The article misses an obvious point. When our defence had that great run it was with a back four of Cuellar, Dunne, Collins and Warnock. Now whatever his deficiencies as a right back going forward (he was pretty crap TBF) having Carlos in there meant that we had an additional centre half and tall man covering for the other two at set pieces. The other two (especially Collins) are not as good as some think and need the additional cover. Now we lack that and manage to combine two not wonderfully brilliant, sometime error prone centre halves with two completely braindead full backs with the positional sense of a dead halibut. When we just had one of those (who Collins frequently had to be sucked out of position to cover for) we got away with it. Now, we have two shit fullbacks and an out of form Collins we tend to suffer more.
I just don't get zonal marking at all. It always seems to be a mess at any club that try it, man to man is fine. Desire and muscle, get there first, get it out.
The thing that got me about the first goal on Sunday was that we more than anyone should know that downing never gets a corner past the first man.We didn't have a first man.
Quote from: Steve N'Rose on December 19, 2011, 08:13:26 PMThe thing that got me about the first goal on Sunday was that we more than anyone should know that downing never gets a corner past the first man.We didn't have a first man.Brilliant observation that any of the muppets in the coaching staff should have picked up.
Also, if you give the ball away as much as Collins and Dunne do, it is inevitable that you will be defending for longer periods of the game than other teams. I wonder if any context to the Guardian's statistics would change the result, ie goals conceded as a percetnage of the amount of chances Villa have to defend or opposition corners. But then its a wider question of defending as a team and ball retention, which, I dare say, Villa are the worst in the league at presently. Fook it, the sooner any one of the following happens the better: a) McLeish leaves, b) Dunne and Collins leave, c) Dare i say it, Lerner sells up, d) all of the above. I probably don't really mean all that (well some of it) but it feels that way at the moment.