DMAA

Gerrard's statement was a statement of fact too. I saw statistics the other day showing the one area Katic way outperforms Worrall is in the air. Worrall's stats were better in most other areas. This is the impression I had too, I thought Katic was a collossus at the back vs UFA at Ibrox.

Well it's like a stress test. The only way to test the strength of a thing is to gradually increase the stress tests. In other words, there is no way to know how strong the defence is and how well drilled it is until is fails against higher quality opposition. I think our defence looked strong and well coached initially and was found out as the opposition got stronger. However you could take encouragement from the fact that - except the Motherwell experiment - we've only conceded more than once this season away to Villarreal and Spartak. And in both games our set up was attacking and we also scored goals freely.

In Europe, the level of opposition has gradually increased so you'd expect the defence to perform less well. In the league there isn't a clear goals conceded trend. The only time we've conceded more than one was the second game of the season against Motherwell who are one of the weaker teams in the league.

He's very readily criticised on here for poor defending and I did explain clearly why I didn't think he was at fault here. I agree Coulibaly is more culpable. He was miles away from where he should have been as the anchor man.

Agree with that. However if the centre midfielders had been tighter on by far Spartak's most dangerous player he wouldn't have been sucked in at all. I think the previous point mitigates it for Middleton because he's given a decision to make whether to stay on a full back who hasn't made a run yet or close down Spartak's best player who is in acres of space and weighing up a pass. I also still think the man has been fairly passed on to Flanagan who isn't marking anyone and is in the left back position. If he's been left with 2 men to mark the points stands. Definitely. I'm just defending Middleton because I think he gets a hard time on here in that the slightest perceived defensive lapse is picked up on, despite the fact Candeias is the only winger in history I've seen defend to those standards. Modern winger's are far more used to being treated as left or right forwards and not man markers in a traditional 4-4-2.

And by the way even if Middleton had chosen to man-mark rather than close down Popov I think he'd have passed him on to Flanagan because Flanagan's man had gone inside and Flanagan had in fact passed him on. He was in the left back position but hadn't quite got in line. The lack of anticipation was definitely more of an issue.

I've re-watched it and I stand by Flanagan being more culpable. The full back had been passed on to Flanagan and it's clear he was aware of it, however despite the fact that the full back was running at full pace Flanagan remained flat footed and the inevitable through ball was played through and he had already lost 5 yards. Poor anticipation of the play as much as poor positioning. Middleton could have man-marked the full back but tried to close down Popov who was in acres of space and had loads of time to pick the pass. Have to say surely a centre midfielder should have been on Popov and not allowed him to play that pass in the first place. If Popov had been marked Middleton wouldn't have ran in to close him down, and more crucially the pass would never have been played.

Perhaps so, I'll have to watch it again. My initial reaction watching it, and as a full back myself, was why are you so out of line with your defence and so central. Full back's 101 is don't leave a gaping hole on your side of the defence and pass men on if they leave your zone.

I don't think Coulibaly justified his inclusion over Jack. Jack gives us a defensive steel and positional discipline in that anchor role and is also our most reliable centre midfielder in possession.

I haven't watched the goals conceded over, however you can't blame the attacking left winger for not tracking that full back. Flanagan was out of position and out of line with the back line. For me the full back should not get sucked in like that and leave a big gap for the opposition full back to exploit. We have defensive midfielders for a reason and if the opposition winger moves inside you (as a full back) tell the defensive midfielder he's in your zone now, I'm staying in my position so that the defence keeps it's shape.

I’m going to go against the grain on the central defence and say I don’t think a little bit of rotation is or should be a problem. We’ve got 3/4 good central defenders and with a heavy fixture schedule none of them should be frozen out. There are problems with the defensive coaching by the looks of things because we are leaking unnecessary goals.

Ian, absolutely agree there one or two well over the top comments and a couple of unnecessarily negative ones but it’s not at all true that there were loads of “moany” comments through the game, the vast majority of the comments were fair.

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Well said. Despite some really poor moments defensively, we had terrible luck not to go 4-2 up with a wrongly chopped off goal and then terrible luck with a mad deflection for their 4th. As you say Spartak should really have had some second yellows too. And I agree re Middleton, looking forward to seeing how he does with a few games. You always trusted him to score when he got his chance.

It’s easy to forgot that their 4th goal was pure luck. On another night it would have deflected wide and how different the game could have been.

Have a bit of respect for goodness sake

That was agonising. Right up until their 3rd goal we looked like scoring every time we had the ball but the game went dead after their quick fire double. So disappointing after so much promise.

That was so cruel how didn’t that go in

Can’t believe how frustrating the last half hour has been, we’ve been really poor all over

Never a yellow for Morelos that was ridiculous he just showed frustration

Another blunder from Goldson and the referee has really let him off the hook there. We’ve done nothing since their goal very disappointing.

Middleton’s corners have been excellent too. A number of positives despite being behind

Excellent wing play, doing the basics right with a clever one-two

We need to continue to get at that defence because they are as bad as us

Didn’t see how they got through our centre midfield for that second goal. I think we’ve missed Jack in there all night though defensively.