You’ve never seen Elder out of position or standing a bit narrow on the left? Never. Are you sure about that?
Not this consistently, no. Of course all players at various times will be caught out of position. "The same thing" being the consistency and regularity of Coyle coming inside and ignoring the winger standing 2m to his right.
Hasn’t been exposed with Allahyar in front of him. This narrow positioning has been a problem in the past though but when you think back to the wingers who were playing in front of him, Wilks, if we freeze framed that situation but Wilks was playing he wouldn’t even be in frame
Slater not in frame, Williams jogging back. If you look at the other side however, Jones is in position and as you can see that allows Elder to stay wide. If Williams tracked back properly it wouldn’t have been an issue. Coyle is effectively marking the space Slater is meant to whilst also having to be mindful of the winger who Williams should’ve been busting a gut to get to after seeing that situation. I was incredibly disappointed with Williams and I think if recruitment allows he should be moved on
Well that’s not never, is it? The bigger concern for me is that teams target our right flank. They clearly think that is where we are most disorganised. But that isn’t entirely down to Coyle, and it doesn’t mean it “never” happens on the other wing. Plus, Diangana is West Brom’s best player. Which probably explains why they focussed on that wing. As with any situation in football it’s a fool’s errand to try and reduce a discussion down to one moment or one flank or one player. There are always a hundred things in play at once - one of which is, as has been said, the instructions to the players, which opposition teams are fully entitled to react to and negate or exploit.
I guess the point I and others have made is Coyle doesn't seem mindful of the winger at all. If Williams isn't back in position Coyle can't just ignore the winger because they're not his problem, he needs to block them off. I don't know why it keeps happening on his side and if it's just a coincidence, but it looks really bad.
Hey? In the post you quoted I defined what I was referring to as never happening on the left, or did you just ignore that? If Diangana is their best player isn't it even more criminal that we left him unmarked?
If you check back I already made the point before I posted that picture, I used the picture to show what I was talking about. I see it in the games, not relying on still pictures, as you say they can change in seconds, but it is something which I have seen a few times in games. IMO, and what I see, and maybe he is told to do it, but I feel it does leave us wide open at times.
So Coyle never marks his man, that’s what you are saying. I ignored it because it was an equally stupid thing to say. Yes it is important to mark Diangana. Where was Williams to help do that? And what transpired in the seconds before that freeze frame to leave Diangana unmarked? Had Coyle just done one of his cross field surges down the inside left channel? Had we just had a corner? Was there a foul and a quickly taken free kick? There is always a reason, but it is rarely down to one player being a weak link. All of that said, I’d like to see us sign a better right back. Because that will give us some marginal gains and improve us.
That's also not what I said, so I guess this discussion is pointless if you're going to deliberately obfuscate so you can continue your outrage.
In my opinion John, what you see is good players, coached well, getting the better of our tactics. It happens every week. How we react to that is what is most important, not some moment in time (I was criticising the tweet, not your use of the photo per se).
Such a shame Josh Emmanuel not fit. We got exposed down that flank quite a lot in the League One season, partly I always felt because Wilks was so poor at tracking back, but Emmanuel had pace to burn to get us and him out of trouble. Plus of course we were facing weaker opposition.
We do seem to have a problem down our right. I don't know if it's players, tactics or both but they could do worse than have a look at what we were doing at the start of last season when Emmanuel was playing rb, we didn't seem to have the same problem then. edit: just spotted kingstontiger's post above...
People are speaking as if this Coyle issue is brand new, it really isn't. Maybe it's becoming more clear because we're improving as a side but he's always been the same. He's positionally poor, always has been, and doesn't have the pace to make up for it. He's definitely given a free ride because he's a local lad too and very likeable, but it doesn't mean he's good enough to play at this level. And I'm not scapegoating him, I've literally said the same thing constantly all summer
Playing 532, 443 or any formation that demands the fullbacks provide the width is always going to be a problem for him. Instead of filling the ranks with midfielders on sick notes, we should have been looking at upgrades in both these positions. Neither Coyle or Elder are going to be sprint to the byline and whipping in crosses regularly. Fleming looks promising but is also crocked, we need cover here.
