The 2019-2020 season.

What we principally need is a shift in mind set. Currently we play a possession-based game apparently without regard to risk, which leads to leaving ourselves wide open when we lose possession. There was a classic example early on in Saturday's game against Burnley (0.44 into the highlights on the club's Youtube channel) in which a misplaced pass left Wood one-on-one against Zimmermann, culminating in a shot from the centre of our penalty area by the completely unmarked Rodrigues. Look at that passage of play and ask yourself whether anyone in a yellow shirt did anything at any time indicating the least awareness of the possibility that possession might be lost. In particular, look at the positioning of Hanley and Lewis, e.g. how far apart Hanley and Zimmermann are, and how far forward Lewis is, also where Trybull and Vrancic (our notional DMs) are. Then look at how much space there is for Rodrigues to run into, completely unchallenged.
This is not a scenario that is realised once in a while; it happens regularly, time and again, game after game. In the Burnley example, possession is lost short of the centre circle while attempting to pass our way forward. But the same cavalier attitude to losing possession is evident wherever the play is on the pitch. DF talks about "bravery", but this habitual disregard of risk is not brave, it is foolhardy, and our goals conceded total is a measure of just how foolhardy it is.
A lot is made of the injuries to our CBs, but the positioning of Zimmermann and Hanley in that passage of play against Burnley isn't a function of who the CBs happen to be. It is a function of how the team is being coached to play; the same goes for the positioning of the FBs and the DMs. You can perm anyone with anyone in those positions, as indeed we have over the season, and it makes little difference. That's because it's not really who plays that matters, it's how they play.

 

There are times when you do need to get the ball away and I agree from the highlights that I have seen that we seem to give it away in dangerous positions far too easily

 

I think we try to play a challenging style of football which worked most of the time in the Championship, but becomes exposed in the PL as soon as we lose the ball. We clearly missed Tettey shielding the defence. Trybull did his best, but he's more of a CM/DM and that showed at times. In situations like that Robbie picked out Tettey drops into the gap between CB's to pick up attacking players, like Rodriguez in that case. I thought we'd given up sending both FBs forward at the same time, but this slipped against Burnley as we turned gung-ho at times. If we have 6 players committed to attack, we are bound to be over-run when we lose the ball.

 

I’m slightly sceptical about that though - you have to take risks to unlock defences. I haven’t got the stats, but I can’t help feeling it’s actually been set pieces (where there is no “risk” for us to be taking) which have been our primary weakness - if we could stop conceding from corners and free kicks by defending better we would not have to forfeit the higher risk open attacking play.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love us to stop making silly passes and not covering defenders! But I do think that’s part and parcel of a successful attack and unless you are Barcelona I don’t think you can expect players not to make mistakes in possession every now and again. I would rather our players trusted each other and believed that on balance their teammate won’t give away the ball.

It would be interesting to see the stats of how many goals we have conceded from free kicks and corners this season. I wonder what the table would say if we excluded all of those (or perhaps a more reasonable 50-75%). I strongly suspect we would be out of the relegation zone without having sacrificed high octane open play.

 

In part, it's because we concede more corners and free kicks than most teams. I remember against Spurs at CR we conceded 10 corners without them scoring. They did score from a direct free kick, partly because the wall didn't jump, but that goes against the notion that we concede a lot from set pieces. Not many remember the corners we successfully defend.

 

We have conceded 10 goals from set pieces, and 29 from open play. The average number of set piece goals conceded in the EPL this season is 6.7; if we were just average, i.e. had conceded 3--4 fewer goals from set pieces, we would still have conceded 43 goals; that's more than anyone else bar Villa. Yes, it would be better to concede fewer goals from set pieces, but pinpointing that weakness, like pinpointing our CB injuries, simply serves to deflect attention from the real weakness of our approach.
Re. risk, yes, unlocking defences often requires risking conceding possession. But that can be factored in to how you play. We are often caught with both FBs and both DMs in advanced positions, sometimes even with one CB advanced as well. That's madness, not considered risk taking.

 

And more penalties -- we are one of five teams to concede 4 or 5 spot kicks. High counts of corners, free kicks in dangerous positions, and penalties are tell-tale signs of an excess of last-ditch defending.

 

Thanks Robbie - so of those ten set piece goals, how many were in matches we lost by one goal/drew?

 

Yep we have conceded the most corners of any team in the PL this season

 

Have to admire your determination to avoid drawing the unwelcome conclusion, Rob

To answer your further questions:

Subtracting 5 of the 10 goals conceded from the actual final scores would not alter the results of the 5 games
In the case of the other 4 games, subtracting the 5 goals conceded would yield an additional 8 points (3 v Southampton; 2 each v Arsenal & Leicester, 1 v Wolves)

Of course you can't, on that basis, infer that "if we'd defended set pieces better, we'd be 8 points better off". Even if we were above average in defending set pieces, we might still have conceded the 5 goals that cost us those 8 points. Only if we hadn't conceded ANY set piece goals, can you justifiably draw the conclusion. Still, it is undoubtedly true that the fewer set piece goals we concede, the better.

However, it might, with equal justification, be said that the fewer goals of other kinds we concede, the better also. If we hadn't conceded 5 particular goals of the 29 conceded in open play, we would very likely have gained the same number of, or even more, points; or if we didn't concede silly penalties or give away free kicks in dangerous positions. One goal conceded is as bad as another; there's really no justification for single-ing out set piece goals. As I keep on saying, focussing on set pieces simply serves to distract attention from even more serious weaknesses.

 

Thanks Robbie - respectfully, I disagree

My view is that the Premier League is incredibly hard - we will be regularly playing against players who are far more skilful than ours and have to accept a degree of reality about how we are likely to perform in open play.

Altering how you perform in open play has many unforeseen consequences - we found that with Hughton who would make minor tweaks to our open play under pressure from fans because of the ugly football, but with disastrous effect.

Set pieces are the one area of the game where you should be able to focus training, with zero effect on how we play with the ball.

What your analysis very helpfully shows is that we are well below average defending set pieces and that being so has cost us points. As you point out, it’s difficult to point to exactly how many points we have lost, but going on rough averages it’s of the order of 3-4 points if we had performed to average PL standard.

Now that to me is pretty huge. Ok, it wouldn’t lift us out of the relegation zone, but we’d be right back in the mix. And that’s for the sake of focusing on one aspect of the game, which has minimal negative consequences on our open play. Now I’m not suggesting it’s easy to improve how we defend set pieces (I accept one of our squad issues is we are very weak at winning aerial duels), but it is definitely easier (in my humble opinion!) than restructuring how we play to try to contain the likes of Mo Salah and Alain Saint-Maximin.

The other point that is important here is that teams actively target corners and set pieces against us - you can see they are set up to do that. If we improve how we defend corners, that will put pressure on how teams attack us, giving us more opportunity to recover the ball and giving us the psychological lift.

Now as I said above, I agree with you that we need to look at other areas of how we play and defend - we are bottom of the league by six points after all - but I think your analysis comprehensively shows that for the least (!) effort with minimum other effects, we could make a significant difference to our prospects if we improved on just one relatively small area of play: defending set pieces which could improve our points tally by around 15-20%. We should of course also look at other areas, but that feels to me a primary focus

 

Agree with all of this and would add that whose to say what the knock on effect would be on confidence of gaining a few more points here and there. Also a few more points gained means our direct opponents potentially gain less, thereby potential putting us more in the mixed and effecting their confidence. I would also add that in addition to set pieces a significant number of our problems has been cause by a high number of forced / unforced mistakes. No one player stands out for me as being significantly worse than any other, but a 10 % reduction would in my mind make a significant difference and would require no changes to our playing style. We need to remember we have a high proportion of young developing players and they will make mistakes. You need to accept mistakes if they are to get better. Whose to say how many less errors Godfrey or our full backs would have made this season if they had been regularly had the support of an experience CB. Added to the obvious disadvantages that injuries to our CB's had on our ability to defend there are knock on effects of managing this for example playing Tettey as an adhoc CB means we are also weaker defensively in midfield. Again issues at the core of a team have knock on effects elsewhere.

What you suggest Robbie is not a change of mindset but significant changes to the way we play. Now you can make that argument and you might be right, it may have improved our points tally, but it might not have and it may have made it a lot worst and if it had then we would have had to change of style of play again once back in the Championship. For me I don't see the point in changing our style, pretty much everyone is aware of the threat we possess going forward and I think that if we didn't pose that threat they would adjust the way they play against us. I don't see the point of making significant changes to our long term development to the team / club to deal with short term issues. If we can keep the bulk of our players next season whatever league we are in will be a much better team for our experience this year.

 

Well there's every reason to single out areas that are causing us problems and consequently conceding goals from / points. That's the whole point of coaching. Also it's an improvement we can make without any significant changes to our overall game. You seem to be of the view that the threat our style of playing poses going forward is a weakness and if we were to change that and play more defensively we would get better results. That's a reasonable view, but the end result would in my mind result in us playing ' Hughton style' We don't have the players for that and I pretty sure most fans don't want to see it. Whose to say the threat we pose going forward has meant that we have achieved better results than if we played more defensively.

 

Yep - agreed with all that canario

Robbie - to be clear I don’t think I’m necessarily disagreeing with you (I think we both want the same end result which is to have our best shot at staying in the league!) So I am sure we could improve defensively in open play and that is something to think about, but if we can do a “cost/benefit analysis” my strong feeling is that working on set pieces is the “easiest” (for want of a better word...) way we could improve our chances - not necessarily the only and possibly not the best but I think the most obvious one with minimal risk

 

I've no problem in principle with trying to improve our defending of set pieces. My problem is with people focussing on our poor set piece defending as though it is the major reason why we are propping up the league. When, week after week, game after game, you hear the comment "Norwich leave themselves wide open", it is not our set piece defending that is being talked about. As for improving our set piece defending, DF has been questioned time and again about it and his reply has always been the same: we are physically small in comparison to most of our competitors, so are limited in how much improvement in that respect is possible. If memory serves me right, in the away game against Man Utd, Martial scored from a corner; he was being marked by Buendia because our "big" defenders were looking out for their even bigger defenders. Emi might just as well have not been there for all the good he was.
I am not at all of the view that "the threat our style of playing poses going forward is a weakness". Our style of play is perfectly compatible with striking a better balance between attacking threat and defensive soundness. I've pointed out previously that there isn't a single team in the EPL that plays "Hughton style" football of the kind you are referring to, yet the great majority manage to defend better than we do. Furthermore, as our results show, the great majority (not just the top six or eight) have little difficulty breaking through our defence. We concede close to 2 goals a game. The message is in the table and the stats. I am only the messenger and keep getting shot at!

 

Yes indeed Rob, we are talking means, not ends. Improving set pieces may be the most obvious, but as I said above to carrowcanario, I disagree about it being "the easiest", and that seems to be DF's assessment too.

 

I agree with Robbie when he says: "Our style of play is perfectly compatible with striking a better balance between attacking threat and defensive soundness." It isn't about 'changing' the way we play, but about tweaking the balance between attack and defence and I think DF has been doing that, especially when Tettey plays. His absence showed at Burnley, as Trybull doesn't have the same ability to cover the defence though he has other skills like good passing and movement.

Other than the rout at ManUtd, we have been improving defensively without sacrificing our attacking abilities. Byram is part of that, but we've also found ways to cover when a FB moves forward. This isn't Hughtonesque, it's finding a balance and it's why our results are improving. Having two recognised CBs also helps, but we are also stronger tactically. The changes aren't fully ingrained yet, as showed in the loose moments at Burnley, but hopefully this will happen over the rest of the season. Newcastle will be the next test.

 

But Robbie is saying is he's not happy with the changes DF has made and that he wants greater changes. No one is suggesting that our current style is Hughtonesque. But as someone once said the longest march starts with a single step. You mention that you think we're stronger defensively when Tettey is in midfield (whether I agree or not) if this is the case the direct result of our CB injuries was that it had defensive consequences outside the CB pairing.

 

I mentioned Tettey because of his ability to drop back into defence to help out the CBs when needed. That was missing against Burnley and it showed. Tettey has improved under DF though, becoming more positive and moves the ball forward more with improved passing. McLean also has similar qualities, but tends to drop back to cover on the flanks when a FB is missing. These are important tweaks which have improved us defensively without sacrificing our attacking abilities.