I think our propensity to leak unnecessary goals will eventually cost us any chance we have of fighting for the title.
Our Defence - Has it actually been fixed?
- Thread starter Untd55
- Start date
If we look at the back lines of those teams I wouldn’t say they are better than us. City have a better defence considering the whole team, maybe also Chelsea. Liverpool don’t look very solid imo, they have no clue on counters for example. Agree what you wrote about Spurs.
I’ve been watching a lot of football this season and I think all “top teams” have been full of mistakes and poor performances in the defence. Our team is not different in that perspective.City seem to have adjusted and start to look solid, at the expense of not scoring goals however...
100%. All the other top clubs would be very happy for us to keep our defence as it is. That says it all.
Having a poor defence will bite us time and time again this season.
What do you think is the best way for us to get by without a fast CB or proper CDM until the summer because think we will need to prepare ourselves for that situation
I was thinking the same. Sheffield Utd are not exactly a renowned pressing team but still, they spooked our back 5. Why don't we lump it forward for Rashford, Martial, Greenwood to run on to - if the ball is behind them, the pressing team will stop pressing. Once that has happened a few times, the game will calm down and we can start to play through midfield again.
Because ‘Arry thinks he is Franz FeckinBauer and wants to pass and sweep up all the time when all he is good at is heading - Lindelof is a much better passer than him as shown again last night with the assist for the first goal. Big ‘Arry is a good old English defender - a far lesser version of Tony Adams and he should stick to what he is good at and not try to be something he isn’t.
At their best they have conceded as little as 22 and 23 goals for a prem season. they genuinely concede less than us whilst also playing attack minded football. We play kinda reserved, score less and concede more
This is truly shit defending.
All started from Matic running out and completely losing his duel, then not having any desire or speed to recover.
Then Maguire decides to come out of position to stop him and leaves a gaping hole.
You can see why we give up so many chances, there's just no understanding between our players and they've all got a mistake in them.
My god though Matic was SO POOR that first half.
There are 15 teams better than us on HOME game defence.
Thats not Matics fault. Losing duels happens. The problem was no one tracking the midfielder.
This just typifies that the problem is to do with more than the quality of our players. We make mistakes like this all the time. Who is tracking the runner from midfield? No one. School boy defending. Looks to be Pogba at fault. He is ball watching and not looking behind him. You can list another 10,20 plus instances of really basic mistakes over the last few games. I dont care if we had Van Dijk and Koulibailly at CB. If you dont get your shape right and do the basics right you will concede goals.
The second Sheff United goal happens in football. Yes it shouldn't and we could have done better but every team concedes goals. Its the other goals and these kinds of opportunities we give away that are just brain farts thats our problem. The conceding in the first 10 mins. Thats our problem. The crosses that just go over all our defenders and find a man free in the box i.e. Leipzig. Thats our problem.
At the risk of repeating myself in every forum its largely down to changing personnel every game.
I think you need to watch it again but before the clip starts.
Matic runs out to him, completely gets done with a ball flicked over his head and then fails to get back and challenge him. He leaves a gaping whole in the first place (matic was poor all first half)
He is the reason the attack starts and finishes, you can't move blame anywhere else.
Pogba casually ignored the left side of the field... he should make that recovering run for Matic.
But then again, Matic shouldn't be in that position at the first place.
Is this based on goals allowed overall?
As we've conceded 10 and 9 we're in 2 games
I'm not saying were great either but the two games does skew it when looking at it analytically.
Overall I see a few issues with our defence:
-playing from the back, it's a bit slow to begin with and the players aren't spread out. They are on top of each other allowing opposition to close down easier. Maguire and lindelof should spread when the keeper has the ball, the DM should be in between to collect the ball, and also the option to go long. I've seen us concede against Southampton(last season), spurs and now Sheffield United the same way
-defending crosses to the back post. This affects awb more. We're always vulnerable to this
-defending set pieces
I swear we concede from a corner nearly every game and it's not improving
All defences make mistakes its about how often. And as importantly, what they do when they arent making mistakes and are playing well. I believe all of them offer more defensively with less help than our CBs get from the fullbacks. Some obviously have better DMs in front of them than ours, especially when Pogba plays as one of them. But overall despite less quality its still 2 players who are deep, dont get in front of the ball and do some defending to help break up attacks so the defence dont have to deal with it
At their best...? I’m talking about this season, which is different than other season because of the no pre-season. And even last season no team was close to 22 goals conceded. I have watched every Liverpool game so far and am not impressed. They have bigger problems than us imo.
The balance between scoring goals and conceding is of course important. It’s hard to say if a team sacrifices goals for a better defence or if they are simply poor at scoring. City are the ones who scored least amount of goals and it looks to me they have clearly sacrificed scoring for a better defence. Liverpool is doing the opposite and sacrifice defence with playing a high line with players who don’t have the competence of doing that. But Klopp think it is worth it and is now in the lead.
My point is that I don’t agree with people we can not win the PL because of our back line. The other title contenders don’t have back lines that are a level higher. Maybe slightly better but not a level higher. They all look vulnerable and make mistakes. If our back line is to poor for a team who wants to win, then there is no other team that could win either. Which obviously makes no sense.
Well their best CB is out injured so there's that.
I agree with you when you put it like that. this is an open season and anyone who wins it isn't going to do it with a supreme defence
Yes I agree but my point is thats the lesser of evils. The team should cope when a man gets beat and it didnt. When United broke through midfield we created chances based on skill, speed and movement. Their shape and positions were correct but there was nothing to be done .When Matic got done we left a man charging from the center circle without getting tracked! Thats what was truly criminal and what happens all the time.
With Fred and Scot in the middle,our defence is ok
It’s all abou your defensive midfielders
Liverpool play Henderson and 2 others
Chelsea have Kante and kovavic
Spurs have Sisoko and Holsberg
It’s all abou your defensive midfielders
Liverpool play Henderson and 2 others
Chelsea have Kante and kovavic
Spurs have Sisoko and Holsberg
Can we bring back Young-Smalling-Blind-Valencia?
That was genuinely the last line-up I felt that we were in safe(ish) hands
I used to think we can do better than Smalling and Blind. Evidently, we can't.
That was genuinely the last line-up I felt that we were in safe(ish) hands
I used to think we can do better than Smalling and Blind. Evidently, we can't.
Ball watching midfielders.
Our defense isn't good on counter due to their lack of pace but that wasn't on quick counter, that was on midfielders fault. I'm sure if we have Kimmich - Goretzka instead, the defense would have been much better. Our midfield without Fred is so criminal defensively.
You can't use Lindelof's one assist ever to try and prove he's a better passer.
He's not. He's Maguire lite in every way.
Fabinho and who else?
Wijnaldum
What goals had been avoided by a fast CB you reckon?
He gets forward a lot. He presses but doesnt do much defending in defensive areas. More like Bruno
Winjaldum,Milner,Thiago
Has Thiago even played?
Jesus Christ, Tottenham and City joint least goals conceded
This is shocking. Maguire has nearly 20 yards to get in position and force the attacker to the touchline, but stands there flat footed and lets the attacker play a ball straight through the middle.
Certainly the Son one against Spurs at Old Trafford and would say at least one of the goals in Istanbul as well. We also would have avoided some with proper leadership in that defence as well
Interesting choices. You picked goals from matches where Lindelof was replaced 1. Bailly and 2. Tuanzebe, both who are considered very fast.
This kind of illustrates my take on this. Most of the times we have conceded goals for not being fast enough, is when we play CBs who are poor at: anticipation, positioning, decision making and awareness. Didn’t help at all that we played two very fast CBs.
Also CBs who arent playing weekly so arent able to play themselves into form so we probably dont see the best of them.
Yes but still, it’s funny that the only goals that could have been avoided by a fast CB is when we played a fast CB instead of Lindelof...
Isnt that the point? That people want us to sign a CB with pace, not play Bailly every week because he has pace? And obviously not sign a CB with a bunch of weaknesses despite his pace.
And obviously Tuanzabe has some growing pains, while having 1 great performance. We dont know what we have with him yet so only one way to find out... But like... He's 23 now. Wasnt Lindelof around 23 when we signed him and he first got consistent chances in the first team? So he needs to be given the chance and perform to a good level right about now else hes unlikely to be the solution.
Yeah how will we ever know if he can do it consistently until he is given a proper chance in this team
Is there any defence in the PL who wouldn’t benefit if they bought a CB who had everything they had today, be he was even faster?
The point is that people are so obsessed with a few physical qualities that they don’t see that other non physics qualities are much more important.
And it is still funny that the only goals we have conceded because of lacking speed, was when we played our fastest CBs instead of our best.
Or until he can stay fit. I am worried about this. He has been injured during warmup and when not even playing. What would happen if he played many matches?
I'd still like to see us give Tuanzebe and Bailly a run of matches before we commit a massive sum to bringing in a new CB this summer. We're not going to win the treble this season but I do think that even with the squad that we can scrape fourth place. Some argue a proper title run is within our reach.
It doesnt mean that those things are more important. It means that pace alone isnt a substitute for it. That you cant just have pace and be bad at those things. That someone who is pretty average at those things is going to do them better than a 15 year old Mengi who only has speed.
Bailly was rusty when he played and he messed up. Is that something that would still happen if he was playing every week for 2 months? We have no idea. But thats partly because he cant stay fit
Tuanzabe has barely played, 1 outstanding game the others not very impressive. We havent really had time to see whether he is just pace... Against PSG he was pace, composure and timing in the challenge. But thats 1 game. Even if he did that every 3rd game it would be better than Lindelof.
Unlikely, and you are right about the sample size. Let us add the 6 CL games, another 10 goals conceded in 6 games, 29 in 18 in our 2 main competitions, a rotten record by any standards, at what point does the sample size go beyond that?
Maguire and Lindelof have never been part of a strong defensive unit at any level, I keep reading arguments for how good they are, but, and this is an overly simplistic question, if we have such good defenders, why are we(and the teams they have played in) so bad at defending.