The hole in our midfield

Dunno about quick, both O'Connor and Henley were easily outpaced by Vernham for the equaliser on Saturday.

 

Us being a slower team is the reason we drop a little deeper than the fans would like to see, that creates these holes not only in defence but attack also. Far too often there's no midfielder 20 yards from the strikers because we need to sit deep for our slow defenders.

If we played high line we everyone wants to see when playing on the deck nice on the eye football, you need defenders who can react and have the pace to play high.... not a chance i'd like to see BRE or either O'Connor on the half way line reacting to a counter hoof over the heads to a pacey forward, they'd get destroyed for pace every time. Because far too often teams come to VP to set up shop and play on the counter, with our slow back line we need to drop a few yards more just to try cover that problem.

 

Last time under McCall we didn't really have any pace at the back and it was no issue. We stayed unbeaten at home all season. McMahon, Darby, Mcardle, Vincelot, Kilgallon, Meredith. Barely the lads from Cool Runnings. Don't remember having the worry about pacey front men and don't remember there been massive gaps between defence and midfield with Cullen just sitting there. As long as the defence works as a unit you don't need a particularly fast defender. Obviously helps with the full backs but wouldn't say essential. The full backs named above were all decent for us but was known for their pace. Just need a unit where all the defence know their jobs when out of possession.

 

No they weren't the quickest but certainly better than the current bunch. BRE seems to have the turning circle of a cruise ship. But that defence had played together for a few years by the time the 2017 play off came about. Meredith, Darby, McArdle all became a unit over the 4 years before, and guys like McMahon, NKP & Killa had to fight and gel to get into that group with Killa barely playing under McCall first season.

One thing people forget during the unbeaten at home season, we had 2 players sitting in midfield with Marshall having the season of his life, Law cutting in from the left and Meredith used more a wing back like Wood now to add more numbers in attack to accommodate Vincelot and Cullen sitting. Cullen was the guy to tick play along but Vincelot played as that sitting type too all season, who was a better tackler and intercepted a lot of play compared to anyone we currently have to play that deep role . He didn't play in defence until the season after partnering NKP.