Wing/Full backs

[Darthter 542]

Over the past few years, there has been a lot of comment around our full/wing backs - Tav, Waldo & John - in that while they are great ar surging forward, often they lack some of the more defensive qualities that are required.

Ideally, we would like to have a good balance of defend & attack on both sides, but that is unlikely to happen.

 

So, where should the main focus be??

Edited May 11, 2018 by Darthter

[TheUKCrazyhorse 96]

7 minutes ago, Darthter said:

Over the past few years, there has been a lot of comment around our full/wing backs - Tav, Waldo & John - in that while they are great ar surging forward, often they lack some of the more defensive qualities that are required.

Ideally, we would like to have a good balance of defend & attack on both sides, but that is unlikely to happen.

 

So, where should the main focus be??

I think, considering the importance of the last game, I'd rather see them defending better. Given that a draw might be enough to bag second place, I think being stronger at the back and hitting on the counter might be the best bet. That being said, I'd love to see Lennon squirm as we rode all over the top of his team!

[Bluedell 5,346]

I'm happy enough with the balance that Tav and John give us,

[Frankie 8,153]

Completely depends on the formation and system we use.

 

As much as Tav has been off form recently (IMO) I like him as a player.  John I'm not as impressed with but there's no reason why both can't be important players for us next season - if Tav stays of course.

[buster. 4,808]

I'm old fashioned in that I think you have to build a team initially prioritising a solid defence and strong core all the way down the middle of the park.

 

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Edited May 11, 2018 by buster.

[der Berliner 3,255]

I 've "warmed" to John more, as he is more alert to his defensive duties than Tav.

 

The problem we face is that teams often dig in and try to out-"space" our exposed CHs by playing long balls in the wide open spaces left by our fullbacks. That draws the CHs wide and in turn leaves spaces for the onrushing counter-attackers to exploit in the middle. For such a tactic you only need two or three able and quick attackers. So whileyou would need a wing-back in such games to get a numerical advantage in the opposition's half, you also need aware and quick full-backs to counter the threat mentioned above. That, or a good DM who covers the space left by the wing-back. McCrorie and Jack do that rather good.

Much less so do we need fully defensive minded full-backs, as we'll hardly come up agains that many attacking teams, essentially only the Scum and Hibs this season, plus the odd foray from Killie's Jones.

 

What is important is that the tactics and the players adapt to the opposition at hand.  We rarely did that.

 

This season, Tav was in his comfort zone as there was essentially no-one challenging him for his place on the field. IMHO, Hodson is a solid defender - but was clearly lacking game time - and knows his duties as a fullback. Nothing great, but solid. (The "bombscare" stuff will come out soonish, I know, but to me that's just Noise.) He'll be off this summer, I would assume, so someone will sure come in and challenge for places. IMHO, Tav has a good level, but he needs to concentrate on his stuff for 90 mins. I would assume, the new guys will make sure of this, but perhaps someone throws 3m our way anyway ...

[Walterbear 557]

This is about the quality and pace of the centre backs or back 3 for me. Top clubs use the system because they’ve got superb central defensive cover. Ours have not been suited to the formation imo. 

 

If wf can get good paced defensive cover then Tav and John would be much better players. 

 

Of course the other aspect is you cant give the ball away so easily in the final third and you need players good at getting it back to allow your wing backs time to reform defensively (when not counter pressing). Hence the frustration with players like Windass who can’t tackle and hide too often. 

 

As Frank says ‘it all depends’ But for raw quality our wing backs are pretty decent imo. 

Edited May 11, 2018 by Walterbear

[DMAA 3,603]

4 hours ago, der Berliner said:

Much less so do we need fully defensive minded full-backs, as we'll hardly come up agains that many attacking teams, essentially only the Scum and Hibs this season, plus the odd foray from Killie's Jones.

This doesn't square with the number of goals we've conceded this season. We are 5th in terms of goals conceded this season. And we're only 2 goals better than Killie and 4 than Motherwell. In other words we could easily be 7th.

 

The stats don't lie, our defensive record is appalling and nobody has had difficulty scoring against us this season or last. Bottom of the table Ross County scored against us in every game. As did 3rd bottom Hamilton who scored 6 against us in 3 games. We've conceded 45 two seasons in a row, and we haven't even played our last game of the season. This is our worst goals conceded tally in 32 years.

 

This obviously isn't due to having attack minded full backs, we just don't have enough defensive ability in the squad as a whole and that includes full backs.

 

Edited May 11, 2018 by DMAA

[Gaffer 1,665]

7 minutes ago, DMAA said:

This doesn't square with the number of goals we've conceded this season. We are 5th in terms of goals conceded this season. And we're only 2 goals better than Killie and 4 than Motherwell. In other words we could easily be 7th.

 

The stats don't lie, our defensive record is appalling and nobody has had difficulty scoring against us this season or last. Bottom of the table Ross County scored against us in every game. As did 3rd bottom Hamilton who scored 6 against us in 3 games. We've conceded 45 two seasons in a row, and we haven't even played our last game of the season. This is our worst goals conceded tally in 32 years.

 

This obviously isn't due to having attack minded full backs, we just don't have enough defensive ability in the squad as a whole and that includes full backs.

 

You can't take goals conceded in isolation though.  We've scored just as many goals as Celtic so by your rationale, we could easily be 1st.

 

The team is heavily weighted towards attacking play and that means we gamble on scoring more than the opposition.  Having said that, our defence is horrendous and requires some serious focus during the summer.  As I've said on here many times though, we don't need a new defence, we just need a strong central partnership and some protection from the midfield (assuming we kept the same or similar system).  If we had a strong and settled central partnership I am certain next season will be very different, even if we didn't add anyone else.

 

I like us using wingbacks and Tav/John are pretty effective at it.  I'd hope we'd continue to use them next season.  Gerrard has tried various systems, including a flexible 3-4-3 (or 3-4-1-2) and if he thinks that's the best route for us it'll be interesting to see who he prefers in those wide roles.  If he prefers the defensive duties to be the focus, he may well stick with Tav and John.  If however he expects a more creative threat he may opt for Murphy and Candeias instead.

 

The simple fact about our performance this season isn't that we've been poor at home and we have to consider why that is.  There's nothing tactically that I can identify a specific problem that occurs at home, which is why I think it's more about how our players handle the pressure of playing in front of our own fans.  That's what Gerrard has to fix.  Whether we play fullbacks or wingbacks is secondary to him fixing our team's mentality.  That's what I think is broken.

[DMAA 3,603]

2 minutes ago, Gaffer said:

We've scored just as many goals as Celtic so by your rationale, we could easily be 1st.

Well that's not my rationale though. I'm just saying there are 4 teams in the league who are harder to score against than us, and two others who are pretty much just as hard. We leak goals in a manner in which we haven't in 3 decades and as you say it's because our defence is horrendous.

 

6 minutes ago, Gaffer said:

As I've said on here many times though, we don't need a new defence, we just need a strong central partnership and some protection from the midfield

I agree with this. Two new strong centre backs who are strong in the tackle and good in the air, and midfielders who can tackle and are also better in the air than they are. I don't personally have a problem with Tav and John for now, but in an ideal world I'd prefer full backs with more defensive ability.