While attempting to keep the ball out the back of the net this season we have had some mixed fortunes and it’s arguably held us back at times.
WHAT’S GONE RIGHT?
Well for one we have a respectable amount of clean sheets so far, we currently have the joint 10th most (13). That means (on paper at least) we're better than half of the division defensively. If we remember the fact that little over a year ago we shipped six goals away at Bolton, where we currently are is a testament to both the recruitment team and the work of two different managers.
Individual players have also shown themselves to be very good at this level and with most of them being under the age of 25 the most logical trajectory for them is to keep on improving. Daniel Ballard has demonstrated that he’s going to be a player of real quality in the future, and even at the moment he’s probably capable of playing Premier League football. He certainly will play top flight football at some point, whether that is with us or with someone else remains to be seen, let’s hope it is with SAFC. Dennis Cirkin has been so effective for us this campaign that there are rumours Tottenham Hotspur want to re-sign him, Cirkin is only 21 remember. Our defence is sustainable is what I’d take from this, yes we have players who are simply of a different class (or capable of reaching much higher levels at some point in the future) but they have shot up in value since signing contracts with us. We bought Ballard for just under two million pounds and Ajibola Alese astoundingly didn’t even cost us 400 thousand. Were we to sell them on we could make a substantial profit I’m sure most of us will agree and that will allow us to reinvest in other aspects of the squad (signing a striker for example) and Speakman would be able to work his magic once more and find more high potential quality youngsters to replace those who have been sold on.
Another aspect of our defence that has arguably gone right this season is the position of goalkeeper, specifically Anthony Patterson. He’s an excellent shot stopper and has been rewarded accordingly with a call up to the England U21 team, echoing Jordan Pickford of years gone by. Whilst he certainly hasn’t been perfect, this is mostly limited to his long ball distribution, which I’m certain will improve as we play more games. There have been very few times with Anthony Patterson where I have thought ‘well he should have saved that’. Even more remarkably he was playing National League football as recently as last season, he’s slid perfectly into the club’s overall strategy and we would be able to sell him on for a massive profit. He’s an Academy of Light product and it’s brilliant to see players from there breaking into the first team and not just being sold on for minimal profits as under the previous ownership.
WHAT’S GONE WRONG?
Well for one, when we do concede, we often concede a lot. We let Stoke stick five past us, we let Hull and Swansea score four and three respectively. We may rank joint 10th for most clean sheets but we only rank joint 14th in least number of goals conceded on average each game. In any given game, statistically at least, we will concede 1.2 goals (so at least one then, you can’t concede 20% of a goal after all). Now there are most likely many reasons for this. For one we lack experience, Danny Batth is our only defender over the age of 30. We have also struggled with injuries, Ballard has left a massive gap in the squad and Alese is out injured currently as well. Cirkin is a player of real quality and he’s also been concussed recently. When we haven’t got enough natural defenders we are forced to play natural midfielders in our defence, and whilst the likes of Luke O’Nien and Lynden Gooch have done good jobs being played out of position, I’m sure the management team would be more comfortable having defenders in our backline. In addition due to a lack of depth we have to play natural defenders outside of their natural role, for example Trai Hume away to Cardiff being played as a central defender.
So to improve going forward we need depth and we need experience. In many ways that makes the recruitment team’s job a lot easier than it has been in recent years, I don’t believe we need to improve in terms of the quality of players. Our defence is just as good as the likes of Middlesbrough and other promotion chasing sides I’d certainly argue. But we need more players who are over 25, perhaps even 30 for a Championship defence. We at the very least need bodies, especially centre-backs. Another goalkeeper to challenge Anthony Patterson wouldn’t hurt either.
