Our Defence - Has it actually been fixed?

I'm not Maguire's biggest fan and think for £80m we should be getting more however, the consistency of having him there every game makes a huge difference, and the same can be said for AWB. A team with a settled back 5 (inc GK) is bound to be betterand this is reflected in the defensive performances.

Smalling/Jones/Rojo/Bailly all have ups and downs with injuries making a settled back-line difficult to achieve.

M Bison said:

I'm not Maguire's biggest fan and think for £80m we should be getting more however, the consistency of having him there every game makes a huge difference, and the same can be said for AWB. A team with a settled back 5 (inc GK) is bound to be betterand this is reflected in the defensive performances.

Smalling/Jones/Rojo/Bailly all have ups and downs with injuries making a settled back-line difficult to achieve.

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Maguire has provided stability, reliability, consistency and not only that, we've got the 2nd best clean sheet record in europe, something he's been an essential part of having played in nearly every game.

Not bad for your first season in a transitional team.

M Bison said:

I'm not Maguire's biggest fan and think for £80m we should be getting more however, the consistency of having him there every game makes a huge difference, and the same can be said for AWB. A team with a settled back 5 (inc GK) is bound to be betterand this is reflected in the defensive performances.

Smalling/Jones/Rojo/Bailly all have ups and downs with injuries making a settled back-line difficult to achieve.

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Yep that's the important thing. Over the years we've had so many defensive changes. A mix of Smalling, Jones, Rojo, Lindelof, Bailly, Young, Valencia, Dalot, Shaw, Darmian, Blind, Blackett and more all playing in defence and never really justifiably cementing their place long term, or getting constant injuries.

Maguire and AWB are two fantastic upgrades that should serve us for a long time, and don't seem to be that injury prone either. LB is up in the air but I'm liking Shaw and Williams fighting for that spot, both have shown they can be reliable. The only question mark now is the other CB position. Do we stick with Lindelof? Do we try Bailly? Or do we bring in someone new? Personally I don't think it's a big concern at the moment, just as long as we have Maguire there always fit and always performing.

Regardless of what stats say about our defence, it's still far from a unit that gives you confidence. I didn't think "wow that was a very good defensive performance" even once this season. Playing Europa League games and the rising mediocrity from all PL teams bar Liverpool & Leicester this season are the main reasons why we managed to get that many clean sheets especially in the last 2 months. I don't think our defence is really tested this season at all. Also , our best defenders in that back 4/5 are our both fullbacks (AWB & Shaw) and that says a lot about our defence.

Raw said:

Yep that's the important thing. Over the years we've had so many defensive changes. A mix of Smalling, Jones, Rojo, Lindelof, Bailly, Young, Valencia, Dalot, Shaw, Darmian, Blind, Blackett and more all playing in defence and never really justifiably cementing their place long term, or getting constant injuries.

Maguire and AWB are two fantastic upgrades that should serve us for a long time, and don't seem to be that injury prone either. LB is up in the air but I'm liking Shaw and Williams fighting for that spot, both have shown they can be reliable. The only question mark now is the other CB position. Do we stick with Lindelof? Do we try Bailly? Or do we bring in someone new? Personally I don't think it's a big concern at the moment, just as long as we have Maguire there always fit and always performing.

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Yes big question mark on the other CB, Bailly looked good on his return but we know he's susceptible to injury and moments of madness, and Lindelof - whilst i dont share the common view that he's useless, is lacking in certain areas. I'd like to see Axel get a run although he also seems to struggle with Injuries too, but if we have consistency in personnel in other areas i would agree its not a huge concern at the moment.

Raw said:

Yep that's the important thing. Over the years we've had so many defensive changes. A mix of Smalling, Jones, Rojo, Lindelof, Bailly, Young, Valencia, Dalot, Shaw, Darmian, Blind, Blackett and more all playing in defence and never really justifiably cementing their place long term, or getting constant injuries.

Maguire and AWB are two fantastic upgrades that should serve us for a long time, and don't seem to be that injury prone either. LB is up in the air but I'm liking Shaw and Williams fighting for that spot, both have shown they can be reliable. The only question mark now is the other CB position. Do we stick with Lindelof? Do we try Bailly? Or do we bring in someone new? Personally I don't think it's a big concern at the moment, just as long as we have Maguire there always fit and always performing.

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Lindelof is a good defender, but just not a good pairing for Maguire. They have similar strengths and weaknesses - notably a lack of pace. If we could pair Maguire up with a really pacy, strong tackler I think the whole team would play better.

We could play a much higher line, Maguire could use his good reading of the game to step in to make interceptions or carry the ball into midfield, and his partner could cover the space in behind with their pace. At the moment the defence often drops a few paces deeper to make sure Lindelof and/or Maguire don't get caught out by runners into the space. This makes pressing from the front that much less successful and gives us less options when we do have the ball.

If Bailly had fulfilled his initial promise, he would have been ideal. But he's been injured or out of form for so long, I'm not all that hopeful he'll turn it around. I think the best we can hope for with Bailly is to find out whether he's on the way back or not by the end of the season, so we know whether to try and replace him when the transfer window opens.

Our defense struggles against physicality which is why we have to replace Lindelof. I personally like him but dont think he is a good partner to Maguire. Maguire is a mainstay in our team given his price tag so theres no point discussing any variation where he isn't a part of the back 5.

I think in order to improve our defense we have to somehow get bailly back in the team. Maguire and Lindelof are not very aggressive. What maguire makes up for this is his aerial threat while lindelof is lacking in this area. We need someone like bailly who is tough and will make managers consider going the "2 big strikers up front tactic" against us. Too many times Ive seen both Maguire and lindelof back off attackers which puts us under severe pressure. bailly too has his faults but Im willing to give him more time because i dont believe maguire and lindelof is a solid future partnership.

If you compare our defensive record last season to this season, you can see we have in general improved across the baord



So on paper, there's plenty of statistics hat suggest we've improved in almost every aspect, ever the goals from corners isn't too far off what it was last season, which is disappointing given the purchase of Maguire and the more settled nature of our back four selection as opposed to the previous season where we didn't seem to have that to the same extent. We are however conceding fewer shots & have a lower XGA, which I feel can seen seen as potentially more accurate stats than simply goals conceded + Clean Sheets. Watching the games, I am one that is surprised at the improvements across the board generally as we seem to have a spell of a panic and desperate defending each game.

From the stats I'd summaries, we are yet to have a world class, solid defence that we'd consider fixed there have however been a nice improvement compared to last season.
The additions of Maguire, AWB, McTominay establishing himself in front, Willaims/Shaw coming into 1st 11 more as opposed to Young seems to have had a positve effect


A key talking point as to whether the defence has actually improved is to see if we have sacrificed the attacking part of our game. We all know that a team that sits deep and doesn't take risks when attacking are less exposed than expansive sides so we may have just become a team set up to concede less rather than any real defensive improvements. A few of the attacking stat comparisons, last season to this.



The key Interesting thing here to me is that a lot of the stats are similar, with a consistent small drop across the board. Our Total Shots and Expected Goals are all very similar to last season however we seemed to perform well above our expected goals and had a significantly higher shots on target %, suggesting that it isn't a change to a more defensive style that has caused fewer goals scored and a better defensive record but rather a defence which has genuinely improved with an attack which is now performing more to par rather than an over performance we saw last season

In my personal opinion, and all season like a lot of fellow United supporters, I've watched as we seem panicky in defence as well as unable to create chances so to suggest that defence is better, attack is actually the same in reality seems odd, especially given our far worse points total as opposed to last season but with Bruno arriving, Pogba hopefully fit soon for the remainder of the season. We may Finish this Premier League season saying Yes our defence has clearly improved and Yes our Attack has improved too.

Good post. Interesting to note how we’re seventh in the PL for clean sheets but second in Europe though. Clearly points to the stats being inflated by poor opposition in the cups. I do think we’re better as a unit but our ability to concede goals from uncharacteristic mistakes is staggering, especially for the cost of that back four.

So many basic errors committed by our defenders in our own box that it makes you scratch your head.

Anustart89 said:

Good post. Interesting to note how we’re seventh in the PL for clean sheets but second in Europe though. Clearly points to the stats being inflated by poor opposition in the cups. I do think we’re better as a unit but our ability to concede goals from uncharacteristic mistakes is staggering, especially for the cost of that back four.

So many basic errors committed by our defenders in our own box that it makes you scratch your head.

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Yeah, definitely inflated by the cups. I do think Maguire is improving as the season goes on but still a lot of work to do in defence.

Anustart89 said:

Good post. Interesting to note how we’re seventh in the PL for clean sheets but second in Europe though. Clearly points to the stats being inflated by poor opposition in the cups. I do think we’re better as a unit but our ability to concede goals from uncharacteristic mistakes is staggering, especially for the cost of that back four.

So many basic errors committed by our defenders in our own box that it makes you scratch your head.

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We have played good teams in cups. Wolves twice, City twice, Chelsea. Played 3 lower league teams and kept cleansheets in 2 games. Europa has helped without doubt, kept 5 clean sheets.

In PL also the record is improving. 5 clean sheets in last 8 PL games, this run includes Chelsea away, Liverpool away, Wolves, Arsenal away, Burnley away.

GBBQ said:

Yeah, definitely inflated by the cups. I do think Maguire is improving as the season goes on but still a lot of work to do in defence.

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I think that the main improvement is our ability to prevent the opposition to get to our box. I still think we look very vulnerable when a team puts us under pressure and we’ve seen many times that our defence is unable to withstand even shorter periods of sustained pressure. Five to ten minutes of pressure is usually enough to get a goal against us (either from open play of from creating a set piece) while we have to probe for the rest of the game against a settled team and end up not getting two goals during that period.

Hopefully that’s something that will change with Bruno seeing as his ability to shoot from distance may force defenders to push out more, which in turn creates space for the pass in behind

Clean sheets/goals conceded can be somewhat misleading stats if you're looking to pass judgment on how well functioning a defensive unit actually is.

Case in point: on paper we look very good in those departments under both LVG and Mourinho on the whole: LVG's first season not great (but still fairly decent), Mou's last one a bit shite (as you'd expect up till the point where he left). But LVG's second season and Mou's first/second - very good, especially in terms of clean sheets. By common consensus, however, we didn't sport an undeniably very good defence in those seasons. There were other reasons behind the numbers: De Gea's shot stopping heroics, for one thing - and a generally cagey/unadventurous playing style for another: LVG focusing on (impotent) possession, Mou on different degrees of bus parking, etc.

Just a general observation - I'm not denying that we have improved defensively this season in certain respects (we clearly have, in my opinion). We still struggle with set pieces, though, which is something Ole has to look into. And by "still" I mean that it was exactly the same under Mourinho - which is interesting to note, I might add. The norm under Mourinho was relatively few goals conceded on the whole - but a disproportionate percentage of those goals conceded from set pieces. Which does indicate (or could be interpreted as indicating, at least) a generally cagey approach and/or a match winning goal keeper - but a defensive unit that really isn't impressively cohesive/well organized.

Our defence is better than last season some people just choose not to look at the obvious . We have more or less the same clean sheets in all competitions as Liverpool and they are a machine this season .
People on here would still complain if we had conceded 10 goals all season .

The defence is better and the team is getting better . I'm still not 100% on Lindalof and when we get a settled midfield that will also help us

The biggest improvment for me is that we most of the time can play out from the back without losing the ball 3 times in each game or losing the ball because our defenders kick up aimlessly forward. The first 10 minutes against Watford was a step in the wrong direction, but generally we have improved dramatically in that department. People wanting Smalling back obviously have forgotten how we lost the ball over and over again because he couldn't pick a pass.

Tel074 said:

Our defence is better than last season some people just choose not to look at the obvious . We have more or less the same clean sheets in all competitions as Liverpool and they are a machine this season .
People on here would still complain if we had conceded 10 goals all season .

The defence is better and the team is getting better . I'm still not 100% on Lindalof and when we get a settled midfield that will also help us

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Liverpool don’t give a shit if they concede though.

The better stat to compare United and Liverpool would be the winning margins in those games. Winning 4-1 is infinitely better than winning 1-0.

Liverpool seem to keep clean sheets by happy accident, rather than design.

roonster09 said:

We have played good teams in cups. Wolves twice, City twice, Chelsea. Played 3 lower league teams and kept cleansheets in 2 games. Europa has helped without doubt, kept 5 clean sheets.

In PL also the record is improving. 5 clean sheets in last 8 PL games, this run includes Chelsea away, Liverpool away, Wolves, Arsenal away, Burnley away.

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2/3 of our clean sheets have come in the past 16 games. 11 out of 16 have gone with 0 balls in the net.

There's massive improvement across the board now that the unit is finding cohesiveness at the last half of the season

Machine Elements said:

Regardless of what stats say about our defence, it's still far from a unit that gives you confidence. I didn't think "wow that was a very good defensive performance" even once this season. Playing Europa League games and the rising mediocrity from all PL teams bar Liverpool & Leicester this season are the main reasons why we managed to get that many clean sheets especially in the last 2 months. I don't think our defence is really tested this season at all. Also , our best defenders in that back 4/5 are our both fullbacks (AWB & Shaw) and that says a lot about our defence.

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I'd disagree. I think we are very good defensively, except on corners. Take away the corners and I have little concerns at all.

We need that sorted.

What’s the general consensus among our fans when it comes to Lindelof?

I honestly do feel he is the weak link at the back. If I recall correctly, the mix up between Maguire and Matić at the start of the Watford game was caused by a bad pass from Lindelof in the first place (although they should have dealt with it better of course) and Deeney’s ‘goal’ was also a result of him once again misjudging a header.

I just do not rate him at all and I think we need an upgrade on him personally.

lysglimt said:

The biggest improvment for me is that we most of the time can play out from the back without losing the ball 3 times in each game or losing the ball because our defenders kick up aimlessly forward. The first 10 minutes against Watford was a step in the wrong direction, but generally we have improved dramatically in that department. People wanting Smalling back obviously have forgotten how we lost the ball over and over again because he couldn't pick a pass.

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What annoys the sh*t out of me is trying to play out from the back ALL of the time. That's when they lose the ball. Sometimes you just cannot play out from the back, it's as simple as that. Not every team can play the Man City way. Even the Dippers mix it up.

As for conceding on corners......would that be anything to do with that infernal zonal marking? FFS.

UnrelatedPsuedo said:

Liverpool don’t give a shit if they concede though.

The better stat to compare United and Liverpool would be the winning margins in those games. Winning 4-1 is infinitely better than winning 1-0.

Liverpool seem to keep clean sheets by happy accident, rather than design.

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Ahh cool I didn't know you got more than 3 points for winning 4.1 ..cheers for the input

This is a discussion on United's defence improving or not so keeping a clean sheet is better solely for the discussion we are meant to be having in this thread

Tel074 said:

Ahh cool I didn't know you got more than 3 points for winning 4.1 ..cheers for the input

This is a discussion on United's defence improving or not so keeping a clean sheet is better solely for the discussion we are meant to be having in this thread

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Don’t be a dafty. If that was the case, write an opening post and have a yes/no poll.

Obviously our defence is better.

Comparing it to Liverpool’s is stupid and absolutely pointless.

Dr Fink said:

What annoys the sh*t out of me is trying to play out from the back ALL of the time. That's when they lose the ball. Sometimes you just cannot play out from the back, it's as simple as that. Not every team can play the Man City way. Even the Dippers mix it up.

As for conceding on corners......would that be anything to do with that infernal zonal marking? FFS.

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Every team zonal marks.

I do think our biggest problem has been in attack anyway. So talking about our defense as the problem area has been strange in my view.
Still I think the attack is where we should focus on improvement the most and I am happy enough with our defending.

We have been shocklingly bad on set pieces though so not sure what we are doing in training to prevent that.

UnrelatedPsuedo said:

Don’t be a dafty. If that was the case, write an opening post and have a yes/no poll.

Obviously our defence is better.

Comparing it to Liverpool’s is stupid and absolutely pointless.

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We have kept the same amount of cleans sheets as Liverpool this season so it's relevant as people on here would have us believe we are worse in defence . I'm glad you agree our defence is better this season

Tel074 said:

We have kept the same amount of cleans sheets as Liverpool this season so it's relevant as people on here would have us believe we are worse in defence . I'm glad you agree our defence is better this season

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We’ve conceded 12 more goals.
We’ve scored 23 fewer goals.

Focusing on clean sheets as a point of comparison versus Liverpool is beyond stupid.

You do understand that, right?

UnrelatedPsuedo said:

We’ve conceded 12 more goals.
We’ve scored 23 fewer goals.

Focusing on clean sheets as a point of comparison versus Liverpool is beyond stupid.

You do understand that, right?

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I understand you are being argumentative to the point of being a dick . I'm mearly pointing out to some people on here that United's defence isn't all that bad this season and a clean sheet is a good way to show this I'm also aware Liverpool are a country mile ahead of us

Tel074 said:

I understand you are being argumentative to the point of being a dick . I'm mearly pointing out to some people on here that United's defence isn't all that bad this season and a clean sheet is a good way to show this I'm also aware Liverpool are a country mile ahead of us

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Im just pointing out the stupidity of comparing us to Liverpool.

Cee90 said:

What’s the general consensus among our fans when it comes to Lindelof?

I honestly do feel he is the weak link at the back. If I recall correctly, the mix up between Maguire and Matić at the start of the Watford game was caused by a bad pass from Lindelof in the first place (although they should have dealt with it better of course) and Deeney’s ‘goal’ was also a result of him once again misjudging a header.

I just do not rate him at all and I think we need an upgrade on him personally.

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He's not good enough to be a regular. Usually if there's a mix up or a goal conceded, he's involved. His passing ability hasn't wowed me either.

To an extent. It's still a work in progress, particularly as Lindelof still starts most of our games. It will be fixed ( an continuously improve) if a permanent replacement starts there.

Dr Fink said:

What annoys the sh*t out of me is trying to play out from the back ALL of the time. That's when they lose the ball. Sometimes you just cannot play out from the back, it's as simple as that. Not every team can play the Man City way. Even the Dippers mix it up.

As for conceding on corners......would that be anything to do with that infernal zonal marking? FFS.

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I agree we can push it a bit too far - but its still better than constantly inviting pressure on ourself when we lose the ball - because we had defenders who Always gave it away

If we can just get Bailly to settle down a bitm we’ve got a cracking cb pairing. Just wish the full backs would take a little (a lot, actually) more care with their passing. Even the other night, both were appalling at times and not even under pressure with an easy out ball, yet still managed to duck things up. You wouldn’t think it would be too difficult to work on this. Just add a proper right winger and we’re starting to look very good.

Defence is doing great, 6 clean sheets in the last 7 games.
We have conceded 8 less goals than Chelsea and 6 fewer than spurs the teams sandwiching us in the prem.
Leicester who have 9 more points than united have conceded 27 to our 29... Maguire has brought a lot of stability to the defence this year.

RedIan said:

Defence is doing great, 6 clean sheets in the last 7 games.
We have conceded 8 less goals than Chelsea and 6 fewer than spurs the teams sandwiching us in the prem.
Leicester who have 9 more points than united have conceded 27 to our 29... Maguire has brought a lot of stability to the defence this year.

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We bought their CB for a world record fee though and they didn't replace him. Yet they are doing fine defensively.

Shamana said:

We bought their CB for a world record fee though and they didn't replace him. Yet they are doing fine defensively.

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And your point is?

(losing to Norwich is not "doing fine" in my book)

ReddBalls said:

And your point is?

(losing to Norwich is not "doing fine" in my book)

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I'm just wondering why a team who loses their best CB for a world record fee and don't replace him are doing better defensibly than we are. In general Leiceister have been doing fine. If you are going by single results, you can handpick a dozen from our season that have been abject failures.

Like the whole team, the defence is a work in progress. Maguire is a very good defender, and excellent at bringing the ball out, but he sometimes gets caught out. Lindelof I'm still not convinced about, much prefer a fit Baillie (although I think Lindelof will play against Everton, seeing as Baillie had 90 minutes against Bruges, but concerned that Everton's forwards will put him under immense pressure, especially in the air) who can recover quickly, and is decent at passing. Jones is a good defender, but quite often makes the wrong decisions, I don't dispute his commitment, but can see him moving on if Tuanzebe and Mengi get the opportunities in the first team. Shaw has really hit some good form, and Williams is an able deputy whilst AWB has been very good, Dalot is not great defensively, but could improve over the next couple of seasons, but can see Laird really pushing AWB if he gets an injury free run. We have had some poor midfield options this season, with McTominay sometimes the only quality player we had in there, but with Fred's emergence, McTominay back, Fernandes here, and Matic performing better, we look a lot more solid both defensively and offensively.

It is not fixed but it is finally gelling. We still allow very fecking stupid errors to happen. Matic and Maguire almost letting Watford score a gift is a reminder that it isnt there yet

Shamana said:

I'm just wondering why a team who loses their best CB for a world record fee and don't replace him are doing better defensibly than we are. In general Leiceister have been doing fine. If you are going by single results, you can handpick a dozen from our season that have been abject failures.

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And why is that relevant to United? United have certainly improved defensively with the acquisition of Maguire, and that's what should count for a United fan?

Shamana said:

I'm just wondering why a team who loses their best CB for a world record fee and don't replace him are doing better defensibly than we are. In general Leiceister have been doing fine. If you are going by single results, you can handpick a dozen from our season that have been abject failures.

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I think the midfield has a large part to do it. Our midfield has been pretty awful all season with injuries and also don't really have a ball winner like Ndidi protecting the back four. The last couple of games we have been doing very good defensively with Matic back in the team. Matic has only played 10 games in midfield this premier league season and we also had Andreas, Mata and Jesse playing number 10 which doesn't help either. Also Andreas as a CM is just truely awful.

With a bad midfield the pressure is going to be constantly on the defense. Hopefully the midfield situation will be sorted in the Summer but it's unfair to judge them harshly when our midfield has been absolute chronic this season except for Fred and now Bruno.

Look at our last couple of games, the improvements are looking good already with Matic and Bruno.