We badly need to get back to basic defending

WHEN it comes to defending crosses, it can often boil down to pure desire — and I don’t believe some of our players have that desire.

I think certain players just aren’t capable of doing it, to be totally honest.

All three goals we conceded to Sheffield Wednesday this week were down to our own sloppy play. The second goal — which was created when they got in down the left flank — came from our allowing the ball to bounce.

It is not as if we don’t spend a lot of time working on other teams’ strengths and our weaknesses.

And we badly need to get stuck into some basic defending — not letting the ball bounce, covering your centre-half and stopping the cross coming in.

They are the sorts of duties we have stopped doing lately. Whether that’s a confidence issue, I am not sure. But we need to get back to what we were doing earlier on in the season, as it brought us success.

There is no doubt we have been missing a couple of players. Reuben Hazell has come back and, though his fitness has suffered a little bit, I thought he did all right against Wednesday.

We miss Dean Furman in midfield and big Jean-Yves Mvoto in defence.

When we get them back, it puts pressure on the team to do well and gives them a kick up the backside. These players have been mainstays of the team for the majority of the season.

Going forward, we looked dangerous against Wednesday and created things out there. Without the centre-forwards looking really sharp, they helped to start us off on a couple of moves.

Dale Stephens was a real top-class act. He looked every bit a Premier League player, deserved his goal and was unfortunate not to get a second.

I know Dale has got four penalties within his tally, but as we lack a bit of killer instinct in front of goal it is no surprise he is our top scorer with 10 for the season.