One clean sheet in 9, 0-0 away to Dundee

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Angrybluebear

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Folk can continue with the narrative of not signing a striker in January, our strikers not being good enough, our “10” not doing enough all day long. However you don’t lose games if you don’t concede goals.

Walter Smith and Marin O’Neill were both hugely sucessful, in domestic football, because they had no nonsense defenders. GvB was vilified on here for his keep the zero comments.

We have only failed to score in 3 out of 36 league games this season but you are not going to win anything conceding week in week out. 3 goals in a 12 minute spell to the then second bottom team in the league is amateur levels of football.
 
We used to defend as a block, you could see the banks of players moving forward and backwards together. Whatever formation or tactics we are in just now has everyone spread so far apart. One player moves out to press and it leaves huge gaps. We just look a bit all over the place and don’t look cohesive when defending at all, it’s like every man for themselves.
 
We've conceded less goals than the team above us.

Pretty conclusive proof there that more goals get you more points.
 
Tpol_rfc said:
We've conceded less goals than the team above us.

Pretty conclusive proof there that more goals get you more points.
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Not really. Im the 4 Old Firm games which effectively decided the league. Weve conceded 8 goals. You wont win many leagues if you need to average 3 goals a game to beat your only title rival.

And another point on a similar vain. Clements Rangers have been 2 goals down to Celtic in every game weve played. We could have prime Coisty and Hateley up top and still struggle to win these games playing like that
 
Tpol_rfc said:
We've conceded less goals than the team above us.

Pretty conclusive proof there that more goals get you more points.
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We have conceded 1 goal less.

No team has won the league in the last 13 seasons, couldn’t be bothered going back further, conceding more goals than the team finishing second, however a team finishing second has scored more goals than the team that won the league.
 
Angrybluebear said:
Folk can continue with the narrative of not signing a striker in January, our strikers not being good enough, our “10” not doing enough all day long. However you don’t lose games if you don’t concede goals.

Walter Smith and Marin O’Neill were both hugely sucessful, in domestic football, because they had no nonsense defenders. GvB was vilified on here for his keep the zero comments.

We have only failed to score in 3 out of 36 league games this season but you are not going to win anything conceding week in week out. 3 goals in a 12 minute spell to the then second bottom team in the league is amateur levels of football.
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The team just utterly collapsed from March onwards.

Something must’ve happened in the dressing room is my own explanation for it.
 
Hurricane Run said:
Not really. Im the 4 Old Firm games which effectively decided the league. Weve conceded 8 goals. You wont win many leagues if you need to average 3 goals a game to beat your only title rival.

And another point on a similar vain. Clements Rangers have been 2 goals down to Celtic in every game weve played. We could have prime Coisty and Hateley up top and still struggle to win these games playing like that
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Or to turn it round maybe we don't go 2 behind so often if we have players who can put the ball in their net first.

End of the day the sad truth is we're not good enough all over the park.
 
Tpol_rfc said:
Or to turn it round maybe we don't go 2 behind so often if we have players who can put the ball in their net first.

End of the day the sad truth is we're not good enough all over the park.
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But even if we did. We still need to average 3 goals a game to win. To put that in context Celtic won 3 Old Firms this year scoring 2 goals. So its an enormous ask.

Agree wholeheartedly with your last sentence though
 
Hurricane Run said:
But even if we did. We still need to average 3 goals a game to win. To put that in context Celtic won 3 Old Firms this year scoring 2 goals. So its an enormous ask.

Agree wholeheartedly with your last sentence though
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Getting into if it's and ands were pots and pans territory.

In the event we had players good enough to have went ahead the whole game changes.
 
Tpol_rfc said:
Getting into if it's and ands were pots and pans territory.

In the event we had players good enough to have went ahead the whole game changes.
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But the thread is about the defense and its a statement of fact we are conceding too many goals. Il leave it at that
 
It's not the amount of goals we concede, it's the nature of them and the timing of them. The goals we lose time and time again are utterly pathetic and avoidable, especially in games against them.
 
Hurricane Run said:
But the thread is about the defense and its a statement of fact we are conceding too many goals. Il leave it at that
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Its a team game and all parts of the team need to defend well.

The midfield has been incapable of tracking runners properly, like yesterday, which leaves the defence woefully exposed.
 
Hurricane Run said:
But the thread is about the defense and its a statement of fact we are conceding too many goals. Il leave it at that
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My first post also stated the fact the team above us conceded more.

We've conceded 27 this season.
They conceded 34 last season and won the league.
 
The issue is the whole team. Dessers is left to press himself, Lundstram is just useless, Souttar is a bombscare. Fullbacks don’t close down crosses no matter who they are. I could go on and on about how bad parts are.
 
We need a solid unit, a functioning midfield that doesn’t allow the opponent to waltz through to the edge of our box, if Ross County done it comfortably, there was only going to be one outcome yesterday.
It’s actually embarrassing that us watching, and even before the match started, we’re all saying a solid midfield gives us a chance, Clement still lines up like that.
 
Bigbluebear said:
Its a team game and all parts of the team need to defend well.

The midfield has been incapable of tracking runners properly, like yesterday, which leaves the defence woefully exposed.
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It’s a team game, 99% of the posters on here in the lead up to yesterday were in agreement we needed to match up in midfield play with a midfield 3.

A midfield of Diomande Lundstram Sterling would have competed far better than what we did.

We have a defence that couldn’t keep weans out a close.
 
said this on Friday night in the match thread, that we would probably need to score 3 or 4 times yesterday to get the points, teams find it way too easy to score against us, last Sunday for instance the first time Killie came up the park they scored, we see this too often , teams don't have to wark too hard to score against us, our backline has been bordering on criminal this season
 
Tpol_rfc said:
My first post also stated the fact the team above us conceded more.

We've conceded 27 this season.
They conceded 34 last season and won the league.
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Since we last won the league weve played 12 Old Firm league games. Weve conceded 24 goals in those games.

I agree we arent good enough elsewhere. But the defense is a major barrier to winning league titles. Its undeniable
 
Bigbluebear said:
Its a team game and all parts of the team need to defend well.

The midfield has been incapable of tracking runners properly, like yesterday, which leaves the defence woefully exposed.
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Agreed. But it doesnt change the fact we have been atrocious at the back. We cant win league titles when we concede as many goals to our only title rival as we do
 
Hurricane Run said:
Agreed. But it doesnt change the fact we have been atrocious at the back. We cant win league titles when we concede as many goals to our only title rival as we do
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Like I said, need the midfield to do their job properly. Doesn't matter if there's 2 or 3, yesterday Lundstrum did not protect the defence and continually let their players run off him while he sauntered about.

The defence can only do so much when it's being overwhelmed by unmatched runners.
 
Angrybluebear said:
It’s a team game, 99% of the posters on here in the lead up to yesterday were in agreement we needed to match up in midfield play with a midfield 3.

A midfield of Diomande Lundstram Sterling would have competed far better than what we did.

We have a defence that couldn’t keep weans out a close.
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That would have caused Lundstrum to follow runners effectively and not jog about would it?
 
Bigbluebear said:
Mainly due to the midfield having a lazy prat in the middle of it not tracking runners and being weak in challenges.
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I'm not disagreeing but it's set up as well we are not moving as a team and protecting each other

Your left with a midfielder of 2 to contend with 4 or 5 players sometimes while defence is all over the place and we have 4 players up front.

A lot on the players yes but as a team we are set up wrong for the faults those players have
 
The defence became noticeably shakier when balogun went off vs Livingston and souttar came in.
 
Bigbluebear said:
Like I said, need the midfield to do their job properly. Doesn't matter if there's 2 or 3, yesterday Lundstrum did not protect the defence and continually let their players run off him while he sauntered about.

The defence can only do so much when it's being overwhelmed by unmatched runners.
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Yeah. You made that point already. But the defense are plainly not doing their job either.
 
We are terrible in possession as well, but when everyone was available we at least saw some signs in matches like Aberdeen, Ross County and Hearts at home that we made some progress in that respect.

Out of possession is a different story however. Patterns of being too negative and passive out of possession and setting up with same structure that’s easy to play against.
 
There is no protection for the defence. look at the first goal. O Riley wanders in to the space and no one tracks him.
I think we all agree that they have better players than us so we need to combat that. Our midfield should have been 3 rather than 2, compact plug the gaps and grow into the game.
This idea we should have went for them from the get go is dreaming, they just play around us. Walter would have put mcinnes or Moore in beside Ferguson and McCall, parked the bus and then countered.
And I agree our defenders aren’t good enough and we need to start the rebuild there.
 
The defence has gone to shit since Motherwell at home.

It was the basis of us getting back into the league but it fell apart and so did our season
 
Goldson is the whipping boy but nobody really looks any better than him.
Souttar had periods where he was leaking goals for fun.
Balogun it's difficult to gauge since he hasn't featured much but also gave away a bad goal.

I tend to agree you defend and attack as a team-it's the overall shape and application that is the issue.
 
ShieldhallBear said:
We used to defend as a block, you could see the banks of players moving forward and backwards together. Whatever formation or tactics we are in just now has everyone spread so far apart. One player moves out to press and it leaves huge gaps. We just look a bit all over the place and don’t look cohesive when defending at all, it’s like every man for themselves.
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I watched Olympiacos and Dortmund other night and they both reminded me of us under Gerrard when we lost ball we became so compact behind it and hard to play thro with players working so hard and in unison.



I said months ago was worried about out shape off the ball the Hibs game at Ibrox showed up our failings there was a massive gap between defence and attack and we were wide open to counter attack.



Never changed and then the Ross County game came and killed our season.
 
Hurricane Run said:
Since we last won the league weve played 12 Old Firm league games. Weve conceded 24 goals in those games.

I agree we arent good enough elsewhere. But the defense is a major barrier to winning league titles. Its undeniable
Click to expand...

We had 6 clean sheets in 13 OF games under Gerrard. Celtic only ever scored more than one goal at Parkhead against us once in five games and that was against 10 men.

Since then ? One clean sheet(in a dead rubber), 2 goals against five times, 3 goals twice, 4 goals once.

Defensively we are a riot in these games. How often do Celtic cut us open down the wings ? It seems like we lose the exact same goal to them every game
 
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SDF said:
We had 6 clean sheets in 13 OF games under Gerrard. Celtic only ever scored more than one goal at Parkhead against us once in five games and that was against 10 men.

Since then ? One clean sheets(in a dead rubber), 2 goals against five times, 3 goals twice, 4 goals once.

Defensively we are a riot in these games. How often do Celtic cut us open down the wings ? It seems like we lose the exact same goal to them every game
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Spot on mate.

Btw, just as an interesting addendum to emphasise your point. If we had kept 4 clean sheets against Celtic this season. We would have won the league - even if we didnt score a single goal against them ourselves
 
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We have been shocking defensively, leaking goals every game, feels like we go a goal down before we get going each game.

The number of games recently where teams have cut us open inside the first minute of the game is terrible, and it’s too common to be coincidence.

The manager needs to be asked about it at a presser, and asked how he is going to cut it out, as it’s costing us. It puts us on the back foot from the off, and gets the players in a negative frame of mind.
 
It's the endless floaty high balls pumped in, I think the last player we had that could dominate the air was Mark Hately. Not wanting to turn this into a Tav and Borna bashing thread, but when you have done 5 to 10 high crosses in and get nothing, you need to ask if doing something different is the answer. Getting to the by-line and cutting it back or even just getting into the box and flash the ball across the goal about 6 to 8 yards out to the players that can't head a ball.
 
ShieldhallBear said:
We used to defend as a block, you could see the banks of players moving forward and backwards together. Whatever formation or tactics we are in just now has everyone spread so far apart. One player moves out to press and it leaves huge gaps. We just look a bit all over the place and don’t look cohesive when defending at all, it’s like every man for themselves.
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Totally agree. I've said for a long time that formation, shape and organisation tells you a lot about the stamp the manager puts on his team.
I've watched Patrick Thistle, Morton or whatever inferior team you want to call out come to Ibrox and you can see the stamp of their manager all over their team. Yes they have inferior players but you can tell they are well coached and organized to maximise what the manager can get from them.

I think right now we are a disorganised mess. We don't look well drilled and well coached. We should be seeing a positive stamp of some degree on the team from the manager....something unique to his style that you can put a positive spin on.

We are not watching anything different from what Beale served up. Lets see if a squad refresh brings with it a stamp of this manager's 'style'.
 
It’s our midfield as much as our defence. We don’t track runners or play with anything like enough aggression.

Can’t help but think if we moved Sterling in there weeks ago a lot of what has happened could have been avoided
 
JC85 said:
It's not the amount of goals we concede, it's the nature of them and the timing of them. The goals we lose time and time again are utterly pathetic and avoidable, especially in games against them.
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Exactly but most teams sit back against us our defence is only tested against them and shown up for what it is
 
John Souttar a common denominator in most of those we've conceded. He causes absolute panic in defense going for balls he shouldn't and poor reading of the game and is a bombscare.

We were very noticeably better when we went with a makeshift Sterling and Davies. Also markedly worse when Souttar came on against Livi.

He's a big reason we've conceded an awful lot of goals.

He's a Hearts level defender.
 
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Our defence, midfield and front line have all been average to poor to woeful at most points this season.
No much point arguing who was worst.
Keeper been consistently good.
 
Todd The Prod said:
We have been shocking defensively, leaking goals every game, feels like we go a goal down before we get going each game.

The number of games recently where teams have cut us open inside the first minute of the game is terrible, and it’s too common to be coincidence.

The manager needs to be asked about it at a presser, and asked how he is going to cut it out, as it’s costing us. It puts us on the back foot from the off, and gets the players in a negative frame of mind.
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He needs to explain a few things but the people with access to the pressers won't do it for whatever reason.
 
Tpol_rfc said:
We've conceded less goals than the team above us.

Pretty conclusive proof there that more goals get you more points.
Click to expand...

I disagree. If you look across most league winners in the past and in other countries, the team that concedes the least, usually goes on to win the league.
 
Mview83 said:
The defence has gone to shit since Motherwell at home.

It was the basis of us getting back into the league but it fell apart and so did our season
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With there being a lack of decent wingers (both sima and Cortes out) I wonder if the style of play or system changed slightly. For instance having the full backs providing more width.
 
RangersLad1983 said:
Exactly but most teams sit back against us our defence is only tested against them and shown up for what it is
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That's true as well. But we still give up utter garbage goals against the diddies as well, look at the absolute state of the 3 Ross County goals for example. Teams just waltz into our penalty box and we're all over the place.
 
These players are serial old firm losers, Tav, Goldson, Barasic and Lundstram.
Three of them play most weeks in our defence.
You don't need to be Pep to put the pieces together.
 
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