A New Centre Back Should Be High On The Agenda of Leeds United

We should see more of this from the Leeds defence.

Football’s surely changing and as Andy Ritchie said in the YEP this week, the art of defending is fading rapidly.

Is it because the game is just becoming more attacking? Or has major tweaks like the offside rule adjustment made it harder for defenders?

It’s a topic well suited to this Leeds United, and also many teams in the division. He talked about full-backs blocking crosses and centre-halves heading them away. At the minute, we’ve got a left-back in Stephen Warnock who almost needs to contribute to both – while also playing a massive part in attack. So much duty cannot be piled on one player. Whoever may be playing in central defence, they need to win headers all day long, and as Andy Ritchie said, keep last-ditch challenges to a minimum. How many times have you witnessed Stephen Warnock coming to the rescue of Jason Pearce’s failure?

A new defender must be high up on the list of recruits for Neil Redfearn, and even loaning in an experienced head in January could help the likes of Belusci and Cooper. I know sometimes bringing in experience doesn’t work but I do believe it’s what we need right now, someone who can deal with crossed balls all day and who we can actually rely on – instead of almost having a heart attack every time the opposition steps foot in our half.

If we had defenders who could deal with high hit-and-hopes we would have won a lot more. Yes, it’s blatantly obvious, but the amount of times inexcusable defensive errors has cost us is unbelievable.

Last night I watched Brighton v Millwall and was immediately drawn to Danny Shittu, he continuously dealt with every cross ball that came his way. He won the basic headers that for Leeds defenders seem impossible to win. He was never running back towards his own goal lunging in the air, but instead always behind the ball and ready to mop up. Not one of our defenders does this consistently and it’s got to change. Millwall took the lead in the 15^th minute and went on to win the game one nil, thanks to basic defending. Leeds could have been a one nil team this season if we could get the simple defensive duties right. You look at Rotherham, a one-trick-pony, played it out the left to Pringle and he pumped it into the box. Every single time it bamboozled our defenders, simple cross balls and it went on to cost us.

We’re playing Fulham today and from what I’ve seen of them they don’t cross the ball too much, which could maybe be a good thing for us. If they had any sense at all they would play route one football, as that always seems to destroy us. We need to try our best to bury games when we have the chance and give our shambolic defence one more allowed mistake - because they're certainly inevitable.