A few thoughts on our defensive issues ahead of Oxford

I will be looking at Clement's selection to see which (if any) of these he has identified already but in my view a lot of our defensive issues flow from the following:

1. Duffy is too slow. As in fact is Medic but the lesser of two evils. I said repeatedly last season that Duffy's lack of pace was a major problem as not only can he not recover as soon as anyone gets past him but he also has to sit deep which leads to a big gap between the midfield and defence. Although he is much maligned at times, Cordoba made us much better when he played at CB for that brief spell as he has pace to recover and we can therefore play slightly higher up the pitch. I don't know what the answer is until he's back. i would be tempted to try McConville or indeed Adegboyega in there.

2. No left back. Don't know what we can do about this other than play Kenny there til we have a viable alternative and hope that Mahovo or Chrisene come back very soon. Fisher has been awful this season.

3. Stacey cannot mark players properly and is routinely out of position. I like Stacey as an attacking threat and generally. And sometimes his positioning is due to the fact he's being asked to do too much going forward due to the absence of other attacking outlets. But time and time again when he plays teams are able to expose us in the channel where he should be with him being caught in front of the ball. Don't really see what we can do about this until January unless Clement is willing to try Adegboyega there.

4. Topic cannot play as the deep lying midfielder as he is not able to receive the ball whilst being pressed without giving it away. Teams know they just need to press him and he will eventually cough it up.

5. Kenny is too easy to byepass as a holding midfielder in a midfield two. Matteson does at least tackle people and win the ball occasionally.

So where does that leave us team wise tomorrow? i would go with something like the below:

Kovacevic

Stacey McConville Darling McClean

Matteson Wright

Mahovo Kvistgarden Schwartau/Myles

Sargent

Posted By: Jim on November 24th 2025 at 10:34:02

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