Defensive Tactics

Leighton Baines Scores Both

In 2-1 Win Over WBA

WBA Wide Players Lack Defensive Organization, In Pictures

Five shots show how a positional error cost WBA the first goal.  Two reasonable possibilities led to the breakdown:

1. The winger (Dorrans) was pressing too high resulting in his being beaten by the give-and-go play, or,
2. The defender (Jones) was sitting too deep and not joined closely enough with Dorrans resulting in the give-and-go being effective.

Here's the sequence, with some notes:

Clearly, WBA are not high-pressing.  Makes it seem reasonable that Dorrans got overexcited and stepped to Baines, who, though a good player, probably won't score from midfield.

Dorrans turns his back here on Baines, and watches the ball instead of the runner.  Amateur mistake.

Odd that there is so much space behind the WBA midfielders here.

Dorrans leaves Baines, which is again odd as Baines is far more dangerous (even without the ball) than Osman on the flank.  Osman can't score (yes, he could serve a ball, but that's less dangerous than Baines running at the goal with the ball) but when Baines gets the pass, clearly he can.

Conclusion

Jones ought to have been higher up the field, whether Dorrans was in the wrong or not; he's the covering defender, and failed to cover Dorrans, even when he may have been rash.  It's hard to see in the stills but Jones was never a factor.  Once Baines had the ball, Jones worked hard, but was never able to affect the play.  To be fair, the center back probably should have been tighter to Jones, but Baines is perfectly able to beat a defender 1 v. 1 so there's no saying that would have stopped the goal.  At the end of the day, Dorrans allowed himself to get pulled into a 3 v. 1 situation, and Jones didn't help him even the odds up.  WBA will be disappointed with this play.