Defense - Personnel Issue Or Tactical Chaos

[Rich Karuschkat]

I've heard over and over about how horrible the NYCFC defense is. It is true the defense is horrible, but it's not necessarily because the defenders themselves are no good. I see several major issues with the defense that need to be fixed. Firstly, the defenders tend to give up once they are beaten and allow the strikers to waltz into our goal uncontested. Next, the teams formation does match the teams tactical decisions. We may play a 4-5-1, however when attacking this changes to just 2 defenders. This leaves wide open pockets in our defensive corners. Every good attacking team is going to take advantage of this. We've seen it time and time again. They send a player outside into one of the pockets, forcing our central defenders to shift outside leaving the middle of the field wide open, with nobody coming back to help defend. What should occur with 4 defenders is only 1 of the outside defenders should be going up to help the attack, and the remaining 3 should shift to cover. We would be better off playing a 3-5-2. Although this would theoretically reduce the number of defenders, it would actually result in an additional defender being back (3 instead of 2). Next, we supposedly have been playing with 2 "Central defensive midfielders". Pirlo is not going to defend, nor should he be relied upon to defend. Jacobson plays more of an attacking role than a defensive role, and gets caught up-field all too often. It has to be frustrating for the defense thinking they are supposed to have 2 CDM's in front of them helping out, when in actuality they have none. Lastly, we need to start making our marks. The defenders are constantly getting caught with the attackers behind them unmarked. The defenders need to be more aware of the attackers around them, (especially in the box), and the midfield needs to come back and pick up their marks. We cannot be relying on 2 defenders to mark 4+ attacking players.

Today was just another example of how poor the tactical decisions have been, and how easy it is for a team with a strong offense to exploit these defensive holes. Everyone seems to be convinced that NYCFC needs a whole new set of defenders (which could be right), but I think they first need to be given a chance. It is clear they are frustrated on the field, as they often just give up (unacceptable in my opinion). Fix these poor tactical decisions, THEN we can talk about the personnel issues.

 

[SoupInNYC]

Well thought out post. Part of the problem, as you mentioned is how high Angelino and Iraola are constantly playing. LAG's one goal that came off of a goal kick, Iraola was on the other side of midfield. That is not where a defender should be lined up on a goal kick.

Makes you wonder if we may be able to shift to a formation with 3 CBs and then use Angelino and Iraola as Wingbacks. Take Jacobson off the field and insert Mena alongside Facey and Hernandez. Could work, could be disastrous, I don't know, a consideration however.

 

[canchon]

Makes you wonder if we may be able to shift to a formation with 3 CBs and then use Angelino and Iraola as Wingbacks. Take Jacobson off the field and insert Mena alongside Facey and Hernandez. Could work, could be disastrous, I don't know, a consideration however.

With Angelino and Iraola not playing defensively (look at their average positioning on the charts, it's close to midfield), I'm for trying the 3-5-2 to get more defenders on the field. Put the 3 CB's together, at least then you have 3 CB's instead of 2 in the center, put Angelino and Iraola to provide width, but you still need somebody playing defensively next to Pirlo. Ideally you want 2 box-to box mids across from Pirlo, i.e. a poor man's Marchisio and Vidal. The best option here is Mix and maybe Tommy Mac as both of them are active runners.

---3 CB's---
--Angelino---TMac---Pirlo---Mix---Iraola
---Poku---Villa

And Frank gets to continue to munch popcorn in the press box until he gets "loaned" back to Chelsea/City in January.

For the future, $6 million would purchase a pretty nice CDM or box-to-box midfielder. For that money you could even slot in De Rossi next to Pirlo.

 

[Fabio]

Kris is a complete idiot !!!!

 

[EganSoccerWords]

IMHO this is more about poor team building...the 4-2-3-1 is the only formation we can really play to get Pirlo and eventually Lampard both on the field. This hurts alot of people.

It hurts Villa because he is not the ideal sole striker. We can never have two STs on the field with Pirlo as the lone holding mid. It hurts Mix and T-Mac because it forces them to play as wingers which they don't have pace and scoring ability to succeed at. It hurts Poku because Lampard is going to take him out of his CAM position once he is fit. Poku is either going to find himself on the bench or on the wing. Both of those options make me cry a little. It hurts our fullbacks because of our lack of pace on the wing it forces us to use them too much on overlapping runs to provide the pace and width we need to attack.

This formation would work alot more if Andrew Jacobson didn't suck next to Pirlo the last month. Dude probably has less than 5 tackles the whole month of August. If Jacobson isn't going to play defense, then we can at least give Mix a shot next to Pirlo. Mix's best position is IMHO holding midfielder.

I can't really see us moving away from the 4-2-3-1 or us getting much better next season unless we see some upgrades to the backline, get the destroyer we need to play CDM, get the winger we need, find a way to start Poku at CAM, and play Mix at his natural position. I just don't see all of that happening with the roster we have. We might have to look towards 2017 when we get shed Lampard/Pirlo to see the roster changes we need for long term sucess.

 

[MagnusPax]

All though we need an upgrade to Jacobsen, I also agree that our fullbacks constant ability to be out of position is not helping our hapless center backs. If kreis is determined to keep starting angelino and Iraola then play as wingback a and out another CB out there. This doesn't solve our problems but at least it band aids the leaking of goals.

We cannot expect Pirlo, AJ or Mix to solve all the defensive issues.