I don't care about us looking more defensive in our average position. I expect that for a Mourinho team.
It's that you can see how poor our spacing was. There's a massive gap from where Martial is to Lukaku with none of the CMs even close to him. Then our 3 CMs are literally on top of each other in midfield, which explains why we were unable to break Brighton's press without resorting to hoofball.
That's my issue (or an example of a bigger issue).... not playing people in their right position and/or in the right tactics.
Lukaku isn't a forward who can
regularly take the ball and create chances by himself.... he either needs space to run (which needs support close and clever though balls) or he's a finisher (crosses).
But we (and by we, I mean Jose as he must be dictating the positions/tactics) continue to isolate him so he doesn't get much ball and a lot of what he gets is back to goal with a CH close. We also don't have enough pace or width so (1) opposition defence isn't stretched and (2) we don't get crosses in.
We've paid a fortune for a player and seem to be going out of our way to misuse him. I'm not saying we need to go gung ho, but just a little more speed of pass/attack would make a huge difference.... stretch the opposition and give Lukaku more space with opposition defenders turning and not being able to set themselves.
442, 532, 433, I don't really care but we've got to attack quicker, we've got to have width and we've got to be brave enough to make passes and recognise that not all of them will work...
Instead we have narrow (in opposition half), slow, cautious build-up which allows opposition to get organized and in place and we end up against packed formations. That's ok if you're City with the players who can work in tight space/thread a through ball through (De Bruyne, Silva, etc) but that's not us.
We're so scared of possibly losing that we're wary of doing enough to win. Champions win lots of games.... draws won't do.