| Is it possible that we may go on to be very defensively solid? 11:55 - Aug 14 with 1587 views | WarkTheWarkITFC |
Much has been made of the lack of firepower or a proven Championship goal scorer within the squad and people will suggest we have opened the season with two of the weaker teams in the division.
Hurst was known for being very organised but one of the things that was constantly referenced leading up to his appointment was that his team had not scored many goals. They were joint 7th top scorers in League One, well behind free scoring Wigan and Blackburn, but only Wigan had a better defensive record.
For all the concern over how many goals we may get, I am encouraged by what I have seen defensively so far. The second Blackburn goal, whilst great awareness from Dack, seemed to come at a time when Spence was struggling and we were left with a gaping hole down one side of the pitch. It may be generous to suggest this was teething problems of the new defence and Donacien struggling at a higher level in a position he's not as familiar with, but I don't get the feeling we will be caught out like that too often.
Both the Blackburn first goal and the Rotherham goal seemed fortuitous. Bart doesn't make many mistakes but he then pushed it onto Donacien and the ball fell into Graham's lap. On Saturday, it was a similar case of the ball being able to fall anywhere and actually landing perfectly in the home teams favour. Again, this might be blue tinted specs and all, but both times the ball would be more likely to fall to a blue shirt but landed exactly where the opponent dreamed it would.
Aside from one save in the Blackburn game and another in the Rotherham game, Bart seems to have been quiet. We associate him with sublime saves to keep us in matches but we have actually seen two teams that have created very little against us thus far.
It may be down to other factors, like Rotherham keeping it tight after a hammering, or Blackburn sitting on a lead for 60 minutes and I expect there is some truth in that. But the statistics would certainly seem to indicate, as well as witnessing how we've played in both games, that we are not giving up a bundle of chances like we did before.
So perhaps if we are going down the road of worrying unnecessarily at this time about where the goals will come from, we should also be encouraged that we don't seem to be giving up too many chances for our excellent goalkeeper to deal with. |  |
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| Is it possible that we may go on to be very defensively solid? on 11:59 - Aug 14 with 1576 views | Steve_M |
Maybe, but I thought fans wanted a move away from defensive football and creating few chances per game.
I'm not sure that two really poor goals, and one merely bad one, conceded in two matches provides much evidence for being defensively solid yet anyway. Rotherham were also really poor. |  |
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| Is it possible that we may go on to be very defensively solid? on 11:59 - Aug 14 with 1573 views | Guthrum |
What was it, 12 corners to nil on Saturday? Shows we're not allowing teams to have much activity in and around our box. |  |
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| Is it possible that we may go on to be very defensively solid? on 12:06 - Aug 14 with 1544 views | WarkTheWarkITFC |
| Is it possible that we may go on to be very defensively solid? on 11:59 - Aug 14 by Guthrum |
What was it, 12 corners to nil on Saturday? Shows we're not allowing teams to have much activity in and around our box. |
I believe the stat someone referred to yesterday was 15 corners for to 0 against in our opening matches, which certainly backs that up. As we all know from our 9 goals in 12 shots at the start of last season, such anomalies can be apparent this early into a season.
But to answer the other response, we do want to move away from 0-0's ideally of course, but while we are struggling to click in the final third it certainly isn't a bad thing is we don't look like conceding! I'm quite confident that once things do click, we will pretty decent at the back. | |
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| Is it possible that we may go on to be very defensively solid? on 13:17 - Aug 14 with 1467 views | JimmyJazz |
There is little doubt that we have faced 2 of the weaker teams in this division so far. Let's see how the defensive stats look after the Villa and Derby games
But yes, i don't PH teams scoring many goals, plenty of hard fought 1-0 wins may be coming up.
Maybe more worrying is the selection of 2 defensive minded midfielders per game bearing in mind our opponents so far. Although I do see PH trying to bed in a particular formation rather than changing things dependant on the opposition |  |
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| Is it possible that we may go on to be very defensively solid? on 13:56 - Aug 14 with 1391 views | Cuffy81 |
Shrewbury's success was based around conceding very few goals and being fitter than the opposition, i'd expect Hurst to be looking to implement the same here, but its going to take time and patience - certainly more patience than most of this message board had after Saturday's result.
Couple of points.
- We'd need to drastically improve our defending from set pieces for this to work - looks like a weak point so far. Amazing how many goals in championship come from set pieces. Although as you say the Blackburn's opener was somewhat fortuitous the way it ended up in the net - no-one went with Lenihan at all when he peeled off on the back post.
- 1 upfront requires other players to get in the box to get goals, this is still somewhat a strange proposition to most our midfielders.
- Rotherham bypassed our 'high press' by playing it long to Smith upfront. Do we have a plan B when the opposition do this?
Be interesting to see whether he goes with 1 or 2 upfront tonight. | | | |
| Is it possible that we may go on to be very defensively solid? on 14:30 - Aug 14 with 1341 views | Guthrum |
| Is it possible that we may go on to be very defensively solid? on 13:17 - Aug 14 by JimmyJazz |
There is little doubt that we have faced 2 of the weaker teams in this division so far. Let's see how the defensive stats look after the Villa and Derby games
But yes, i don't PH teams scoring many goals, plenty of hard fought 1-0 wins may be coming up.
Maybe more worrying is the selection of 2 defensive minded midfielders per game bearing in mind our opponents so far. Although I do see PH trying to bed in a particular formation rather than changing things dependant on the opposition |
Are Blackburn really one of the weaker teams in this division? The results so far would suggest otherwise. | |
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| Is it possible that we may go on to be very defensively solid? on 14:37 - Aug 14 with 1329 views | Vic |
I'm going to beg to differ on the defence!
The first goal against Blackburn was very poor - long ball into the far post and headed back across goal. I wasn't at Rotherham but their goals seemed horribly similar.
Back to Blackburn - they had 2 or 3 other situation where they put long balls in from their left to our back pos and they won nearly all of them. We were outnumbered 3 against 2 each time. So I see two weaknesses here - one - letting crosses come in too easily from our right hand side and two - defending the back post. I hope PH and the team sort it pronto. |  |
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| Is it possible that we may go on to be very defensively solid? on 14:47 - Aug 14 with 1321 views | Pinewoodblue |
| Is it possible that we may go on to be very defensively solid? on 14:30 - Aug 14 by Guthrum |
Are Blackburn really one of the weaker teams in this division? The results so far would suggest otherwise. |
Probably not but Blackburn & Rotherham are perhaps the two championship teams PH knows the most about. |  |
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| Is it possible that we may go on to be very defensively solid? on 15:04 - Aug 14 with 1294 views | Swn98 |
NO | | | |
| Is it possible that we may go on to be very defensively solid? on 15:07 - Aug 14 with 1283 views | Guthrum |
| Is it possible that we may go on to be very defensively solid? on 14:47 - Aug 14 by Pinewoodblue |
Probably not but Blackburn & Rotherham are perhaps the two championship teams PH knows the most about. |
But, as I said the other day, who also know the most about him. | |
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| Is it possible that we may go on to be very defensively solid? on 15:12 - Aug 14 with 1271 views | JimmyJazz |
| Is it possible that we may go on to be very defensively solid? on 14:30 - Aug 14 by Guthrum |
Are Blackburn really one of the weaker teams in this division? The results so far would suggest otherwise. |
Weaker teams this season
Rotherham
Wigan
Blackburn
Birmingham
QPR
Bolton
Hull
Reading
Admittedly I've included 8 teams and who knows what will happen as the season progresses, i'm sure 1 or 2 will have good seasons and another team may be down toward the bottom | |
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| Is it possible that we may go on to be very defensively solid? on 15:21 - Aug 14 with 1246 views | Reuser_is_God |
| Is it possible that we may go on to be very defensively solid? on 11:59 - Aug 14 by Guthrum |
What was it, 12 corners to nil on Saturday? Shows we're not allowing teams to have much activity in and around our box. |
Although we did concede from a set piece.
Against Rotherham & Blackburn. |  |
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