I’ve got to say when people regularly criticise particular individual instances of defending it always makes me chuckle. I don’t just mean on here but in general, whether that be on SKY or MOTD etc… You hear comments of he should have been closer, not allowed him to turn or get a cross in, badly positioned etc… Yet if these instances never happened and defenders were perfect, most games would end up a boring 0-0 draw of very few chances, and no one would want to keep watching.
You could argue for Oxford’s goals on Sat that the Fleetwood man sat too far off of Mills for our first, their central defender shouldn't have allowed Moore to win the header for the knock down on our second or Bodin shouldn’t have been given space, or why wasn’t Edwards closed down much sooner for our 3rd. If those things had happened we’d barely have had a goal attempt for 90 minutes.
Sometimes it’s good play from the forwards or whoever to get in the right positions, but constantly criticising poor defending always seems the way to go, as I say even with TV pundits. Everything is always the defenders error or bad play, rather than quality forward play. If we get a faultless defensive performance from both sides each week, then let’s all look forward to 0-0 draws week after week and very little excitement.
We’re Oxford Utd in League One, we simply aren’t going to have 11 faultless performances on the pitch where we create 20 chances and the opposition have none!