Yes they do. So many people on here are just waiting for an opportunity to criticise the defenders. It's like watching you masturbate. As soon as I make a comment not criticising the defence the inevitable happens and the usual suspects come out in force. If people can't see that the midfield lost the match, God help us. The defence were shocking, but the midfield were worse.
I could also say that every time someone criticises the defense and the CB's in particular certain posters always deflect the blame. It's Ruddy, It's the midfielders It's the strikers basically anyone other than the CB's generally and Martin in particular. I don't think its unreasonable when the team at the bottom of the league put 6 past you to suggests that the defenders are at fault. Anyway that's me back to lurking for a week or two.
No they don't, that's just you and your ridiculous obsession. I've never seen anyone quite so intent on saying "I told you so" at every given (or not so given) opportunity. it's just boring.
MELTDOWN ALERT! You've got a good young coach, points on the board & a battle in front of you. Don't party when you win, don't **** the bed when you lose. Simple. Your togetherness will serve you well, or **** you completely.
Why shouldn't Russell Martin face criticism? He's scored a couple of goals but defensively he hasn't played well all season and the same goes for much of last season. Whittaker is actually the worst right back to get a starting place in the Premier League as far as I'm concerned. I get what you said about our midfield failing to deliver but when you are conceding goals left, right (mainly) and centre, conceding set-pieces and throw-ins and have not had a single clean sheet all season and perhaps more worst of all, let in six against the bottom side you are going to question your goal keeper and back four. It's not because you have an agenda, it's because they have been rubbish.
The defence were rubbish. I agree. Worse than rubbish. Abysmal. But we lost the game in midfield. And that worries me even more as it is supposed to be our strong point. We know our defence isn't great.
Is there a worse first choice goalkeeper in the division than John Ruddy? Genuine question. I know he is Mr.Untouchable to many on here, but for me he's just not good enough at this level and Liverpool game aside I honestly cannot remember the last time he was responsible for earning us any points. Methinks time for Rudd to get a go, or look for an upgrade in January
I've not read the comments yet or been on since the game however our defence is horrific. They don't tackle they just back off and back off until the opposition either shoot or cross. Going forward we are fine however we can't be expected to score 3+ every game with that dross defending. It's embarrassing to be frank..Sunday league defending.
Completely agree about backing off. That's why we looked worse when Tettey came off because he was the only player to try and get challenges in. We just kept retreating and looked frightened. It was a perfect storm really because we have defended that badly all season but Newcastle punished every mistake by being clinical. If we continue to defend like that we expect similar scorelines against Arsenal, City etc. The problem with Rudd and Bennett is that they've not been playing matches so they are lacking something. For me Wisdom in for Whittaker is an obvious swap. Whittaker may offer a little more going forward than Wisdom does but something has to change for the WBA game.
Without a doubt there are some serious question marks in his overall ability and I would say he looks to have gone backwards and not as commanding in the box as I would like to see. That said, he is not really getting adequate protection from the outfield players.
They had six shots on target yesterday and they all went in, and whilst you couldn't say that any of them were necessarily blunders on his part, I'm sure the JR of about three years ago would have saved at least one of them. He just hasn't seemed like the same keeper since he got his injury a couple of years back, he certainly hasn't pushed on as much as any of us could have expected him to have done since he was knocking on the England manager's door, and I agree with Thai that he appears to have gone backwards since then. Whilst there is definitely an argument to say that the defence in front of him isn't give him much protection or confidence at the moment, you can also look at it the other way and ask how much protection and confidence he is giving them right now?
My team for the Baggies .............Rudd Martin Bennett Bassong Brady .........Tettey Howson Redmond Hoolahan Jarvis ...............Mbokani
After such a debacle, there is bound to be criticism of all concerned (except perhaps Mbokani, who looked good and scored an excellent goal). Defending isn't just about the back four and Ruddy though. As I said on the match thread: While they share the blame, I don't think that the CBs were the main problem. AN's tactical approach involves the FBs pushing forward to support the attacking midfielders and create overloads. That worked fine for our first goal, but the weakness is that we need 6 players to get back to defend in two ranks of 4 when the ball is lost and that's where we failed against both Leicester and Newcastle. AN may have had a good reason for replacing Tettey with Wes when the score was 3-2, but the CB's were fatally exposed without a DM to break up attacks, as AN admitted after the match: "There was one decision made in the game, when I took Alex Tettey off, that didn't have the effect it should have had. It made us more vulnerable at the back. When you concede that many goals it's hard to take positives, but offensively we looked a threat." That's rather an understatement, as Newcastle scored twice in the first 4 minutes after Tettey went off and the game was over. I presume that Dorrans was meant to take over Tettey's role in supporting the CBs against counter-attacks, but if that was the plan it didn't work. Neither did finally replacing Dorrans with O'Neil, as we conceded within a minute of his coming on. AN has some serious thinking to do, but at least we have Mulumbu coming back to offer another option at the key DM pivot role. Pulis will certainly be looking to exploit this weakness next week.
Pretty confident there chap - do you really think we can win the game with ten men from the kick-off? I'm guessing you forgot to include Howson on that list, though I thought he was pretty poor yesterday so perhaps his place could be under scrutiny if he turns in more performances like that. Be good to get Mulumbu involved as soon as possible, or maybe even O-Neil might get a few games if we carry on looking as poor in midfield. Or we could even turn to last season's player of the year to see if he can crack on from the high standards he set last year - oh hang on, he's currently banging them in and setting up goals galore for someone else now, silly me.
On reflection, I'm not even sure it's our worst defense in the Premier league let alone the worst ever. I give you 2004-5; GK Robert Green vs Ruddy DF Adam Drury vs Olsson DF Craig Fleming vs Martin DF Jim Brennan vs Toffolo DF Simon Charlton vs Bassong DF Marc Edworthy vs Whittaker GK Darren Ward[5] vs Rudd DF Jason Shackell vs Ryben DF Thomas Helveg vs Wisdom DF Gary Doherty vs B#gger we've run out of cover! GK Joe Lewis vs Kean On current form it's actually hard to call, but I think it could be our wordst PL ever when I look at it. I would rather have; Green, Drury and Fleming in than the current lot. I never liked or rated Edworthy much but even he was better than Whittaker, surely? How about Derby's wonder team? GK Lewis Price[19] DF Marc Edworthy DF Jay McEveley[20] DF Dean Leacock DF Michael Johnson DF Alan Stubbs DF Andy Todd DF Claude Davis DF Darren Moore DF Tyrone Mears GK Ben Hinchliffe DF Lewin Nyatanga GK Roy Carroll DF Miles Addison DF Mitchell Hanson DF Jason Beardsley With others leaving during the season DF Mohammed Camara (on loan to Norwich City) DF Andy Griffin (to Stoke City) DF Bob Malcolm (to Motherwell) DF Danny Mills (on loan from Manchester City) GK Stephen Bywater (on loan to Ipswich Town) A very long and not too glittering list! With the following stats p W D L F A GD Pts R 20 Derby County 38 1 8 29 20 89 -69 11 I can only summise that they had a worse defense, though that may not prove to be the case over the full season in goals conceded. That said at least we are carrying an attacking threat which was hopelessly beyond that Derby side with only 20 scored. Bah!
Calm down. I don't think that level of radical change in defence is necessary. Ruddy Wisdom - Martin - Bassong - Olsson EDIT: as for the midfield and forward: Tettey - Howson Redmond - Hoolahan - Brady Mbokani
You know I was going to say exactly that before getting reeled into the infighting - never did we look in more need of Bradders than yesterday's match. It was perfect for him.
I love it how the way you formatted the post left a massive space between the forwards/midfield and back four because it is pretty accurate visualisation of our formation (in terms of position) from last game except Tettey should be half way between Howson and the back four. In all seriousness I would like to see exactly the same lineup. If Mulumbu is fit he should be on the bench and hopefully come on for Howson or Tettey to see out the closing stages of a comfortable Norwich win. Brady and Olsson linked up well going forward on Sunday but Brady needs to better defensively. We certainly look worse without Tettey than we do with. With Hoolahan back in the side we will have more creativity and relieve some of the pressure on Howson and Redmond who gave away the ball trying to create openings. Redmond and Hoolahan have been involved in most of our goals this season so it makes sense that they make up the rest of the attacking midfield although the bench seems a bit harsh on Jarvis, it's nice that we have competition for places in attack even if he have none across the back four. Mbokani looked decent, can't wait to see more of him. Ruddy had a bad game but I honestly don't think Rudd would do any better. Maybe it's something we need to look at transfer-wise. The same goes with Ryan Bennett. Bassong seems to be our only threat from set pieces but him and Martin need to develop a better partnership, which seems odd given how much they've played together. For me it is imperative that we get Wisdom up to speed. What Whittaker does going forward is completely offset by his consistently poor defensive performances and he just can't deal with wingers. We should go back to basics and bring in the supposedly solid, defensive option of Wisdom. Yeah, it's true, he doesn't get any protection from Redmond but let's face it, he's a weak link.
Whittaker would be much better with decent support from our RW, but Redmond hasn't advanced much in that area.
