What should have gotten done at the Training Ground today?

[nigel]

Think the problem with training the team how to defend and attack corners is pretty simple. We don't seem to have anyone that can actually deliver one properly.

That fit's in nicely with my earlier comment on this thread.
I actually said the same thing as you, on a different thread, a few weeks ago too.

[Monty]

There are many excellent training methods which would improve us. Sadly, anything that will needs to be done over time, the course of a couple of months at least before we see any improvement.

Not sure I totally agree with the argument that new training methods will take time to improve results on the pitch.

When clubs get a new manager they can often have an instant impact on performances.

Hate to say it, but the sort of thing that O'Neill did when he went to Sunderland or DiCanio at Swindon.

That's less of a technical training issue and more of a psychological thing. There was a very interesting Secret Footballer column recently about this, but I can't find it.

[jembob]

Think the problem with training the team how to defend and attack corners is pretty simple. We don't seem to have anyone that can actually deliver one properly.

That fit's in nicely with my earlier comment on this thread.
I actually said the same thing as you, on a different thread, a few weeks ago too.

When we first signed Warnock he used to take a few - if i recall correctly, Dunne scored against Citeh with a header from an excellent Warnock corner. Of course if a player is a really good corner taker, what else would our manger do apart from have him hang around on the half way line instead? I'm sure we have players who are very capable of delivering excellent dead balls but as usual, this sort of thing doesn't ever appear to have been thought through.
We used to do very well with in-swinging corners but as soon as we changed to out-swinging kicks they became less effective even when Ashley Young was taking them. Of course it helps if you have a player who is committed to getting on the end of a ball like Martin Laursen.

[KevinGage]

Warnock was always a bit rash when it came to flying into tackles - even from the start of his time with us and his good spell, in 2009.  But he did have quality on the ball, decent close control and good pace.

I'm not blaming McLeish for how woeful he's become, as the process had started as far back as last season.  Maybe even as far back as his return from injury in 2010, if we're honest.

But I do wonder how some of our defenders felt when they read what their manager said about them not being able to pass and play football, as I reckon both Warnock and Collins fancy themselves as ball playing defenders.  Carlos and Hutton probably aren't so delusional, mind.

[Vanilla]

What should have gotten done at the Training Ground today?

Manager 'So once again, this is how you play in an outfield formation of 5-5-0.

Player 'But Boss, what happens if the opposition score as we don't seem to know . . . ?'

Manager 'See you tomorrow lads.'

[D.boy]

Somebody dropped a triple header in trap 3 of the Bodymoor khazis, it's got Heskey's name written all over it.

Why, was it on the floor?

[paul_e]

What needs to happen is lots of fitness work and lots of work on moving as a unit (both in defence and attack).  What the old style british managers tend to forget is that defending isn't all about tackling.  One of the best defensive players to have played in the premier league was makelele, not a big guy, not overly strong in the tackle or remarkably quick but very good at filling gaps and blocking the simple pass.

The first thing to train for is getting the ball back and then keeping it.  Once you've got that right defending becomes easier and finding space to cross or shoot becomes simpler.  Things like corners, free kicks, etc can be handled later on but our problems stem from us not keeping the ball when we've got it and not being in any rush to get it back when we haven't got it.

A large number of the goals we concede are due to individual errors, we need to limit these by not having our defenders in so many situations where if they don't win theball the striker is through.  The defence win far more of those than they lose but teams get so many chances like this that it only 1 to go there way and we've conceded another poor goal.