An Analysis of Our Defense

First off, don’t forget to read Javier’s post from yesterday. It’s a good one.

Today, it’s an analysis of VCF’s ‘defense’ from the perspective of last weekend’s Atletico Madrid draw by intrepid supporter/commentator Nithin, complete with videos from Kyle’s excellent Locos 4 Los Che.

It took some time to get up, but it’s well worth the read.

Nithin, the floor is yours …

‘We all know that our defense was terrible in the last match against Atletico. Watching the match, I felt they were making some very basic errors. This is an attempt to point out some of those errors, using Kyle’s extended highlights for support. Pause the highlights video at the time mentioned at the start of each comment and read the comment. The 1st half is from the 1st video and the 2nd half from the 2nd.

1st HALF

The high back line

0:36 – This shows how high our defensive line is. Pretty much the entire team was in the Atletico half when the ball was played.

The first goal

0:43 – Dealbert is marking Kun well here, as he runs into the box. Bruno is with Jurado who has the ball and Forlan is free.

0:44 – Jurado cuts in and Bruno follows him. Forlan moves into the space created on the left. Nobody is paying him any attention.

0:45 – Forlan receives the ball inside the box. Dealbert realizes he is free and nobody else is near enough. So he goes to close him down, leaving Kun. All three defenders nearby have turned their attention to Forlan as well, and nobody picks up Kun as he moves into space right in front of goal.
0:46 – Kun receives the ball the score. Note that the other 3 defenders are not serving any real purpose here. We have 4 defenders in the box against 2 attackers who can receive the ball. How difficult is it for those 4 to mark 2? Everybody watches the ball and fails to mark the opponents roaming freely in the box. This is a recurring theme throughout the match.

Some terrible marking …

2:25 – Again, 3 defenders are focused on Forlan while Jurado is free on the left and Kun tries to make his way into the box unnoticed. However, Dealbert sees him and moves with him. Jurado gets the ball, and …

2:27 – All 3 shift their attention to Jurado, letting Forlan make his run behind them. Luckily, Jurado passes the ball a little early and Alexis gets in the way of the pass.

2:50 – Jurado on the left again makes a run, unnoticed by Pablo (I think) who was standing next to him. Bruno was marking the man who made the pass to Jurado and now has to try and catch up with him.

2:54 – Jurado finds Forlan in the box in space. Though there are 5 VCF players around him, no one is marking him. Once he gets the ball though, he is closed down quickly by Banega and forced wide.

… and a good one

4:01-4:03 – Dealbert turns around a few times to find out exactly where Kun is and moves close to him anticipating his run.

4:09-4:11 – When Kun makes his run, Dealbert runs with him, staying close and putting him off enough to prevent him from getting a shot at goal. This is the least our defenders should do. Dealbert has been decent with his marking while the rest have been scattered for the most part.

Another instance of the high back line

4:21 – Another instance where our entire team (except for Dealbert) is in the Atletico half. Such a high line means every mistake by a defender, every error in marking, is a potential goal. Alexis obliges by making that mistake and Kun gives his thanks by messing it up.

Mathieu forgets he is a LB …

8:48-8:49 – Mathieu, watching the ball, has left his man free to receive the cross or our left wing. Also note how nobody is looking to mark Kun and Simao at the edge of our box and both of them subsequently receive the ball with space inside the box.

2nd HALF.

… and continues to do so

0:55 – Mathieu was caught in a central position a few times in the match, leaving plenty of space to be exploited on his wing, like this instance here

.

3:10 – Everybody, including Mathieu is on the right half of the pitch here and the entire left half is free.

3:12 – Now he has to sprint across to try and catch up with the Atletico player (Maxi?)
3:13 – But as soon as the ball is passed to the center, Mathieu stops chasing down Maxi and turns around towards the center. A return pass to Maxi would’ve been dangerous here. But Atletico continued their wasteful ways.

The offside trap and leadership

3:43-3:44 – Here’s something interesting. Watch Dealbert stepping up to try and play Kun offside and then appealing for it. But Mathieu has failed to step up with him and plays Kun onside. Very dangerous when you play a high back line.

3:51 – Following Kun’s run, Mathieu is not marking his man and is going to be caught out with the pass.

3:52 – Luckily, the ref blows (incorrectly?) for a goal kick, to prevent an almost certain goal. Watch Dealbert’s reaction in the next couple of seconds. Berating Mathieu for not stepping up, I think. Is there any doubt as to who is the leader in defense?

Mathieu’s bad run continues

4:11 – Once again, Mathieu is nowhere near his man and wouldn’t have been able to cut off a pass.

4:18 – The second half wasn’t very good for Mathieu, who misses his man making the run here. Also, though Maxi is offside, the back 4 are not holding their line and the defender on the far side was 2 steps behind the rest leading the linesman to his error. Mathieu does really well to catch up and dispossess Maxi though.

Dealbert gives another demo

5:19 – This time, Forlan is free on the far side with Bruno quite a way off in the center. Watch Dealbert in the next few seconds, however, as he notices Maxi’s(?) run and sticks to him. Also note how he extends his hand and maintains contact with his man as he runs. This is to track his movement while watching the ball. This is the kind of man marking that pretty much everyone else failed to do throughout the match.

Lack of intensity

6:06 – All 4 defenders are inside the box at this moment and somebody is running in on the left side of the screen to take a shot. Why isn’t anybody running in with him to put him off? Where are the DMs? The rest of the team has to put in a lot of effort as well if we are to get out of the defensive hole we are in. Get back and defend in numbers. Provide your back 4 with all the support they can get. It is Dealbert who tries to close down his shot here.

6:21 – In the replay here, you can see there was another Atletico player also running in, also under no pressure from any VCF players.

The second goal …

8:08 – Mathieu is at the center of the box, watching the ball, completely unaware of Maxi in acres of space behind him. Is he marking Kun, who is right next to him? Lets move ahead a couple of seconds and see.
8:10 – Its Dealbert who comes right in front of Kun to make sure he doesn’t get the ball. Mathieu drifts behind Kun and ends up in no man’s land. Maxi is still in plenty of space.

8:11 – Alexis jumps up and heads the ball. Did he have to? I don’t think so, cause there was nobody right behind him and Dealbert was marking Kun. But he didn’t know that. So he tries to clear it. However, he doesn’t get the necessary elevation and just manages to lift it over Dealbert.
8:13 – If Alexis doesn’t head it, that’s a Dealbert clearance, but now, its gone behind everybody. So everybody turns around and oops, Maxi is waiting there with enough space to land a helicopter.

8:14 – Goal Maxi, Assist Alexis. Atletico have 3 men in the box. We have five close by and Bruno near the edge. What is the excuse to not mark those 3 in the dying seconds of the match to preserve your lead? What excuse to not have a few more men in the box making sure no Atletico player gets anywhere near the ball? Lack of intensity? Lack of organization?

… and almost another

8:39 – Altletico want another. Again, notice Mathieu in the center and Maxi in acres of space behind him. He gets the ball cause Atletico is seeing a pattern here.
8:45 – Luckily, so is Dealbert, and that’s that.

Major points of concern

A few issues stand out. The first, as usual, is the high back line. There were at least a couple of instances where almost the entire team was in the Atletico half. With a very shaky and rather slow defense, that’s begging for trouble. We’ve had problems with this style of play for well over a season and still continue to employ it. Is it so integral to Emery’s game that he just cannot do without it, regardless of the price? Only he knows, but it doesn’t look like this is going to change any time soon.
The bigger worry in this match was, however, the lack of marking, especially inside the box. I had noticed this during the Getafe game as well. Time and time again, we see 3 or 4 defenders all watching the man with the ball, leaving spaces of others to exploit, and exploit it they did. For both the goals, we had enough defenders in the box to mark the opponents and simply failed to do so. And when one or two defenders fail to mark their men, it creates confusion for the others as well.

Is this caused by lack of co-ordination or communication? Or is it a tactical error? Again, we can only guess, it can cause us a lot of trouble and Emery has to sort this out quickly. That is, if he has noticed it yet.

Finally, something needs to be said about our inability to hold the ball. When a team has a goal lead with about 2 minutes of stoppage time to go in an important match, what does it do? Hold the ball. Keep tapping it around in the midfield, waste time at the corner flag, hold it up and try and win a corner or a free kick, anything but kick it straight back to the other team, especially if your defense is shaky. And it should be pretty straightforward unless there is big difference in class or numbers, right? (When teams find it difficult to hold the ball cause they are outclassed or down in numbers, they usually pack their third with bodies and defend like their life depended on it.)

We are not outclassed by Atletico Madrid and definitely not by a 10 man Gijon. Then how were they able to attack us repeatedly in the dying moments of the respective games? This is a problem we’ve had for a long, long time and with grave consequences. How long before somebody says ‘Hey, we are not able to keep the ball in the final minutes and it has been hurting us for well over a season. Maybe we should do something about it!’?’

Category: Team News

Tags: Team News

Subscribe   The Offside RSS Feeds

Print

Share