Maguire, AWB and James haven't been good value for money tbh.
I don't get this narrative at all. Our defense isn't bad, or even mediocre, it's top-notch and the numbers prove this. Except some major blunders at crucial moments, in games we would have won anyways mind you had our offense actually offended anything except everyone watching the game, we've been the most solid team defensively in the league. Granted, AWB isn't the best crosser but he's probably among the best defensive full backs in the world, and everything else offensively he does a decent job at as well. Maguire isn't the fastest, but he's good on the ball, has a commanding physical presence, dominates our air space (his headers are awful though if he could hit the goal we'd have eight-ten more goals since he arrived) and makes up for his mediocre pace with excellent positioning.
As for James... Well he was cheap.
There's a lot of things that need improving in this team, but almost all of it takes place in that final third of the pitch. Looking back at our defense, there aren't many better. Even Shaw, yes Shaw, I'm repeating "Shaw" once more here, and Lindelöf, usually puts in good performances even on a bad day. The reason they get so much stick, despite us being statistically among the best there are in this department, is because those few goals we do concede makes such a huge difference due to us not scoring enough. They stick out because they usually end up losing us points, but that's not because we we let in a lot of goals it's because we don't score enough to make up for them.
Guess what: No defense will have a perfect record, but ours does enough and then some for us to be able to win most matches. It's probably the one area we should be proud of.