He rarely gets beaten in the air mate, honest.
Our centre backs (all three of them) are the worrying weak links at crosses - proved by the fact that as soon as McCarthy wasn't in the box for one of them coming in we conceded...
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He rarely gets beaten in the air mate, honest.
Our centre backs (all three of them) are the worrying weak links at crosses - proved by the fact that as soon as McCarthy wasn't in the box for one of them coming in we conceded...
MaCarthy had a very good game yesterday untill that vital first goal of theirs the corner came to him he should have put it in row Z instead of hoofing it striaght to the guy who bent the cross inn for that crucial goal it's as a defence we don't do the simple things Mori will find row Z no other defender does!
domingo77
Player Valuation: £500k
Team seems more dynamic this year in the sense that there are less 'assigned roles' my impression was that in Martinez's first year Barry was always the player backing up the left back and McCarthy always RB. This year, just seems to be whoever is closest and, despite the stat above, we don't seem to pressure the ball when its in a wide position which is crazy given the difficulties the team has had this season.
On pressing from the front - I think I remember an interview with Rom where he spoke about learning the importance of 'conserving energy; i get the impression he's told not to chase down. That's not to say we don't press from the front but I think this is more the role of the winger - losing Lennon on Sat was key to the defeat in my view.
On pressing from the front - I think I remember an interview with Rom where he spoke about learning the importance of 'conserving energy; i get the impression he's told not to chase down. That's not to say we don't press from the front but I think this is more the role of the winger - losing Lennon on Sat was key to the defeat in my view.
I like Dawson at West Brom. He is fantastic in the air for a right back. Also like Joel Ward at Palace.
samZ
Player Valuation: £1m
Part of our problem is stopping the supply of crosses in the first place. Take a look at yesterday's goals. No pressure on the opposition player making the cross. The second and last goal in particular. Look how much time we are allowing players on the ball to take a touch, look up and cross.
4737carlin
Player Valuation: £90m
This is true this, see i use to make this point when on about Tim Howard, yes he was grim towards the end and needed to be dropped, he couldn't deal with crosses, but the point I made was that the side allowing them to come over as often as they do, and with such ease will always lead to goals, no matter who is in goal.
Don't blame Joel for yesterday, OK Howard would of been blamed if he would of played but the side need to do something about this and either they are not capable of doing it or Roberto hasn't noticed the problem we have on this issue.
Smudge1985
Player Valuation: £950k
Still think our problem is the whole defensive setup. We dont mark anybody, we mark space. Its not like when we concede these goals, you can watch them back and rant and rave about someone losing their man. They never had a man in the first place. Same about being beaten in the air, they're often not so much beaten, as going for a standing jump, while strikers are moving and have a running jump, so will win an aerial battle 9 times out of 10. All four of the goals we conceded against Villa and West Ham this week, a striker has won a header in the box, and he has simply moved into the space between our 2 centre backs. That is why I think its clearly a problem with the management and whatever the hell we do in training. Because if our defenders are marking men, okay, they still might get beaten in the air, but the striker heading it wont have such an easy job putting it exactly where he wants to.
Every other side in this League watches us and scouts us and knows this is exactly why we set up and we're so easy to score against. Look at Arsenal away, when have you ever seen Arsenal go into a game with the sole tactic of banging balls into the box? Because they were struggling for form at the time, and they knew for a fact that if they kept chucking crosses in, they would score goals. Every other club has put a real emphasis on playing crosses in against us too.
The best example of this total non marking style of defence we have was Man City in the Cup, the second one where the ball went out. I saw a still picture of the moment the ball is out of play, and besides Stones and Sterling, we have about 5 defenders in the box and City have nobody. But they still scored. Because those 5 men were doing nothing but ball watching instead of marking players.
Every other side in this League watches us and scouts us and knows this is exactly why we set up and we're so easy to score against. Look at Arsenal away, when have you ever seen Arsenal go into a game with the sole tactic of banging balls into the box? Because they were struggling for form at the time, and they knew for a fact that if they kept chucking crosses in, they would score goals. Every other club has put a real emphasis on playing crosses in against us too.
The best example of this total non marking style of defence we have was Man City in the Cup, the second one where the ball went out. I saw a still picture of the moment the ball is out of play, and besides Stones and Sterling, we have about 5 defenders in the box and City have nobody. But they still scored. Because those 5 men were doing nothing but ball watching instead of marking players.
Youre right. I said on another thread here yesterday I was sick of seeing photos after weve conceded another simple goal. No recriminations and anger, just acceptance and resignation. Teams well know our defence is like a colander because defenders dont have a man to pick up and the particular achilles heel being crosses. All our defenders are internationals. Yet continually they look like static dummies because theres no variance from this just supposed watch the space not the man (and theyre not even doing that properly). Its even being quoted by opposing managers post match that they well knew this glaring weakness. And still nothings done because thats the way were set up.
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We were ' found out ' last season with the high press making our playing or from the back rushed and mistake ridden and now we've been ' found out ' again on crosses. Sounds like tactical naivety for me. It's martinez job to ensure we're competitive and he's showing time and again that he falls short.
Callum_efc
Player Valuation: £5m
I felt ace in the TB SCREAMING at the top of my voice before their first two goals to stop the cross.
Me shouting like a loony obviously merrited to some extent.
Me shouting like a loony obviously merrited to some extent.
Saint Domingo
Player Valuation: £80m
A direct result of taking Lennon off. Martinez doesn't learn. Previously we had Kone and Baines down that flank. Baines has never been great at stopping crosses but with Kone wandering out of position we were powerless to stop the balls coming in. We seemed to have stopped that with Oviedo and Cleverley on the left flank and Lennon being better defensively than Deulofeu on the right flank. Lennon in front of Oviedo was working fine, then Martinez brought Niasse on who had no positional discipline which allowed the opposition to get 2 v 1 v Oviedo. Easy for them to win a succession of corners and get a load of balls into the box.
Nothing we didn't already know to be honest
Ashtonluke
Player Valuation: £950k
We just don't put enough pressure on the player who is crossing. At this level, you cannot stand off players and let them have 5 yards of space to place a cross. Centre halves can only do so much against a centre forward when a striker attacking a ball that is perfectly placed for him because the original cross was made without pressure. We have done it for the last two seasons and it just is never addressed. My concern is that I'm not sure how much the manager and coaching staff seem to think it is a problem!
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