and now have no replacements and no players wanting to come to a struggling club
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blueblood66 added 09:05 - Jan 19 Clubs a mess, that's the fact of the matter. We might have a squad of 12 next season in League 1. Happy days.
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blueblood66 added 09:05 - Jan 19 Clubs a mess, that's the fact of the matter. We might have a squad of 12 next season in League 1. Happy days.
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Stato added 09:07 - Jan 19

On paper at least Stockdale was a quality signing (loan or not) but with the 24 hour call back clause I'm surprised he PJ didn't put more effort into sourcing a permanent solution (and appears still hasn't). Collins never let us down and Cresswell is Town's find of the season. Sonko did well for a spell and their are clubs with worse players than Edwards at RB. In other words I think PJ was close to getting it right in defence and was a bit unlucky and personally I think our midfield has been shocking with only Andrews having any credit so far this season. I think the midfield haven't defended properly and apart from Andrews haven't attacked properly either meaning we have underperformed at both ends of the pitch because of the lack of quality in the midfield.

cornishnick added 09:22 - Jan 19 Having a sh1te manager doesn't help either
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ItfcFtw added 09:23 - Jan 19

Try buying a goalkeeper instead or chopping and changing it every week!! Dont get me wrong Alex Mccarthy is good but he then signed a new deal when we got him on loan so no doubt we wont actually ever sign him permanently.

May as well play lee barratt every week, at least hes our keeper!!

And as for edwards..... Words dont describe the shockingness of his positioning week in week out, Mr Wabara was a proper Rb am i right?

Strange decisions by Mr Jewell

Rant over :)

Marshalls_Mullet added 09:24 - Jan 19 THATS WHAT SHORT TERM LOANS LEAD TO. It was plainly obvious at the start of the season. Lets get Ward and Pearce in PJ.
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thechangingman added 09:30 - Jan 19

I am a secondary school teacher.

I can't even conceptualise a context in which one of my classes were failing and failing BADLY and in which I then went into a public forum and bemoaned all the reasons of their failure: "they're not doing well pyschologically..." "I've had to move a few kids around..." "towards the end of a lesson, they lose concentration..."

My boss would simply say: "you're paid to deliver results and if you don't then you're not very good at your job and we need to get someone else in who can do it properly". End of.

The results my students achieve come down, in very large measure to me - my teaching, encouragement and, if you will, my 'management' of them as a class.

The achievement of Paul Jewell's team which he bought and picks each week (wow, if I could PICK the kids I taught my results would go through the ceiling!!!) come down in very large measure to HIM!!

If he were a teacher OFSTED would fire him. Simple.

I guess he's lucky that he works for non-footballing folk who really don't know any better...

...Sigh...

Moisha added 09:36 - Jan 19 I agree, this is of the managers making, but it ain't just this season is it? We were conceding late goals under Keane, I remember conceding late goals under Royle. It's just that this is the latest season and fresh in the memory. Maybe it's an ITFC thing...... and we just can't stop conceding late goals!!
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buryblue77 added 09:46 - Jan 19

thechangingman, I completely agree with you. I manage the sales operation in the company in which I work and I am fortunate to be good at understanding that area of business and able to take the company forward. If, however I didn't have that same grasp of the job and wasn't able to promote my products in an effective way there is no doubt I'd have been given that nice little HMRC document entitles P45!
i think you sum it up at the end, he works for people who don't understand football and my theory is that they have much more say in the addition of new players and the way in which these additions are funded than we all think, hence the amount of loans.

Kropotkin123 added 09:52 - Jan 19

@Thechangingman

Your teacher scenario is a load of rubbish!!

You did not start you teaching year with hardly any students, due to the previous teacher.

You did not have to by decent students from other schools.

You do not have tens of thousands of supporters moaning at you week in week out over the slightest thing.

You did not have to make wholesale changes to other staffing positions, you were the only variable on the students.

Its no wonder our kids are so ill equipped for society and work, if this is the type of simplistic understanding their tutors have of other roles in society.

Lightningboy added 09:57 - Jan 19 No sh1t Sherlock. Get it sorted..that's your job. You can begin by signing a right-back that can defend.
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newboy added 10:05 - Jan 19

Not simplistic a realistic view that if you do not do your job your sacked - and for the rest of us that is the case for some reason it does not hold water when it comes to PJ . It has got to the point when you cant even take him seriously anymore I feel sorry for the players if they have to listen to his waffle day and day out they have probably switched off too (hence the problem)

northstand78 added 10:06 - Jan 19

Jeez..I thought that he was going to get things sorted with the bids that he was putting in and the players he was targeting looked as if they would fit in a treat.

And then the prat comes out with this sh*t.
You pick the team mate, not us and we could see it was going to go wrong a long time ago.

Sort it out or get out..

If i was making the excuses that he's making in my job i wouldn't have a job..P45 time.

buryblue77 added 10:13 - Jan 19

Kropotkin, the changingman is merely making a like for like comparison, of course he doesn't have to buy pupils from other schools and all of the rest of your riduculing of the post but merely saying as I did in my post if we weren't up to the task we wouldn't be in the job.
Whilst I'm not a Jewell out supporter (yet, I would still like to see him succeed for two reasons, one I like him, he always comes across as an amiable guy and two sacking a manger a year on isn't good for the stability of the club, but if he succeeds in bringing in new players in this window and can't turn it round then I think he will have to go) you cannot be happy with the job he's doing and it's his job to get the defence right, we seemed better under Royle defensively and we had the likes of Diallo and Santos, surely not as good as we currently have so something is wrong at the back.
The last part of his post needs attention, he's lucky he works for people who don't understand football, that's more to the point why we're in the current mess we find ourselves in.