Is CB the actual problem area

[Ordar]

I know many believe that H&H are undroppable, but I am starting to think that this is become more and more a problem area.

The 2 sides we struggled with this year, West Ham and Everton, play very similar systems and H&H struggled massively against Carroll and Fellaini. Our struggle against strong larger opponents was also seen when Dzeko came on for City and also at the chaos from set plays we seem to have.

Today Schwarzer and H&H consistently gave the ball away, putting us under constant pressure.

Is it time for a change in that area?

[Oiseau]

Although Hangeland has been looking quite shaky in recent weeks, he was fairly solid today. He made some good interceptions and decent passes forward. Hughes was disappointing, though.

[cottage cheese]

today the problem was the midfield. Totally run over today and did not get a foot in. We looked shaky as jelavic,fellani,mireless,coleman,pinaar and baines had soooooooooooooooooo much space to run at our defence. We were streched which created holes in the back four.
Yes the defenders were poor but because we had no midfield to pass to or defend from. kaca,ruiz,baird and diarra were sooo poor today.

In general yes we need a change and this will be the last season we see brede I feel

[Riverside]

I know many believe that H&H are undroppable, but I am starting to think that this is become more and more a problem area.

The 2 sides we struggled with this year, West Ham and Everton, play very similar systems and H&H struggled massively against Carroll and Fellaini. Our struggle against strong larger opponents was also seen when Dzeko came on for City and also at the chaos from set plays we seem to have.

Today Schwarzer and H&H consistently gave the ball away, putting us under constant pressure.

Is it time for a change in that area?

Answer is yes we need a change .
The real question for me is whether now - Senderos ?
Or January - Douglas or a Douglas type ?

[fulhamguy]

Different system last year with more protection in front of the back 4.

This season, more adventurous attacking players leading to less protection and not as good defensive performances.

[Herbie]

The problem today was that Fellaini was a nightmare to deal with.  

He is very clever at upsetting defenders without getting pulled up for a foul.  We just couldn't deal with him.  That being said, not many defenses can.

[PaulJ123]

I think it is time to start slowly phasing Hangeland and/or Hughes out now. They haven't looked at all solid this year and would like to see us get a mid 20s CB in who can be here for a few years. Douglas would be a perfect option from what I've seen of him

[L-Wizzy]

Although Hangeland has been looking quite shaky in recent weeks, he was fairly solid today. He made some good interceptions and decent passes forward. Hughes was disappointing, though.

Its hard to play well when you got a six foot plus belgium fouling you and puttin his arm in your throat, and gettin away with it, I do feel tho we need a powerhouse cb such as douglas, enough with this nice defending, got to be mor agressive at CB

[MJG]

No I don't think it is THE problem. The problem was today Everton. They are better than us and showed it today. Yes we got a draw and that's great, on another day we could have lost by four. But it was mit just the defenders fault.

[The King]

        Stockdale
   Senderos Douglas

pls

[H3Matt]

I think today would've been a good game to give Senderos a run beside Hangeland. Fellaini was all over Hughes, in my eyes he was lucky to leave the pitch without a yellow card.

[Horse]

Well we defended well, but at the same time the back 4 just seemed to put themselves under constant pressure, because they were completely unable to pass the ball out. Every move ended up with the ball going back to Shwarzer who just punted it back to Everton.

Back four have to be able to pick up Diarra or Baird.

[Me-ate-Live, innit??]

IMO The  problems  was JAR glad he was taken off  and I wonder why Jol picked this game to play Kačaniklić he was  not at the races .  Their midfield   are excellent and the Ref dyed his blue shirt.  The H's were better in particular after John was subbed.  Oh and well done Sidders  

[JackyFulham90]

Senderos to get a run at centre back next to Hangeland?

[YankeeJim]

Granted, I watched the match on a computer so I could see little of the defensive spacing and switching off. It did appear to me that Hughes was on Fellaini the majority of the time. To me, that just gives the advantage to Everton. Hughes is not the biggest of defenders by far and he certainly gave away to Fellaini anything in the air. Given Everton's punt & run style, Hangers should have been on the Belgian.

[Aaron]

Hangeland and Hughes are approaching the end of their shelf life regardless of the quality of the performances they put in, they're just getting old.

Currently we don't know how the future is going to look without them.  If they were both injured or otherwise unavailable now what would be our CB pairing?  Baird and Senderos?

Hangeland scares me when he's on the ball these days, his distribution is borderline woeful and he seems to becoming increasingly prone to passing directly to an opposing player who is already running at him and consequently past him and setting up opportunities before Brede can get back to where he needs to be.

Hughes was always very steady and consistent, he's losing his edge now though and getting beaten by players who wouldn't have gotten past him a couple of seasons ago, I think this is probably just down to age to be honest.

New manager and new systems, yes, okay, but I think even accounting the boys are starting to slip a little.

I'm not saying drop them right now or anything of the sort, aside from anything else I don't think we have the options to consider that right now but it'd be nice to know we had a Douglas or whoever that we could at least be gradually introducing into the team.

Still say we need to strengthen defensively and in central midfield although I have been pleasantly surprised how well we have worked in the latter area so far despite having relatively few options available.

[nose]

I do not think the problem is the central defence. i think it is the central midfiekd being too advanced too often. For the equalizer I was screaming theat diara and baird were miles topo far up field as the cross came in our centre backs were confronted with too many options too defend. If baird (presumably) was tasked to sit deeper he could have easilly cut out the danger.

The tactics were wrong today and that allowed a very good everton to capitalise on a below par performance.

[MJG]

Granted, I watched the match on a computer so I could see little of the defensive spacing and switching off. It did appear to me that Hughes was on Fellaini the majority of the time. To me, that just gives the advantage to Everton. Hughes is not the biggest of defenders by far and he certainly gave away to Fellaini anything in the air. Given Everton's punt & run style, Hangers should have been on the Belgian.

More a case of Fellaini on Hughes than the other way round. If a striker is going to pick one of the CB's to stay with there is not really much you can do as a defending team.

[WolverineFFC]

Nah.

The issue is the CM. This year's team was built around a star named Dembele. Nobody in the CM is capable of beating a man one v one, so good teams press the heck out of FFC in their own end. This leads to endless hoofing of the ball fwd. Hence no possession and what feels like non stop pressure on the back line.

Would be nice if Schwarzer would occasionally relieve some of the pressure on the D by keeping possession and not shooting goal kicks around like Scud Missiles. That being said, other than his distribution, I think Mark had a fine game today.