By Neil Ravenscroft
August 31 2004

What are we going to do about this shambolic defending from Walsall, before it costs us too many points in the race for promotion? The match report on one fan site today seems to be suggesting that all's right with the world, following the win against Swindon. In fact it finishes by saying "I thought there was supposed to be some sort of crisis". I’ve got news for them, if they could take the rose tinted glasses off for ten seconds, there is one – a defensive crisis.

There has been a lot of criticism of all of the Walsall defenders this season and, despite the superb attacking display and the welcome three points yesterday, Neil Emblen has come in for soem personal stick. The blaming of individuals, however, is too easy an option and I think fans should be looking at the way the defence is, or isn't organised.

The League table is looking better this morning following the welcome three points against in form Swindon Town, but the remarkable fight back was only needed because of yet another exhibition of shambolic defending. It was bad enough that Howard’s opening goal came about not just because Paston was rooted to the line, but it was just as much because the Swindon player was completely unmarked on the six yard line at a set piece. The team then decided to compound this mistake by allowing four or five more free headers from set pieces during the course of the game. The Barnsley match had highlighted this weakness two weeks earlier, when both of their goals had come about in a similar fashion, but things just haven’t improved, with a goal line clearance and a good save from Paston keeping Swindon out from corners in the second half.

The second goal too was as a result of lessons not being learned. The team had already been caught out once pushing up too far towards the half way line and leaving too much space in behind, but had escaped, when they made exactly the same mistake again and Darius Henderson poked the ball home.

Why does this matter, you may ask, when we still won? The point is that we cannot depend on continually managing to score one more than the opposition in order to win games. In the early kick off on Monday, the match stats with 5 minutes to go (I went to take up my seat in the Purple Stand at that point) showed Leicester City had had 14 shots and Brighton 1. The score at that point? Leicester 0 Brighton 1. Your forwards only need to have an off day and this sort of defending could cost you the three vital points that could have got you promoted. Indeed, the winner yesterday came very late and 1 point from the game would have made the league table look decidedly dodgy.

I know that Neil Emblen had a poor game yesterday, but he isn't responsible for the defending of set pieces, the coaches are, and we generally defended poorly as a unit. Teams are sent out with specific instructions on who is to pick up whom at set pieces (hence teams tending not to make substitutions when defending one), but our lot look as if they've either left the piece of paper behind, or weren't organised in the first place.

I don't know who amongst the coaching staff is responsible for sorting out the defence, but it seems to me that this is one area Merson must sort out as a matter of urgency, before it costs us what could be vital points, as it did at Oldham and Bournemouth, even if it means bringing in another coach.

It's all very well having the "happy clappy", "well, at least we're attacking" attitude, but it may still backfire on us and I, for one, would prefer to see more zeros in the goals against column.