by YorkshireRoyal99 »
28 Oct 2023 20:19
Clyde1998 YorkshireRoyal99 blythspartan The game was better than I thought it would be and after 28 minutes I thought my £20 bet on us to win was money well spent. If Smith had put away his chance it could’ve been a different outcome, but overall the better side won.
We can’t defend out wide and we make it far too easy for other teams to get crosses into our box. One of my issues with Selles is that he doesn’t seem to be able to effect the game with his substitutions. It all seems a bit more in hope rather than having a clear plan.
We haven't been able to defend in wide areas for 3 years now, it's been probably the weakest defensive area of our game for years.
Funnily enough, I remember an post-match Paul Ince interview (kudos if you remember which game) where he mentioned it was in our "culture" to sit back and protect a lead, and he couldn't understand why (despite being the manager, first problem). It's like it's in our culture to be poor at defending in wide areas and from crosses. (It could just be in our culture that we are poor at defending in general).
I think the problem in the wide defensive areas is we're expecting our full-backs to be involved in attacks, whilst also being good defensively. There aren't many players that can do both well (at our level) - that is be good going forward, whilst also being good defensively; players tend to be good at one aspect or mediocre at both.
I think the only real solutions for us at the moment would be: not allowing the full-backs to advance as far up the pitch during attacks as they do currently; playing with a holding midfielder who remains deep during attacks (or could drop into a CB position); or playing with three CBs. The latter two should ensure there's enough defensive cover when the FBs push forward.
But it was a thing last season as well, we were extremely poor at defending from wide areas and we played without advancing wing backs and with 3 CB's. Granted, that's probably because we invited a lot more pressure rather than leaving ourselves wide open like we do now so understand that it is different in itself, but we just seem really, really poor at defending wide areas.
I could understand being worse last season against better quality opposition, but I think it's also just a combination of our full backs just not being very good in general, manager tactics as well as mentality. When was the last time we genuinely had decent full backs? Richards and Yiadom/Esteves? Even they were flawed but a marked improvement on everything we've had since (Yiadom post the 7th-placed season under Pauno).