Analysis of the goals conceded against Wolves (6/3)
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I’m starting to get tired of analysing shambolic defensive performances like that – having started the game so competently, we suddenly started giving away needless free kicks, and conceding corners; before we knew it we were 1-0 down, after Doyle had got away from our defenders and Gomes made a real mess of the save. The second goal was quite ridiculous, with Hutton focussing on the ball, and not the man running off his shoulder, and the third probably more down to an excellent Jarvis cross than anything else. A disappointing defensive showing nonetheless.
Apologies for the picture quality.
The ball comes back out to Milijas following a corner. He is closed down by Pienaar.
Pienaar stops as the ball is played in, rather than continuing to close and attempting to block the ball. Notice Gallas in the box – the deepest man.
Doyle drops off Sandro and Jenas, whilst Gallas is pre-occupied with Elokobi, so he is left with a free header – totally unacceptable in the 6-yard box. All three of our defenders should share responsibility.
Whilst he has a free header, all he does is help it on, and it literally goes straight at Gomes. It almost goes through his hands in the end – he should do much better.
It’s almost as if Hutton didn’t learn from Fulham.
Doyle has the ball in a wide area, and looks to thread it through to Jarvis.
Hammill takes it off Jarvis’ toes. Notice Hutton marking Milijas.
Hammill shuffles the ball inside, and it runs kindly to Ward (I think) for a strike.
Ward’s touch is heavy, but it drops nicely for Doyle, who lines up a shot. Milijas takes a gamble, whilst Hutton is totally unaware (he is ball watching, a common Hutton error).
When the ball deflects into Milijas’ path he has stolen ahead of Hutton.
Hutton grabs Milijas out of desperation, meaning that he is not able to strike the ball cleanly. The penalty is rightly awarded, but Hutton is only yellow carded (he should be shown a red card for the denial of a clear goal scoring opportunity).
Doyle waits for Gomes to move, and slots the ball into the opposite corner.
Having won a header in the centre of the pitch, Hutton is slow to get out to Ebanks-Blake as the ball is played out to him.
This means that Ebanks-Blake has time to look for the on-rushing Jarvis, tracked by Sandro.
Hutton is not close enough to influence play, and Jarvis is quicker to the ball than Sandro.
Jarvis faces Sandro up, and I think Sandro could do more to stop the cross coming in.
He doesn’t really get close enough to block the cross – he is probably nervous about committing himself against the diminutive winger.
Wolves have two forwards in the box against our three defenders.
But the ball is an excellent one and Fletcher anticipates it brilliantly, getting up early above Dawson, who is beaten by the quality of the delivery.
Gomes has little chance with the header, which is well angled back across him.
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Pienaar looks a bit like a South-African Dos Santos- it looks pretty but goes nowhere- at least Krancjar scores goals...
Was scratching my head re bale and lennon on theor weaker sides, can only assume it was to give extra protection to the headless chicken we have in situ at right-back.
Pienaar for Bale was fair enough to give Bale some game time. And Bale on the right to cover for Hutton was probably necessary - not necessarily by doing actual defending, but by occupying Elokobi and cutting supply to their best player, Jarvis.
Pav was tired/ bored by the time he was brought off, he'd stopped closing down defenders. Going to 4-5-1 gave us strength in the midfield and allowed Modric to play centrally; he wasn't involved enough on the left hand side.
Kranjcar for Modric was fairly immaterial, just fresh legs.
If there was a mistake it was the unbalanced midfield we started with. Pienaar on his wrong side, Modric wide but not providing width (or wanting to shoot).
Even then, we had 3 great chances to go 4-2 after Bale and Lennon came on.
Sandro and Jenas did ok, Jenas the regular bag of revels - great run and control in setting up Pav's goal, but overran the ball in midfield much too often.
Disappointing not to win, but next 3 games we have Wham (h), Wigan (a) and Stoke (h). All very winnable, and Man City have Chelsea (a), Sunderland (h), Liverpool (a). We could easily make up 6 points in that time, putting us a point ahead when we go to Eastlands.
Or of course we could get 4 pts from those 3...
Whos fault was it then?
Hutton is dire, imo our full back areas are as if not more important than a striker in the summer
and it is my opinion that the amount that he lost the ball invited unnecessary pressure on our back four throughout the game, which they couldn't ultimately handle.. it was really shocking from ekotto, and i feel that had it been someone else (or just a better performance from the player), we'd have won the game comfortably.
so yes hutton was bad.. but let's not forget dawson and ekotto - shocking. and pienaar who has no end product whatsoever.
1. surprised not to see benny take any blame in your analysis of the third goal. poor defending all around on that one but his failure to get goal side or even jump and give his man a shoulder is truly shocking. just by jumping shoulder to shoulder with the man he might've nudged him off balance enough to cause him to send the ball safely over the crossbar.
2. every game that goes by without pienaar scoring i know the whinging about him will increase. he does a good job keeping possession. no, he can't single handedly destroy a defense like bale, but he does his work for the most part. a good squad player that has worked hard despite his good fortune with injuries tossing him into a starting role at the business end of the table. frankly, he's most similar to modric. i don't hear many complaints about luka, and his final product is generally piss poor (note: i think luka is our most important player, ahead of bale and vdv, not knocking him just let's be fair here).
But they are not marking properly. Dawson is on the wrong side to accomodate Gallas which unbalances the back line.
In defence of Lennon and playing Bale and him on the wrong side. His defensive work is excellent and he would have supported Hutton equally well
Without Pavlyuchenko crossing the ball would have been virtually useless but why take him off when he was having a good game.