Who are the defensive coaches

they need to pay particular attention to the defensive frailties of our side. I know we have injured players Wilson & Doumbe but if we can't help ourselves soon we are going to need investment in the defence in January. Add to that our need for strikers who can strike and we're gonna need the money from the next stage to just stay even whereas with a young side such as we have we should be looking to make a mark in CL for the next foreseeable future.

 

I think by some of the comments Strachan has made in the papers that he know we need to buy defenders in January

 

defence definately has to be sorted,benfica ran riot the 1st 20 mins,thank * for the holy goalie.get it sorted wgs.

 

Aye. A complete back 4. That lot we have just now are a liabilty.

 

* the guys try their best, but at times it,s murder to watch top of the league still in the champions league ......... we are the celts!!!!!!!!

 

basically Mick and JFK are not very mobile and combined are a very imobile pairing. Gary is a bit more mobile. Thats why I think the defence looks a little better with him in. You can get away with one brave but slow CB but not two. JFK and Mick are too similar IMO. I would be curious to see how JFK and Gary are as a pair. One good thing from JFK's and the other defenders points of view is they have until January to show they are good enough and especially if JFK can be the player he once could have been. Thats a decent run and a fair trial IMO. We cant wait forever with this sieve. Defenders! You have until January to form a mean and formidable defence or heads will roll.

 

Without are right backs i tink it is hard as mick-gary was quite decent and doumbe was playing great
I think we need a new leftback as naylor is are weakest link

 

I think the majority of problems that we have , stem from players needing too much time on the ball.. Close control just isn't good enough..
The one player from midfield onwards who gets pass marks everytime is Hartley who rarely plays anything less than a 80/20 pass.. Mcgeady is probably our next best at retaining posession and it's inevitable he will lose the ball time and again because his style of taking players on means he get's tackled more often than others do.. When we do the quick one touch passing and moving we look awesome (Even Jarosik tries to play his part) but often when our players are under pressure they give the ball away.. Donati , Naylor , Nakamura , Jarosik and Sno have been the worse culprits for doing this since the season begun and Scott Brown over the previous 5 games has also been bad for doing this.. Mark Wilson likewise before he got injured.

One defnsive thing I noticed about Kennedy..
I don't know if this is a fault or just a case of no nonsense defending but whenever the ball is goal side and an opposition player is near him (And not putting him under intense pressure) he doesn't dare take a touch to take it away from our goal , or pass it to a team mate , or try to turn and hammer it up the pitch..
It's always straight out sideways into the stands when we could have played the ball out of defence.. Will keep an eye on this to see if he adapts his game when he's gained more confidence about the players around him..
One fault we definately have as a team is over playing it.. It didn't cost us tonight or against Kilmarnock on Saturday but when the game is in the dying moments and we are a goal up we shouldn't be trying anything fancy to get a second goal.. Mcdonald had a pot shot at goal tonight with about 40 seconds remaining in added time and we had something similar happen on Saturday when we should have seen out the last minute against Kilmarnock by passing and moving. , instead we conceded posession and had to defend a corner..

I think Strachan has the midfield spot on for the players available to us.. Donati isn't worth a starting place and Mcgeady playing in his current role keeps two of the opposition occupied nearly all the time.
I just think JVOH is either not match fit or out of sorts after injury. Can only think Strachan felt he was match fit by starting him tonight , or he doesn't have any confidence in starting with Killen because it soon became clear JVOH wasn't capable of contributing anything on the night and should have been replaced at half-time at the latest.

Im happy with the way things are right now but would just like to see us tighten up on retaining posession and performances will improve even more.

 

fantastic post:icon_mrgreen:

 

Take out Mick or Boruc and our defence are in for some problems.

 

Some post KevinMc, spot on.

Good point about our defensive coaches. The fact that Strachan himself was a very attacking player in his day is blatantly obvious when you look at how our team plays (or is meant to play). I think the wee man is the source behind our poor defensive displays recently and i remember thinking the same thing a couple of times over the last 2 and a half years. Obviously we've had some great defensive performances (Milan away last year for one) but most of them we have been set out to defend and hit on the counter - if we weren't able to stay tight in that situation we'd be up * creek.

I just think the defensive side of our game does not get the attention it deserves, although it is speculation considering i don't actually get to see the training sessions first hand :icon_mrgreen: