Midfield to blame for the goals


Midfield must take their share of the responsibility



Replying to 
Yep. We all thought this would be the turning point. We seem to save defensive errors for these big games away too

The above quote is the generally perceived view, but it is wrong.

The first goal was not because we committed a foul outside our own box that we didn't need to make perhaps. That was not the cause.

As a coach, I have talked before about finding the root of a problem and solving that. What happens after the root of the problem is the effect of that so solve that any the problem doesn't arise.

The problem was on the edge of their box where we gave the ball away with a weak pass, something we did several times and something which I am constantly showing we do wrong. Passes should be zipped, not rolled so opponents do not have that chance to steal the ball.

I'd have to check but if I remember right the same thing happened for the second goal, so while the defence made mistakes (no excuse for Son's tackle), the root cause was in midfield outside their box. That is where responsibility initially lies. Had those errors not been made then players would not have been in the situations they were and would not have had to make the decisions they made.

Yes, decision making at that point wasn't of the standard we need, but we put them in that position by giving away the ball easily with an unforced error.