BenĆtez is the one person I donāt think you can blame here. I take the point about the goal: had he not been stood there, any through ball would have gone through, but heās expected to play as a sweeper. That one you can chalk down to a good goal.
The rest of it is bullshit. Heās essentially a fancier-sounding Russell Martin- completely welded to one philosophy, obsessed with playing out the ball, even when itās clearly not working. Why keep inviting pressure?
We joke about conceding in the first ten minutes, but it happens every bloody time. Sooner or later, a decent side is going to get hold of us and absolutely slam four or five past us. Thatās probably whatās going to happen today.
Personally, I think this experiment might have worked twelve months ago. Itās not going to work now. I donāt think weāve got an inherently bad defence. I think weāve got an inherently bad system, and thatās the difference. Yes, players are making individual errors, but the system keeps putting them in situations where those errors happen.
With a bit of luck, heāll be gone after this week and we can get somebody in with a bit of defensive solidity.
Today was an accident waiting to happen. After what happened against Forest & Lyon what do we do? Virtually the same line-up, virtually the same approach, virtually the same tactics from kick-off. And hey presto, whatās happened in the last few games has happened again.