Our Defence - Has it actually been fixed?

The_Midfielder

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This is also a very good point. Our midfield simply doesn’t work for me. Fred and McTominay are clearly inferior players to Matic and Pogba - but it was at least a midfield pairing that worked. Currently, I’m conflicted between almost having a preference for Fred and Scott over Pogba and Matic. We obviously lose something, but then we gain other things.

I still feel that Bruno wasn’t the midfielder we should have gone for in January, unless Pogba was to be sold (or Bruno was to come in in the role VDB has now as back up). We had a working system with Fred, Matic/Scott and Lingard or Pereira in front of them. We had Pogba out injured as a primary creative midfielder. I think, and most of the talk on here at the time was that we couldn’t wait for Pogba to come back and remove Lingard/Pereira from the team. I don’t think anyone wanted him to come back to replace what we had built in Fred/Scott. That said, there was also an acknowledgement that Fred/Scott wasn’t the highest quality. I always thought the midfielder we would target would be one that allows us to keep what we had gotten from that duo, while improving the quality of it significantly. I wanted a player like Tonali or Barella for example, who could play in to double pivot with Pogba in front. Of course, if PP was to leave, then he’d need to be replaced too, but we still needed a better deep midfielder. Pogba cannot do that role well enough, especially not alongside Matic, and defensively, we are highly susceptible. Yeah, he gives us better passing (usually, not lately!), but there are also specialist deep midfielders who are good on the ball. Camavinga would have been a phenomenal signing for example, like a far better version of Fred.

Pogba doesn’t know how to defend well enough for me, and I doubt he ever will. It isn’t even a lack of effort or attitude, it is an actual lack of ability to do it well. He is a persistent fouler because he doesn’t know how to tackle well, and whenever an opponent tries to run away from him, I am confident he won’t just let them go, but I’m also certain he will climb all over them and haul them to the ground! He also isn’t built for the press. His physical profile doesn’t suit it. He makes big strides, but not shorter shuttle runs, which are needed to avoid being passed around.
VDB, Mctominay and bruno for the next game
 

ti vu

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We cannot possibly play triangles to advance up the pitch because most of the time, we have one player in midfield. I’m genuinely curious about it, but our big plan most of the game is to literally play Pogba in central midfield alone, Matic at centre half, and Bruno at centre forward.
Our tactic under Ole is half baked. It lacks fundamental of possession football to efficiently move the ball forward with short passes. It's back to tactic having someone like Scholes or to lesser extend Carrick to find a good passes forward as transition mean. Unlike under SAF, where we have real wingers who has instinct to positioning, timing the run, and being comfortable to stuck out wide for extend long period of time. Now it's extremely difficult since our play is predictable and our wide attackers are more forwards than wingers. They lack the instinct thus making it hard for midfielder to pick them out.

Take Valencia for example. He couldn't cross, but even when he became a full time full back, he tim he is run well, that our midfielder could find him out wide quickly and efficiently despite it's predictable as feck. No point for opposition trying to stopping that from happening. They focus more on not letting Valencia doing anything productive with the ball instead.
 

Andersons Dietician

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Haven’t been in this thread in a while but are people still just posting last seasons defensive stats to say the defence is fine or have they now realised it really wasn’t.

Bissaka leaks like a siv, Lindelof has the strength of a breadstick and Maguire as well as moving like a tug boat has the worst positional sense out of the lot of them. Shaw’s the only semi proficient one out of the lot of them.
 

morbidsaint

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Biggest problem is our midfield. Our defenders are being left to fend for themselves to often. Just watch the two games again, and pay attention to especially the right and left side. Both Rashford and Greenwood failed often to do a very basic run back to help out Shaw and Bissaka.
 

ghagua

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Haven’t been in this thread in a while but are people still just posting last seasons defensive stats to say the defence is fine or have they now realised it really wasn’t.

Bissaka leaks like a siv, Lindelof has the strength of a breadstick and Maguire as well as moving like a tug boat has the worst positional sense out of the lot of them. Shaw’s the only semi proficient one out of the lot of them.
Well said. I can't remember the last time we looked so bad in defense. It's not an exaggeration when people say Brighton could have put 7 past us in the last game.
 

BenitoSTARR

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This is exactly what Lindelöf helps prevent. But because he’s not gung ho people don’t rate him.
 

horsechoker

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I don't want to be hyperbolic but this might be the worst United defense for some time. The thing is just last season it wasn't even that bad, we don't have any major injuries either so what the hell happened?
 

Annihilate Now!

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Anyone who thinks we can achieve anything with this defence... Can I have what you're drinking?
 

VivaRonaldo85

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Farcical defending twice. And even the GK looks small and slow off his line on both occasions.
 

luke511

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Hull and Leicester's defence were consistently leaky whilst Maguire was CB. He's a good player offensively but fecking hell, he's so unreliable defensively.
 

Anybody's Guess

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Maguire for 80m is criminal. At fault for both goals. Protected because of his nationality.

What on earth does Ole instruct his defenders to do exactly? Ah well, he can learn on the job, it's only ManUtd and he is a club legend after all.
 

iammemphis

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Soft bunch of cnuts the lot of them. Maguire is an embarrassment, a man who believes his own hype thinking he is United's saviour. Absolutely abhorrent concentration levels across the whole back four and a complete lack of technical ability.
 

hobbers

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In a few years time I think AWB and Maguire will be viewed as among the absolute worst of our post-Fergie signings.
 

King Andow

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Nice to see the massive investment by the clown board paid off. Maguire fee was the biggest robbery in football history, 50m for a FB that can't control a ball or pass... 130m on these two, still in need of a whole new back 4 and can't afford a potential WC RW, thing that we've been crying for a decade.
 
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El Zoido

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The defence was a lot better last season. Only Liverpool conceded more. Why have they dropped a level?
 

Rado_N

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What is Maguire actually good at?

Genuinely one of the worst signings we’ve made, absolutely never worth anything like what we spent on him.
 

FrankDrebin

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The defence is a mess, the covering from midfield is non-existent and the pressing from the forward line is lazy.
Going nowhere but down.
 

Machine Elements

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"Fixed" :lol:

When I said our defence was not the problem in the previous years and we had the top 2-3 best records (starting from LVG's first season) in the league no one wanted to listen. But don't worry guys our goals against record is ok and we spent 200m on this defence so all is good now.

Also some geniuses laughed at me when I said "both Maguire & Lindelöf are average as they come and can't wait people to advocate their sell". Where are they? One is already dropped after his pussy performances and the other one is stinking the place up right now with his championsip level showing. I repeat for a thousand times:

Our best CB combo is Smalling-Bailly.
 

Jazz

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Bad scouting and a touch of the British only shite and we spent £80 million on Magure. It was obvious he wasn't worth that nor exactly what we needed. Would have preferred two unknown solid CBs with the right attitude.

Honestly, I like the guy but when I think of the money spent and the crap mistakes he's making I wanna cry.
 

Crashoutcassius

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Were great last season. Mentality looks totally different this season, they look very scared of making mistakes given the extreme negative press and fan reaction
 

U99ted

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I don't want to be hyperbolic but this might be the worst United defense for some time. The thing is just last season it wasn't even that bad, we don't have any major injuries either so what the hell happened?
Two seasons ago it was very bad.
 

Skills

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What is Maguire actually good at?

Genuinely one of the worst signings we’ve made, absolutely never worth anything like what we spent on him.
He's got a HUGE head so can get his to a lot just on probability. Can't actually aim it anywhere which negates it a bit.
 

Albin Johansson

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The only thing that makes me smile watching this crap is the thought of you lot that's been crying for maguire-bailly for months.
 

Andersons Dietician

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The defence was a lot better last season. Only Liverpool conceded more. Why have they dropped a level?
Stats maybe say that but anyone who actually watched them knew they weren’t great. They make the same consistent errors. They were just lucky last year not to be punished as much as they currently are being.
 

hp88

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How the feck do you drop your captain then ? We are stuck with this shit show pairing for the foreseeable future.
 

Annihilate Now!

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I like how our defenders are taking it in turns to put in absolute disaster performances.

Wonder what Shaw has in store for us next week.
 

FrankDrebin

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Honestly I have no preference as to who starts at the back for us. All equally average.
 

Skills

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The defence was a lot better last season. Only Liverpool conceded more. Why have they dropped a level?
We were playing 7 players in the team who were contributing more in the defensive end than the attacking end.

Back 4 + Fred + McTominay + Perreira/Lingard
 

arthurka

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Absolute farce this defense. People claiming that Bailly is good enough need to wake up. Harry hasn't got sober since Greece.
 

Zen86

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Our coaching hasn’t conceded 2 goals. Idiocy and lack of concentration has. That’s on the players.
 

Ralph1386

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Is it reasonable to say that our attacking players are being hugely let down by the defensive players?

It certainly has looked so since the EL semi loss.