Full Backs Are Still A Concern

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NorthStand95

Well-known member
In our system I think the LB position is the hardest in the team. Often left exposed and expected to both attack and defend. I like Engel. He seems a good guy who works hard to improve. Defensively he is OK but going forward he is poor. Out of 5 crosses. Only 1 will connect and that is a major concern for me. We also seem reluctant to go down the left. I am unsure if it’s a lack of trust in Engel but we often favour a ball inside or down the right. Hopefully this will change now Azaz is in as I noticed he often dropped to the left to try and support Engel.

Ayling again looked OK yesterday and showed leadership skills but again going forward looked poor.

Thoughts?
 
We ask full backs to bomb forward and act like wingers which generally they can’t do, a similar story when we expect wingers to defend. There’s probably a handful of players in the country who can do both aspects well for 90 mins so why do we expect our full backs to do it. The nearest we have is jones but he cannot last 90 mins doing it.

It’s a major fault with this system as our 3 forwards behind the striker do not stay out wide (apart from jones) and need the full backs overlapping to cross the ball in. Our game yesterday was crying out for jones to run at their full back but he’d already been crocked, tbh it could almost have been done under instruction by their manager given how much it fooked up our gameplan.

We have few options at the moment but we really need to be picking teams based on who we’re playing based on some good old fashioned tactical reviews, if we’re playing a team where we’re going to have 75% possession (which should have been obvious yesterday) then we need to adapt the team accordingly.

Carrick tactically is still found wanting frankly. It appears he has developed a plan B against the better teams with his 5 at the back approach but he still hasn’t got one for playing the dross of the league who are going to play a big man up front and 10 men behind the ball. Trying to thread balls through a packed midfield with little intelligent movement from the front 4 was exposed yesterday as was Aylings lack of pace and understanding of our system.
 
Losing jones so early crippled our game plan as it meant everything went down that left hand side. And the right was largely untouched.
 
gravy173 said:
Carrick tactically is still found wanting frankly. It appears he has developed a plan B against the better teams with his 5 at the back approach but he still hasn’t got one for playing the dross of the league who are going to play a big man up front and 10 men behind the ball.
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You think Carrick is poor tactically? Really?
Is Emery poor tactically because I seem to remember them struggling to break us down.
Is Pochettino poor tactically? They had the same problem when we parked the bus.

If a team sits in with 9 players behind the ball it is very difficult to break down and teams that do manage to do it do so because of individual skill/precision and not because of tactics. Other than pile players forward and spread wide, there’s nothing much a coach can do, it’s down to players
 
NorthStand95 said:
In our system I think the LB position is the hardest in the team. Often left exposed and expected to both attack and defend. I like Engel. He seems a good guy who works hard to improve. Defensively he is OK but going forward he is poor. Out of 5 crosses. Only 1 will connect and that is a major concern for me. We also seem reluctant to go down the left. I am unsure if it’s a lack of trust in Engel but we often favour a ball inside or down the right. Hopefully this will change now Azaz is in as I noticed he often dropped to the left to try and support Engel.

Ayling again looked OK yesterday and showed leadership skills but again going forward looked poor.

Thoughts?
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Azaz drifted centrally all the time looking for the ball yesterday he clearly isnt a wide midfielder. Luckily Rotherham were so poor they didn't exploit the space he left, engel got little support all game
 
Left_peg said:
If a team sits in with 9 players behind the ball it is very difficult to break down and teams that do manage to do it do so because of individual skill/precision and not because of tactics. Other than pile players forward and spread wide, there’s nothing much a coach can do, it’s down to players
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Yet Rotherham have lost 15 of their 26 league matches this season that haven't featured Boro.
60% of the teams they have faced have had absolutely no problem finding a way to beat them and they have a GD of -27, the worst in the league.
Dropping 5 points against them is a poor reflection on our players and manager.
 
indeedido said:
Yet Rotherham have lost 15 of their 26 league matches this season that haven't featured Boro.
60% of the teams they have faced have had absolutely no problem finding a way to beat them and they have a GD of -27, the worst in the league.
Dropping 5 points against them is a poor reflection on our players and manager.
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But the championship isn’t as black and white as that as we beat Leicester who no one beats so how does that square your argument.

It’s the championship that’s what happens.
 
TheYorkshireTerrier said:
We don’t utilise Engel enough in my opinion, he’s so often ignored when we have the ball.
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This is true but Engel needs to be more vocal and demanding of his team mates to give him the ball when in space.

When are a very nice team and could do with some more fire in the team, all of our most successful teams have had multiple leaders and characters across the team, with Smith, lenihan, howson missing we lose some of that IMO.
 
TheYorkshireTerrier said:
We don’t utilise Engel enough in my opinion, he’s so often ignored when we have the ball.
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I agree, but it's because we can't - and it's not Engel's fault - it's the fault of the players who are responsible for picking up the position/space when Engel leaves it.

The RB has had so much more protection this season than the LB - Jones is much better defensively than whoever is playing on the left-side.

I love Hackney as a creative/attacking CM, but the same applies... Barlasar and Howson are much better at protecting the RB than Hackney is the LB.

Even Clarke and Lenihan (during Engels first few games) have been an issue going wider at LCB - they both like to go too far forward (we seen it with Clarke last night), which leaves space that Engel is then forced to stay in, and can't do his own job as effectively - I don't think Fry is as good centrally or as a one on one defender as those two, but he does cover the RB position much better.
 
Jedi boro said:
But the championship isn’t as black and white as that as we beat Leicester who no one beats so how does that square your argument.

It’s the championship that’s what happens.
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Of course its not black and white, if so then all 26 teams would have beaten Rotherham.
But 15 have done out of 26, and we haven't in our 2.
It is 5 points carelessly dropped.

We beat Leicester and Soton on merit, but 3 others have beaten them too.
 
Left_peg said:
You think Carrick is poor tactically? Really?
Is Emery poor tactically because I seem to remember them struggling to break us down.
Is Pochettino poor tactically? They had the same problem when we parked the bus.

If a team sits in with 9 players behind the ball it is very difficult to break down and teams that do manage to do it do so because of individual skill/precision and not because of tactics. Other than pile players forward and spread wide, there’s nothing much a coach can do, it’s down to players
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I think he has a good game plan to start with and has developed a second after a year of being here as seen in the Leicester, villa and Chelsea games but that is it really, no other planned formations and tactical plans. Players are put in to unsuitable positions on the pitch rather than adapting the formation to match the players strengths or the oppositions weaknesses.
 
I mean.. our plan worked.. we scored more goals than they did.. obviously was t enough with shyte officials. Dem the breaks!

Engel is superb and he was missed out on a few occasion’s yesterday with his movement.. hopefully his teammates will click as the season goes on.

Jones being injured man.. urggh.. Hugil with a total Warnock move.. he would LOVE Rotherham! Who is our back up for Isaiah Jones? Marcus Forss thankfully back in the team.
 
NorthStand95 said:
In our system I think the LB position is the hardest in the team. Often left exposed and expected to both attack and defend. I like Engel. He seems a good guy who works hard to improve. Defensively he is OK but going forward he is poor. Out of 5 crosses. Only 1 will connect and that is a major concern for me. We also seem reluctant to go down the left. I am unsure if it’s a lack of trust in Engel but we often favour a ball inside or down the right. Hopefully this will change now Azaz is in as I noticed he often dropped to the left to try and support Engel.

Ayling again looked OK yesterday and showed leadership skills but again going forward looked poor.

Thoughts?
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He's not poor going forward though, I've said it countless times on here at this point but statistically he's one of the better performing full backs going forward. There's been plenty of times this season he's put a good cross in the box but there's just nobody making the effort to get on the end of it, we're not really blessed with good headers of the ball going forward.

Screenshot 2024-01-21 at 12.28.02.png
 
Once upon a time RB was considered the easiest position. I know that because I was pretty rubbish and that's where I mostly played when I managed to get in any team.

Dread to think how I would have handled a situation where the manager expected me to attack and defend. At all times be in two places at once, in equal measure.

Nowadays it's like, if your not Roberto Carlos, then you ain't good enough.
 
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I don’t believe our full backs are poor at all and there’s some really solid posts in this thread. Ideal world we would probably have Engel/bangura and Mcgree on one side and jones and Ayling/Dijksteel/Smith on the other. We’ve barely had a chance for that this season.
 
System is key and we seem to suite 3 at the back much better, one thing of note is CF when Josh isn't on the pitch for me something is just missing as the others including LL just don't give us that focal point.

This is the biggest area of weakness and needs to be addressed as soon as we can.
 
No worries with either of them defensively yesterday.

I didn't think Engle had his best game going forward, but also seemed to hang back more.

Ayling also hung back. I remember when Engle came in, he was told not to attack much for his first few matches, to concentrate on defence instead. I did wonder if Ayling was told similar yesterday.

No doubt that Rotherham came to spoil yesterday; most negative approach we've seen at the RS this year. But that's no excuse, we should be good enough to break them down.

The lack of a proper striker for most of the match was a far bigger issue than our fullbacks.
 
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