How good/bad is our defence?

[Victor Meldrew]

There has been much talk recently about our poor goals return (quite rightly) but not much has been said about our defence.
Regarding goals scored we are equal 20th and for goals conceded are also 20th.
I know that defending is not just the back 4 and keeper as the team should defend as a whole but over the past weeks I have seen many postings saying that the defence is o.k. but is it?

Frederici- very good shot-stopper generally but weak on crosses and doesn't appear to do much organising of those in front of him.
Gunter-weak in the tackle and sometimes gets away with his dreadful positional play with his exceptional pace.
Pearce-a solid div 1 defender often slow to react, in fact is slow and cumbersome but can sometimes deal with an equally slow striker who lacks mobility (the sort that you get more of in Divs 1 and 2 and not in the Championship).
Hector-Exceptional at this level for bringing the ball out of defence but not as good a passer as he thinks he is and lacks concentration in defensive situations, our own version of Chris Smalling.
Obita-not a natural defender who, like Gunter fails to block crosses and is not great positionally and although he thinks he is a central or left-sided midfielder he lacks the dexterity to play there.

These are the ones that have played most games in those positions and appear to be Clarke's first choices but are they good enough for us next season?

IMHO Hector is worth persevering with and with the right coaching (will he get it here?) has potential to improve.
I'm not fussed if we get rid of the other 4 especially Pearce who has had so many chances but is just not up to it at this level.
Obita I fear doesn't really have a position and I wonder what his future will be.
Gunter was an expensive signing for a full-back for Spurs, Forest and us but, unless we play with wing backs he is just not strong enough a defender (laughably some on here once thought he could play at centre-back where heading the ball is a priority and this is a player who often chickens out of headers) to keep and even as a wing back I doubt that his crossing is good enough.

There are so many things wrong with our side at the moment and we are just above the relegation zone for a reason and it is not IMHO just because of our poor attacking play.

[Lacoste]

Clarke has done wonders to tighten up our defence don't you know. That's why we've only kept 2 clean sheets in god knows how many games

[Ian Royal]

The full backs are weak, centrebacks fine to great. But even the best defence in the league is going to struggle when the opposition don't have to worry about conceding and can just keep comfortably plugging away for 90 minutes biding their time for the killer chance.

[P!ssed Off]

Don't blame the Gunter and Obita that they're forced to play the roles of both fullback and winger each game with zero support.
HRK, McCleary, Blackman and Mackie, plus Management and Ownership are at fault for that.


How to fix the defence: Invest in 2 decent wingers or switch to a back 5.

[Ian Royal]

Don't blame the Gunter and Obita that they're forced to play the roles of both fullback and winger each game with zero support.
HRK, McCleary, Blackman and Mackie, plus Management and Ownership are at fault for that.


How to fix the defence: Invest in 2 decent wingers or switch to a back 5.

They're not helped, but they both make too many basic errors and have too many weaknesses. They'd do in a good, form, team. But they're not great assets or anything.

[P!ssed Off]

Don't blame the Gunter and Obita that they're forced to play the roles of both fullback and winger each game with zero support.
HRK, McCleary, Blackman and Mackie, plus Management and Ownership are at fault for that.


How to fix the defence: Invest in 2 decent wingers or switch to a back 5.

They're not helped, but they both make too many basic errors and have too many weaknesses. They'd do in a good, form, team. But they're not great assets or anything.

You scored Mackie, HRK and McCleary higher or equal to Obita and Gunter for the last game.
Your opinion is worthless.

[Vision]

In terms of keeping shape and general organisation we're decent (and a vast improvement on the previous manager.

However it appears to me that defending (and attacking for that matter) set pieces we are the worst Reading side I have ever witnessed. I have no idea what's going wrong because if I expected one thing for Steve Clarke to be really focused on it would have been set plays.

[Winston Smith]

Obita is the most one footed (and therefore predictable and easy to deal with) footballer we have had in some time*. Doesnt matter how good you are with your left, if it is clear within 2 minutes that you are petrified of using your right then the opposition will just push you onto it everytime and you will end up knocking it back to the keeper time after time after time........






*Shorey is the correct answer here

[Forbury Lion]

We can't seem to score, so I would expect us to concentrate on keeping clean sheets and eventually we might get a lucky break.

If we were capable of scoring at the other end, teams would not throw their selves forward at us so much and our defence would be under less pressure. Fix the attack and the defence will follow

[sputnik]

opinion is worthless.

The TB in a nutshell.

[SCIAG]

Pearce who has had so many chances but is just not up to it at this level.

Can't agree with that at all, this is his worst season for us by a distance but he's still looked competent at this level.

As for our defence under Clarke, when Adkins was sacked we had the third worst record in the league. Under Clarke, we have the ninth best, joint with Ipswich and Sheffield Wednesday. Obviously that's a huge improvement, but it isn't good enough yet, particularly with our faltering attack.

Our improvement is made to look better thanks to that 6-1 defeat. If that counted towards Clarke instead of Adkins, we'd have had the 17th best defence under Adkins and joint 19th under Clarke. Obviously there's absolutely no way you can blame Clarke for it, I'm just pointing out that freak events can skew the data a lot.

Oh, and most one footed player? Blackman, easily.

[ladida_gunner_graham]

Oh, and most one footed player? Blackman, easily.

Blackman has a foot? Prove it. Which one?

[ZacNaloen]

I don't think defense were problems second half of season and that they aren't bad, but obviously could be better.

Our inability to score put huge amounts of pressure on our defense, and knowing we couldn't score meant that if we did concede there was no belief we could get back into the game. Which is why we had so many collapses.

Why can't we score?

can't cross/won't cross and can't score/won't score come to mind. Just our options up there have been poor either through low confidence and form or just a lack of quality. I dunno, but without fresh blood I doubt sticking with the same players will get us out of that rut so signings are needed up top, desperately.

[Hoop Blah]

I wonder if the last few games have brought a few people back to reality regarding Hector?

He's got some real talent but he still takes too many risks and tries to be too clever for a centre half at times. We've let in some soft goals over the last few games for which he needs to take a decent portion of the blame for.

He's still a big talent if he can iron out some of risks and defend crosses better (we seem to concede too easily at the near post when he's there).

[melonhead]

when the team isn't scoring, and the players have no expectation of us scoring, the defence is always going to struggle
going into every game knowing a clean sheet is required to gain a point must drain everything out of you.

what it needs is 1 decent experienced defender, with pearce hec and cooper fighting it out to play with him.

and an actual left back

[Hoop Blah]

Agreed brendy, not scoring and not winning exposes the errors that will always exist at the back as none of them are infallible, especially when the pressure increases.

I just think people get a bit carried away with Hector when his little attempts at nicking the ball or coming out of the back with the ball come off. He needs to learn when to concentrate on the basics and when to take the risks, ie when they're not so risky!

It looks great when it comes off but can certainly cost us when it doesn't.

[PieEater]

TBF I'd swap all of our defence for the Brentford or Brum back 4, or indeed pretty well any of the recent teams we've played where our attack looks so toothless.

[melonhead]

Agreed brendy, not scoring and not winning exposes the errors that will always exist at the back as none of them are infallible, especially when the pressure increases.

I just think people get a bit carried away with Hector when his little attempts at nicking the ball or coming out of the back with the ball come off. He needs to learn when to concentrate on the basics and when to take the risks, ie when they're not so risky!

It looks great when it comes off but can certainly cost us when it doesn't.

agree on hector. but...

its natural to big him up though when he has such obvious potential.

but that kind of inconsistency and errors in decision making are just what happens when you play inexperienced yoof players in the first team. especially in defence

[Brum Royal]

Hector has improved a lot this season, and will in time be a very good centre back who I would expect to be playing Prem footy in his career if he continues to develop as he has done. In my opinion, his main weakness is in his willingness to win the ball he gets the wrong side (ie in front of the man) too often, and then is in the wrong place and having to chase back to get the ball back. I counted three occasions when this happened against Brentford on Saturday, summed up by one move in front of the east stand when he got the wrong side of his man, who then broke into the left side of the box, Pearce jockeyed him to hold him up, before Hector came steaming back through a little clumsily and knocked ball and man out for a corner.

He's certainly not a bad defender, but hopefully he will continue to work on his weaknesses and improve and we could have a very good defender (and saleable asset) on our hands.

[BR2]

I agree Brendy if we were talking about Cooper as one of the "yoofs" but Hector is now hardly inexperienced with many league games for us, Aberdeen, Barnet et al under his belt.
As mentioned earlier he not only has a similar build to Chris Smalling he also is the Championship version of him-a player who has many footballing attributes but lacks concentration and hopefully he can become totally focused next season.