DEFENDING:
For a long time in this match, Durante was the only one defending. It was like a one man show. He is still our best player when it comes to the art of defending, but he needs to stop charging around the pitch and stay in the back line. With him being so loose, we have no hope of forming a proper defensive unit.
Cacace contributed little. He just occupied space next to Durante. Not his fault, he's just not at this level yet, but if he is going to play it should be at left back or in midfield as he is nowhere near ready. Fox was excellent and if Durante would put the brakes on a little, the two of them would make the best combo we currently have in the middle of a back four.
A lot of the problem with Durante's defending stemmed from how poor we were defensively in midfield. Paracki was the only one in midfield who pressed back, but his starting position was too high to be of much help. When Santalab dropped deep, Durante needed to pass him on, but with little faith in his midfield and in typical fashion he took matters into his own hands and foolishly followed a roaming player around the pitch.
Singh and Ridenton bought little to the team defensively. You'd expect kids to at least bring some zip and work rate. They just seemed to think it was enough to mark 'their man'. Some would call this 'hiding'. Well boys, in the big leagues you need to multiply your presence in both attack and defence and defensively this means coming off 'your man' to double up on someone else's by pressing back on top of the defenders or across to your midfield buddies. Ridenton should know by now, Singh needs to be told this and given extra speed training.
With so many personnel deficiencies, I can see why Greenie went for 3 back. But it was a big mistake. Most teams who play a front 3 have at least one narrow wide attacker with full backs attacking from deep. A back 3 can deal with this as long as they have help from midfield with the wing backs picking up the opposing full backs. Gombau comes from the Barcelona school where the wide forwards stretch the play. Therefore, it was totally logical and always obvious that WSW would pin our wing backs deep and turn our back 3 into a back 5. To compound matters, nobody seemed to realise this and as the game went on we allowed the WSW push us deeper, meaning even larger gaps in midfield. Given the aforementioned problems of midfielders not doubling up, this meant we were wide open even with a full 8 or 9 men defending. All WSW had to do was to get a central midfielder to play near a winger and we didn't know what to do.
One last thing I want to mention is that the art of good defending is not just having players doing the right things behind the ball. You can achieve so much when you are proactive and manipulate proceedings further up the field and we missed a big opportunity to do this down Llorente's flank. This guy would be a nightmare for many coaches as he doesn't give a rats about defending. So, put the right wing back on him, and whenever he goes forward get one of your strikers to play in the space he left behind. Either Llorente stops attacking or you have an open channel to play in or ever better still you stretch the remaining three defenders just that little bit more which means that your outlet has a better chance. So often Burns went with Llorente. This meant that Thwaite and Hammill could put the jug on and just sit in on Krishna while Risdon could pick up a more advanced starting position on the other side, which caused a lot of trouble. By manipulating their back 4, even when they have the ball, it's highly probable you would end up limiting their attacking intent.