The Midfield is the cause of poor defending

I watched it on Irish tv and kevin kilbane made the same point that we were too deep, in the legia game away we were pushed up too far, and kept getting caught with long balls. There is no sort of joined up thinking apparent with our formation. As mentioned above the 3 central midfielders seemed to be there just to clog up the middle of the pitch and oocupy space in front of the cbs.

 

The addition of Commons goosed their plans. As I mentioned before Berget and McGregor were the main reason they were able to have a lot of possession in the first half as they could pass it about for fun and get past them easily because they didnt position themselves right, they basically served no purpose defensively.

When Commons came on and we then had 2 forwards in the middle basically, they could no longer keep the ball as easy at the back and we could win it off them a lot easier.

It wasnt just we pressed the more, it was we forced them to pass it forward more and quicker. We could still have done that in the first half had McGregor and Berget got infront of their opposing full-back, making the Maribor defenders either be forced to go long or pass it into midfield which would have made it easier for us to get the ball back.

 

I think it was down to us pressing more as a unit. Berget and McGregor rarely pressed high up the park first half. I can only assume we had a game plan of sitting deep. I think our whole mentality changed at the start of the second half. Even when we won the ball back first half, we had no out ball whatsoever, as every single one of our players, were quite often in our own half. That must surely have been how the players had been told to play you would imagine.

 

I agree with the midfield being culpible.

Wanyama needs replaced and not by taking the cheap option and playing Mulgrew out of position either. Every midfielder we've brought in since he left has been a grafter (Johansen) or a playmaker (Biton); we've never signed an out-and-out anchorman assigned to help the guys at the back. This was shown up last season in the CL as Milan scored 3 and Barca put 6 past us.

As for the wide men, I also agree but I also think they've worked hard.

 

Poor defending is a result of poor positioning or bad decison making.
A poor midfield infront of a defence may expose the defence or create vulnerability but the midfielders can only be held accountable for their own actions on the pitch, not that of the defenders.
Defending is also a collective term as a midfielders duty also invloves defending. so i think your failing to differentiate between our "defence" and the act of "defending".

 

I kind of stopped reading when you said forrest and samaras defended

 

It didn't work last night because Kayal and Johansen were closing down while Mulgrew backed off and became part of the defence. This created huge gaps for their players to pass the ball around.

 

sorry guys, but i think the problem with our defence is our defenders - they all love to * off up the pitch like they're attacking mids and they don't cover each other. i know you need the mids to cover this too, but we've no defensive mids since wanyama left and brown got injured. we need to play 3-2-3-2 or 3-2-3-1-1, maybe even 3-2-4-1 in europe. What worries me is that Diela seens to have no Plan B for his attack option. last night was mucky but they were never gonna score, but 2nd half we got progressively more aggressive, and when lustig went off then we were *. he was only one fully covering - which is probably why he broke down

 

berget tracked back non-stop last night, if it wasn't for his defensive work I wouldn't have known he was on the pitch and kayal is easily our best defensive midfielder and tackler/ball winner in the middle of the park

 

Quality !!! Out of our team bar van dijk not one of them would stsrt for a premier league team. Our midfield of berget , mulgrew, kayal, johanson have minus creativity. Even if we had falcao up front he would have done * all last night.

 

he moved efi to cb last night and all of a sudden there was panic and I think vvd goes forward way to much

 

its also the cause of the poor attacking

 

We defo need a hard nut in DM to help out our back 2, Mulgrew isn't a hard nut or even a playmaker given time he can do alrite but once he closed down he's to shut or slow to handle it.

I think kayal, brown and johansen (who was crap last nite) are good enough for us an Biton once he bulks up aswell

 

ILTC is right, lets not confuse willingness to defend and track back with the actual ability TO defend. Neither McGregor nor Berget have the actual ability to defend the wings.

I mentioned this to a friend in the away game in Slovenia, they got down both of our flanks too easily because the wingers didn't cut off the space. Again last night the ball was easily passed from midfield to the flanks because the wingers were caught too far inside and the ball over the top into the space in behind was always open.

Both of them were there trying to help but they weren't setting themselves in the right position. Forrest knows this because he is an actual winger, same as Sammy. The Greek Ghod may have looked lackadaisical at times but he closed down space on the flank.

Hopefully Tonev and Wakaso know how to do this and they are quicker as well which will help.

In addition the midfield trio do not close down as a team, you have Johansen closing down but no one else will press so its easy to play around. We have to press as a team, in packs of 2/3. If the current players can't do that then we need to get some in who can.

 

The midfield is just not good enough at everything it needs to be doing. Celtic's midfield has been short on quality for years now. Not since we had Lambert, Lennon and Petrov has it been of the standard required to compete at the highest level.

Things have moved on and it's no longer enough to have a defensive midfielder who has good positional sense and can tackle. A DM now needs to be the fulcrum of a team from which attacks are started.

If you compare the Germany midfield with Argentina's from the World Cup Final, Germany's midfield was better at everything than Argentina's, despite Argentina having some top class talent in midfield.

Brown is good enough. Biton is going to be good enough for sure. Johanssen may be good enough in time. The rest are not. (Mulgrew, Forrest, Berget, Kayal, Boerrigter)

 

We are crying out for a Wanyama type player to sit in front of the defence. Right now the player doing that is Charlie Mulgrew. * *.

Lustig Denayer Virgil Izzy
Wanyama

That would have been excellent, maybe replace Izzy.

I'd take Mariga, he's currently a free agent and must be a better option than anyone at the club to sit in front of the defence and protect them. He would allow Johansen and Brown/Kayal to get forward as well.

 

this , we were essentially playing 4 4 2 in the second half and neither berget or mcgregor are wingers or have any undertsnading with lzzaguirre or lustig . should be playing 4 2 3 1 with mcgregor commons and johansen in the forward midfield 3 and kayal and brown when fit in the defensive midfield 2 . Players need to be labelled offensive or defensive and stick to it .

 

Indeed. When we can't beat a team like Maribor for possession, and even some SPL sides sometimes, then we are completely failing as a team.

 

I can't remember how many times i said in the match thread that they were taking our whole midfield out the game with one pass in the centre, where we had 3 * central midfielders..

The protection they give is absolutely shocking, well past pathetic..

 

Playing Mulgrew in what appeared to be a holding role did not help either. The guy can't pass nor is comfortable enough on the ball. Centre half is his position.