Our Defence - Has it actually been fixed?

Revan

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Both of them fecked it up again. Essentially, they are both good defenders, who are slow, positionally suspect, one who gets bullied every game, the other who gets dribbled, and cost a goal every other game.

A fantastic return for 115m pounds (and add another 55m for the okayish right-back who cannot stop or pass the ball).
 

Schmeichel's Cartwheel

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Teams have figured out that we like to play out from the back with our defenders and we are not very good at it, especially Harry "52 touches" Maguire & Aaron "Bambi on Ice" Wan-Bissaka.

We are also incapable of dealing with a high press, so when teams press us hard while we're trying to play out from the back it leads to disastrous results.

Luke Shaw and Victor Lindelof are not very good, but they are no worse than fanbase darlings Maguire and Bissaka, in fact lately they've been considerably better. Keep the same energy for the latters as you have for the formers.

Also, we have a hologram in goal, teams realise that it just takes 1 shot on target and they have at least a great chance of it being a goal.
 
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Utdstar01

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Lindelof isn't good enough and shouldn't be starting for Manchester United. There's a case there for Maguire too but we definitely need a replacement for Victor next year. We missed Shaw today 100%.
 

E-mal

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Out of all of them Shaw is the one who makes the fewest mistakes and has good quality coming out with the ball.
The one that worries me the most is AWB, he is very poor technically, he is not elite level at all. Lindelof or Maguire can be okay beside a top class center back but for 80m you'd expect slab head to be the one.
 

Schmeichel's Cartwheel

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E-mal said:
Out of all of them Shaw is the one who makes the fewest mistakes and has good quality coking out with the ball.
The one that worries me the most is AWB, he is very poor technically, he is not elite level at all. Lindelof or Maguire can be okay beside a top class center back but for 80m you'd expect slab head to be the one.
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I don't even consider ol' Slab Ed an upgrade on Lindelof. Sure he's stronger and better in the air, but he's worse positionally and far worse on the ball.
 

manunited1919

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We look like we need another CB, plus a goalkeeper who will actually lead, not just a shot stopper. I would say our LB is also an issue, but Shaw has been doing well defensively, and Brandon can still become a top LB. Wan Bissaka needs to improve this coming season, or he too will be under pressure.
 

Suedesi

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Our defence is making me vomit at the moment.

You can't build a strong team when the foundations are not secure.
 

Foritfied

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Echo the comments of some in here, Shaw and Lindelof are better than AWB and Maguire, by miles.

AWB in particular - he fools people because he likes a tackle and he often times it perfectly, but his insistence on the slide tackle makes him easy to get around. He would be miles better if he wasn't lauded so much for tackling.

Was it Maldini that said something like: "if I have to make a tackle, I've already made a mistake."

We've just been so excited to not have another ageing winger at right back that it blinds us when someone is fairly competent. But he's got a long way to go to be at the level we need.

Maguire... I weep for our scouting and negotiating teams.
 

jamesjimmybyrondean

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We are going to end the season either as the 2nd or 3rd best defense in the league. Either way it is still not a title winning defense but we can comfortably get top 4 with it. If we fix the defense though can we challenge for the title next season? I don't think so. In fact I think we have more of a chance of challenging with our current top 4 defense and a few additions in midfield and attack than we have if we just get a CB and maybe Sancho. Usually the defense is the final piece of the puzzle to make a title winning team
 

jamesjimmybyrondean

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3rd best defense in the league and only three goals more conceded than the best(Liverpool). We are a solid CB and GK away from having the best in the league
 

iluvoursolskjær

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I feel like our defensive record isn't necessarily an accurate reflection of our actual defence - we were playing defensive counter attacking football for most of the season.

I don't like Maguire in truth, but we got bent over on the fee so that means Lindoff - as my son calls him - will need to be demoted to the bench for a faster and more aggressive defender.
 

ReddevilTinu

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Remove fullbacks from Liverpool team and there is a less chance of them winning the league and they have VVD in his prime.

We need elite quality FBs to be at Champions level and win against better teams of Champions League.

CB also need a player who has pace and cannot be bullied
 

Berbaclass

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iluvoursolskjær said:
I feel like our defensive record isn't necessarily an accurate reflection of our actual defence - we were playing defensive counter attacking football for most of the season.

I don't like Maguire in truth, but we got bent over on the fee so that means Lindoff - as my son calls him - will need to be demoted to the bench for a faster and more aggressive defender.
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We conceded 9 goals in the last 15 games when we've arguably played our best football.
 

Berbaclass

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iluvoursolskjær said:
By fortune as equal as design imo. We played and play our best football on the front-foot. There's a reason why most here get nervous when we decide to park the bus, there's always numerous mistakes.
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We've only really done that because we can't run anymore which is a result of Ole's insistence on not rotating the team. Fatigue has played a major part in us dropping back and defending.

Tiredness also leads to mistakes.
 

cyberman

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iluvoursolskjær said:
By fortune as equal as design imo. We played and play our best football on the front-foot. There's a reason why most here get nervous when we decide to park the bus, there's always numerous mistakes.
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Thats the same with most teams. You just feel it more bwcause its the team you support.
Today was nervy but if you rewatch it now we would look very comfortable.
 

Untd55

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The defence has been improved, but there are some weaknesses. I think if the opposition gets behind our midfield, the defence struggles to deal with it. I would not say Maguire or Lindelof are good one-on-one defenders. At times, they get turned inside out when they have to deal with players without the midfield's help. I think this could potentially make us susceptible to the counter next season.

Maguire and Lindelof seem to be a bit error-prone. Maguire has made quite a lot of mistakes since the restart and I think we have been fortunate not to be punished in some situations. Even today he did some weird back pass thing in the box. Fortunately, Matic was there to clean up. I think Maguire has actually been slightly worse than Lindelof since the restart.

Overall, I don't think Maguire has actually been much better than Lindelof this season. He has a massive advantage with his height and building in heading situation, so he will be above Lindelof in the pecking order, but I haven't been massively impressed with him, considering the £80m fee.

Wan Bissaka is a great tackler; almost impossible to beat one-on-one. I have no issue with his defensive side really.

I think Shaw is underrated. He is very important to the way we play. He is a solid defender. I think he is the most complete of our first-team back four.

We certainly need someone with pace in the centre, and probably of higher quality, if we want to challenge next season.
 

iluvoursolskjær

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Berbaclass said:
We've only really done that because we can't run anymore which is a result of Ole's insistence on not rotating the team. Fatigue has played a major part in us dropping back and defending.

Tiredness also leads to mistakes.
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It does but there's plenty of mistakes in the first half of games too. I'm just not convinced yet that we have a title winning defence yet, which is disappointing considering how much we've spent on it.

cyberman said:
Thats the same with most teams. You just feel it more bwcause its the team you support.
Today was nervy but if you rewatch it now we would look very comfortable.
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Feels more like we just haven't been punished. Not today especially but in general.
 

UNITED ACADEMY

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iluvoursolskjær said:
I feel like our defensive record isn't necessarily an accurate reflection of our actual defence - we were playing defensive counter attacking football for most of the season.

I don't like Maguire in truth, but we got bent over on the fee so that means Lindoff - as my son calls him - will need to be demoted to the bench for a faster and more aggressive defender.
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Rather than the style of play, it's more to the fact that both our centre back are very good with their positioning, majority goals we conceded came from our players gave the ball away in dangerous position and we got counter from it. Should we improve on Lindelof? Of course because to me he has too many weakness to play regular week in week out for us compared to Maguire. Those weaknesses have been exploited many times this season. The weakness of our defense don't compliment to what if our midfield or defense decide to give the ball away in our own half when both our centre back weren't in the right position, their lack of pace unable them to make recovery. However, good positioning is better than just a defender who only relies on pace alone.
 

E-mal

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The truth is all of the back 5 have serious question marks about them. We could upgrade on all of them. But I just feel AWB is the one that sticks out like a sore thumb becuase of his footballing frailties.
We will perhaps upgrade on the centre back this year but for me all of them can be upgraded.
 

iluvoursolskjær

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UNITED ACADEMY said:
Rather than the style of play, it's more to the fact that both our centre back are very good with their positioning, majority goals we conceded came from our players gave the ball away in dangerous position and we got counter from it. Should we improve on Lindelof? Of course because to me he has too many weakness to play regular week in week out for us compared to Maguire. That weaknesses has been exploited many times this season. The weakness of our defense don't compliment to what if our midfield or defense decide to give the ball away in our own half when both our centre back weren't in the right position, their lack of pace unable them to make recovery. However, good positioning is better than just a defender who only relies on pace alone.
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Bailly being an example of that. But it also means we are always prone to the counter when attacking and playing a high line. The amount of crosses that manage to bounce in the box is also alarming.

This is without even getting in to how bad our fullbacks are in the attacking phase.
 

Lee565

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130 million spent on the defence and yet we still look extremely shakey at the back, people will ignore bissaka's lack of offensive ability because of his defensive capabilities but his sense of positioning is extremely suspect and gifts the opposition the ball to countless of times in his own half which leads to putting our defence under pressure because he's not good enough on the ball to play to play the way ole is wanting us to try and play.

It drives me nuts to constantly see our full backs getting the ball out wide near the opponents penalty area with space to run in and resort to the safe option of passing it backwards to a defender or back inside to a midfielder.
 

ivaldo

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iluvoursolskjær said:
I feel like our defensive record isn't necessarily an accurate reflection of our actual defence - we were playing defensive counter attacking football for most of the season.

I don't like Maguire in truth, but we got bent over on the fee so that means Lindoff - as my son calls him - will need to be demoted to the bench for a faster and more aggressive defender.
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We weren't, not for more than a few games against the top teams. We just didn't have the creativity to break teams down so invariably people came to the conclusion we just weren't attacking. I feel like people are trying to find reasons at this point to justify their assertions that our CBs arent very good defenders, despite the incredible job they've done this season.

We've had 9 clean sheets in our past 14 games. That's a run of games that includes a record for scoring goals. We've played attacking football and still kept it incredibly tight at the back. The defenders deserve a hell of a lot of credit for that. Remove the individual errors that lead to goals made my our keeper and we have the same defensive record as Liverpool, a team with an apparently impervious backline.
 

iluvoursolskjær

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ivaldo said:
We weren't, not for more than a few games against the top teams. We just didn't have the creativity to break teams down so invariably people came to the conclusion we just weren't attacking. I feel like people are trying to find reasons at this point to justify their assertions that our CBs arent very good defenders, despite the incredible job they've done this season.

We've had 9 clean sheets in our past 14 games. That's a run of games that includes a record for scoring goals. We've played attacking football and still kept it incredibly tight at the back. The defenders deserve a hell of a lot of credit for that. Remove the individual errors that lead to goals made my our keeper and we have the same defensive record as Liverpool, a team with an apparently impervious backline.
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It's a perception I'll happily drop when it seems apparent, I assure you there's no agenda here, I like Lindeloff f.w.i.w.

Would you sign a first team CB next window?
 

IAmAWinner

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Not really. 1 world class centre back, 1 class left back, and 1 right back who can attack. Something needs to be done with the GK spot also. Far from fixed.
 

ivaldo

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iluvoursolskjær said:
It's a perception I'll happily drop when it seems apparent, I assure you there's no agenda here. I like Lindeloff f.w.i.w.

Would you sign a first team CB next window?
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The problem is, the stats absolutely destroy any argument people have for saying our defense is poor. If our defense is poor, then so is everyone else's. Then we have the monthly claims that Lindelof of Maguire is going to get destroyed by X and it NEVER comes to pass. Teams don't get lucky for 38 games.

No. There's far, far more pressing areas we need to reinforce.
 

iluvoursolskjær

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ivaldo said:
The problem is, the stats absolutely destroy any argument people have for saying our defense is poor. If our defense is poor, then so is everyone else's. Then we have the monthly claims that Lindelof of Maguire is going to get destroyed by X and it NEVER comes to pass. Teams don't get lucky for 38 games.

No. There's far, far more pressing areas we need to reinforce.
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Fair enough.

For me CB pair lacks balance and we got bummed for Maguire. He'll have all the time in the world [at the club] to change my mind I guess. :)
 

ivaldo

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iluvoursolskjær said:
Fair enough.

For me CB pair lacks balance and we got bummed for Maguire. He'll have all the time in the world to change my mind I guess. :)
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Again, part of a very tight defense that doesn't give away many chances. He must be doing something right.
 

UNITED ACADEMY

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iluvoursolskjær said:
Bailly being an example of that. But it also means we are always prone to the counter when attacking and playing a high line. The amount of crosses that manage to bounce in the box is also alarming.

This is without even getting in to how bad our fullbacks are in the attacking phase.
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Definitely if we give the ball away in our own half. However, if we are giving the ball away on their own half, at least we have chances for players to make recovery but not if we have Matic in midfield.
 

Rightnr

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We have two good to very good (not great) defenders for one position. We need a partner for either of them (whoever's in better form at the time).
 

lysglimt

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Our biggest problem defensively is that we tend to overdo the playing out from the back - and Pogba, Fernandes and Matic combined make 1-2 mistakes each game that gives the opponents a chance. That is a more pressing concern that our actual defenders
 

Champ

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lysglimt said:
Our biggest problem defensively is that we tend to overdo the playing out from the back - and Pogba, Fernandes and Matic combined make 1-2 mistakes each game that gives the opponents a chance. That is a more pressing concern that our actual defenders
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This.
So many times even today we got caught out taking too many passes from the back.
Sometimes you need to just play a vertical pass into the half space and play percentages, but far too often we look to over elaborate.
 

Nickelodeon

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De Gea - Rubbish, past-it, mentally gone
Maguire - Slow, useless, wouldn't start for another team
Lindelof - Average, weak, squad player at best
Shaw - Crock, not good enough (barring last 4 games when was out)
Matic - Slow, past-it, legs are gone
AWB - Can we have a player who's not afraid of the ball at his feet?
Ole - Tactical novice. Miles away from the best coaches.

With all these comments regularly labeled against our players and manager, just how did we get the 3rd best defense in the league (3 goals of the best)? We reduced goals conceded by 18 which is almost a goal every two games. Who or what improved it? It's fashionable to criticize more than praise but if the record we had was given to us at the start of the season, we would've bitten the hand off. This is my objective judgment of the key cogs of our defence.

De Gea - Did well in parts. Made horrendous blunders. He's on thin ice and he knows it. Next season is make or break for his long term future.
Maguire - Brilliant commitment to feature every minute of the league campaign and every minute since restart. He's done exceptionally well especially given the huge price tag and scrutiny. Couldn't have done more in what is his first season at this level. Needs to improve on concentration and dealing with pacy players.
Lindelof - Similar to De Gea, his mistakes are highlighted but good games are ignored. His reading of the game and occasional drives with the ball have been the highlight. Needs to improve on dealing with strong target man type players. Just turned 26, he's at the right age to improve and build on this season.
Shaw - Brilliant second half of the season and showed good ability to carry the ball as well as guile in the quick interplay on the left side. He's 25 now and is well and truly out of his youth. Needs to be more consistent and has to add fitness to be a reliable senior player for us.
Matic - Brought quality experience and mentality to our defence. Our win% with and without him tell the clear story. But his games need to be managed otherwise he can become visibly error-prone.
AWB - Astute defensively but still has an error or two in him. Post restart, it seemed that he'd worked on his offensive side. Needs to add a bit more attacking wise without compromising on his defensive qualities. Still only 22.
Ole - Has found a good first XI with balance between defence and attack. Needs to perfect the system or define a proper Plan B so replacements don't lead to such a massive drop in quality.
 
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