Going back to our defence, I decided to look back at back 4 combos (personal rather than positional) this year. Numbers are crazy. For starting back 4 only.
- In 20 rounds, we have had 15 different back fours. 11 in the last 13 games.
- The most common back 4 has been Muscat/Siggy/Dura/Gulley. It's happened 3 times. 3!
- Remember in 2013/14 when defenders were dropping like flies? We only had 11 combinations in 27 games. Already at 15.
I know people will say this is an excuse. But defending as a group is important. When you have that much changing, admittedly not all of it is injuries and suspension, it's not wonder we've leaked goals.
That certainly doesn't help, especially when young guys are playing in those positions, stability helps a lot there.
But I still think when you look at the players in our side, we are weaker at the back than we are up front.
It could well be a philosophy of Ernies that he spends more $ on attacking players than defensive so we have to train up a bunch of young players to eventually replace dura and Siggy. Maybe he figured we'd do well enough with those 2 mentoring and teaching the younger guys this year but lucked out with injuries, then having to chop and change the back line a lot. I can understand all of that. I just find the focus on our lack of goals strange, when it's defensively where we have really been struggling.