Atrocious Defending

Addickson's God

Truly appalling defending on Saturday which underlines why we are in the position we're in. I'm not sure how many of our 38 players this season have been defenders but we haven't looked solid in this department all season. When a new manager takes over at a struggling club, the 1st thing he turns his attention to is the defence. Parky clearly has not done this, and the worry is that our rearguard will be just as porous in League One as the Championship. You can clearly see that the defence and the side do not move as a unit, the centre halves get pulled apart leaving gaps and often we had no spare men to attack the ball.

Having said it is an organisation thing, I need to give a special mention to Danny Butterfingers who was truly woeful. I don't think he prevented one cross getting sent over (unlike the much maligned Youga who blocked all day) and often he just went missing. Easy to see why Palace prefer a 17 year old rookie to him. Moutakil must be gutted to be behind him in the pecking order, AND we've got him for the season, so of course Parky will feel obliged to play him.

Scoham

We'll have a new defence next season anyway. Right back with have Yassin who it's hard to see staying, and I doubt Solly will be a regular, at least not from the start. Left back Youga and Basey - Parkinson tried to get someone in with McEveley and I think he'll try again in the summer. Centre back we only own Fortune and Hudson. Fortune's out of contract, both of them are on bigger wages than most of the squad.

Chris_from_Sidcup

I won't say i couldn't believe how bad our defending was, because it's been bad all season, BUT.........3 of that back 4 played together for Palace last season who had one of the best defensive records in the division so you'd have at least thought they'd work well as a unit.
And you cannot tell me that Moo2 is any worse than Butterfield yet we're now paying out (probably decent) extra wages for the rest of the season.

nigel

Yes, that also occured to me about the Palace scenario , Chris.

Ward, Hudson and Butterballs did a real job for them last season so you have to ask serious questions about why they're not doing such a good job for us.

Part of the answer, to be fair, is that a toothless midfield on Sat meant they were almost always under pressure in the second half, when as soon as the back four cleared it, the ball just seemed to come straight back at them.

Heresy to say so, I know, but I really thought Youga was the best of our back four on Saturday, closely followed by Ward.

F-Blocker

To be fair to Parky - one of the first things he did was get Murty in. I was more than happy with the level of performance we got out of him. It was just a shame he got injured.

Swisdom

[cite]Posted By: nigel w[/cite]Yes, that also occured to me about the Palace scenario , Chris.

Ward, Hudson and Butterballs did a real job for them last season so you have to ask serious questions about why they're not doing such a good job for us.

Part of the answer, to be fair, is that a toothless midfield on Sat meant they were almost always under pressure in the second half, when as soon as the back four cleared it, the ball just seemed to come straight back at them.

Heresy to say so, I know, but I really thought Youga was the best of our back four on Saturday, closely followed by Ward.

How very dare you. Coco the Clown was his usual inept self apart from one really good block