Many words have been spent on describing our defensive woes over the last few seasons, and our tendency to leak goals. Last 10 games: Least goals conceded in the entire division and 2nd highest scorers. Brilliant effort by the back line, Gomes and Joka. Conceding only 7 goals in 10 games is quite remarkable by any standard in this league, never mind for a team with a "leaky defence".
We have really tightened up, no doubt. We've barely concede from open play for a while now, the leaky defence thing is now a myth.
It is weird - I still occasionally forget what happened on Saturday. On being reminded of the late Ipswich goal, I instantly though, 'oh god, if only...' then suddenly remembered we're up, it don't matter!
It's not a myth, it's a thing of the past. Gomes was rusty when he first came,having played little competitive football for three years, but he has steadily improved as the season has gone on. Angella has always been subject to loss of concentration, but this seems to have stopped since Dean Austen arrived. Ek has always been fallible, but he's now injured and the more reliable Connolly has replaced him. I'm still worried about Paredes and to a lesser extent Anya, but Paredes' defending and Anya's crossing have at least improved, even if they're not yet Prem standard. And Watson and Guedioura have improved our ball-winning in front of the defence. But yes, whether it took time for Joker to get his message across, whether it's the introduction of Austen, the defence has improved enormously - and we must also thank the post-Nani scouting and recruitment staff for finding just the players we needed.
I think Austin may have had a much bigger influence on the team, especially the defence than most of us have imagined, as our current form has pretty much coincided with his arrival at the club.
I think Austen has introduced various positive characteristics and one negative. Sense, Sensibility and pride have all come in, but prejudice has been the cost.
Agreed we've defended well recently. Still don't think many will disagree that defenders, especially full-backs, need to be prioritised as the biggest target areas for strengthening this summer.
I think it's 90% down to Gomes. Luckilly the odd howler hasn't cost us and he's made some spectacular saves. Deffo Premiership quality.
I have to admit until this post I would have totally agreed with you, I am quite amazed that we have conceded less goals than everyone else in The Championship over the last 10 games, so maybe the defence does not need as much strengthening as most of us thought. Having said that, I think Gomes has been a major factor in keeping those goals out!
Yep - hands up. I was critical but have been brought around to thinking he has been great for us. Not sure good enough for prem but I vpcertainly underestimated him. We do need more speed at the back for next year but positionally he has been good
A clean sheet in our last match and it's 27 in 27, which is a goal a game. Only Chelsea can better that in the PL.
How are Bournemouth in better form than us over the past 10 games, when we've not only caught them up, but overtaken them in the league??
Gomes has been unreal, the best shot stopper I can ever recall us having even if others have been better at other parts of the game
Just shows how much work the coaches and team have put in during the run in. It's funny though because it didn't seem that good at the time.
I think it's a combination of things..more consistency of selection..partnerships being allowed to develop at the back..Gomes being superb..the influence of Watson and AG..the growing influence of our coaches..and let's be honest, a bit of luck too (thinking of Antonio's miss, the sand of God etc) which is no bad thing to have on your side at the best of times!!
Some of the opposition finishing has been nothing short of laughable, and we really can't expect PL strikers to show the same level of charity. If those chances had fallen to Vydra or Ighalo, we'd have seen them buried - and unfortunately every PL team has strikers at least as good as those two.
