Did Our Defense Suddenly Become World Class? Why?

Kind of an overreaction of the OP, but do like the excitement.

If you look at Arsenal, they've deployed a 343 recently dating back to last season and they look much more solid as a defensive team. At times they defend with 6 and 7 players in or near their defensive area and break with their attacking forward line as the outlet.

Today and as we've seen before, United's back 3 and back 5 keep a very good shape, for the most part. McTominay and Fred have a good understanding when setup like this and they provide so much energy and cover a lot of ground and have a lot of bite. Fred is a better passer than McTominay, but they compliment each other well when countering and providing the energy for the team.

Most teams should be better defensively with 3 CBs as long as the players around them provide the necessary shape/cover and outlet in transition

Maybe it wasn’t that bad in the first place and the whole team/defence/some players just had a wobble at the restart of the season.

Almost as if the reaction after 3 games of a season might have been knee-jerk.

Who knew

3 centrebacks and we played 2 hardworking runners in Fred and Scott who both sprint more individually than Matic and Pogba combined.

elmo said:

3 centrebacks and we played 2 hardworking runners in Fred and Scott who both sprint more individually than Matic and Pogba combined.

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This. Lining up like that will undoubtedly make us solid in defense, but a bit light in attack and it places almost all of the creative responsibility on Bruno and the strikers

drunkmonkmeth said:

Great stat but weve been anything but consistent under ole

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Hardly surprising when you consider the squad he inherited, and the smell of Mourinho still lingering.

McT and Fred happened. They cleaned up so much that CBs didn't have to leave their line to clear the danger. If one noticed last few games Lindelof and Maguire were frequently coming forward to tackle, leaving defense vulnerable. Not yesterday.

Whether we play Axel, Lindelof or Maguire doesn't matter, as long as those two monsters are sitting in front of the defense and our strategy is to counter then we will be defensively fine.

I think this is why Sir Alex said "Attack wins you games, Defend wins you titles". Liverpool parked the bus against spurs during UCL final, City parked bus 2 season ago against Liverpool to ensure them getting 3 points. This is the way forward of football, not that stupid attacking like for example, Marcelo Bielsa is currently doing which i am pretty sure is going to relegate leeds this season, you don't win games by attacking, you win it by defending properly.

manunited1919 said:

I just removed “w/o Maguire” and replaced it by “Why”. There are too many sensitive fans here, don’t want to offend them.

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Good that you did. Otherwise it would just have been more embarrassing knee jerk. As it is, it’s raising a legit question. Tuanzebe was a revelation tonight. But it is mysterious how good Lindelof looked. Shaw I like anyway, but I do see what you mean about this formation. I guess the Chelsea game will answer a lot.

manunited1919 said:

If it makes you happy call it anything you like. I wasn’t aware it was not politically correct to say how much he cost. Are you part of the Maguire Police or something like that?
You don’t want to let go, but did you notice I changed the title to make it clear it’s not a Maguire bashing thread?

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Only our friend from Malta(@devilish) is allowed to mention how much Maguire cost, apparently he and AWB cost the club £130m combined.

It was intended as a Maguire bashing thread, that's obvious, changing the title confirms it. Fill yer boots.

People keep saying we played with 3 at the back, yes we did, but only for 66 minutes until Pogba came in for Telles this we shifted to the usual 4 at the back with a diamond of midfielders in front of them. Even after that change, the defense remained solid, and we controlled the game and started going forward with numbers, yet we still felt comfortable at the back.

The difference was we played Fred and Mctominay as double pivot behind Bruno, which makes the team more balanced. And having two quick defenders, plus to be honest a bad PSG setup and poor game management and bad choices for subs. Tuchel handed the game to OGS once he subs Guye off for Kean. That was a mistake.

They could have played us for 3 days and not get a goal. Not taking anything from AWB, Axel, Shaw and DE Gea.

manunited1919 said:

It’s not really a Maguire bashing thread. It’s a “let’s have a rock solid defense whatever it takes” thread. I actually think Maguire is a decent player (not worth 80m but still decent), but he seems to have been distracted by his personal problems this season. Still, it’s not about Maguire, and am willing to change the title.

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"It's not about Maguire" he says in his passive aggressive Maguire bashing thread

manunited1919 said:

The only thing confirmed is that you just won’t let go.
Peace.

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Peace Brother, i'm done.

Class of 63 said:

Only our friend from Malta(@devilish) is allowed to mention how much Maguire cost, apparently he and AWB cost the club £130m combined.

It was intended as a Maguire bashing thread, that's obvious, changing the title confirms it. Fill yer boots.

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Speaking of agendas, I've yet to understand why I was mentioned in a thread that I haven't posted yet. I think yesterday's improvement is down to many things.

A- A 5 men defence
B- Some pace at CB (Tuanzebe was immense yesterday)
C- 2 DMs in midfield (McT and Fred)
D- Us having a true captain.

This can work against PSG who wanted all 3 points against us. I doubt it would work against teams who are happy to sit back and win a point.

Tuanzebe made a huge difference because he enabled us to play with a higher line at times which helped the midfield engage the PSG players quicker higher up the pitch which made a huge difference. And then he also had the recovery pace and composure to control the space behind him against a rapid attacker. Without him we wouldn't have controlled the space behind us and neither would our midfielders been as effective.

If you push the back line up and have someone who is quick and composed to control the zone behind him then you help the whole team in offensive transition and quell the opposition threat alot earlier.

Did our attack suddenly become world class after Martial got suspended?

No. The wider circumstances determined the scoreline against Newcastle.

Martial has been off-form for 3 or so games (just like Maguire), but the class is still there with both. Their times will come.

Maguire is still comfortably our best defender, and easily one of the best in the league.

devilish said:

Speaking of agendas, I've yet to understand why I was mentioned in a thread that I haven't posted yet. I think yesterday's improvement is down to many things.

A- A 5 men defence
B- Some pace at CB (Tuanzebe was immense yesterday)
C- 2 DMs in midfield (McT and Fred)
D- Us having a true captain.

This can work against PSG who wanted all 3 points against us. I doubt it would work against teams who are happy to sit back and win a point.

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Because you're one of the worst agenda posters on the forum.

Not world class. Far from it. We need a bit more work with 3 CBs system even thought I think it helps covered up our weakness in the back.

I find strikers running between the spaces of them too easily. They need to know when to stretch and when to stay narrow more. Not to mentioned it is harder to do offside traps if all 3 are not on same wave length.

Dante said:

Because you're the worst agenda poster on the forum.

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If that's the case then I am supporting the right club. You only have to hear the bias by our former legends towards Pogba and Martial. One in particular had said that Martial nearly conned us in being a good striker. That while his mates were furiously defending poor little vulnerable Maguire having done the same with Jesse a few months back. I wonder what the likes of Maguire/Lingard have that Pogba, Martial or DDG don't as they certainly aren't treated the same way by the class of 92.

I am a cynical person who want United to succeed. I can't give a feck about individuals. I stick to what I had been saying since we were first interested in the player. He's a rock ie he's physically imposing, he's good in air and he's painfully slow. He would do a good job at smaller team that defend deep and in numbers but he's certainly nowhere near to 80m. Whoever agreed and sanctioned that deal should be shot at OT in front of a live audience (metaphorically speaking of course)

Having said that its silly to attribute his absence to justify yesterday's result. Its easy to have a solid defence when playing with 8 players being defensive minded (DDG, AWB, Tuanzebe, Lindelof, Shaw, Telles, Fred, McT). I doubt it work against teams who will play deep and defend with numbers though. I look forward to see more of Tuanzebe though. He certainly have what our CBs currently lack ie pace.

manunited1919 said:

I did see this lineup in Twitter 2 or 3 days ago, so there are fans out there who may have suggested it.

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I did too I mean before games like Liverpool 1-1, Chelsea 0-2 and City 2-0 when he first introduced it. At that point, everyone was crying out for 4-3-3, but Ole shocked us with this 3-4-1-2 which has served us so well in the big games since then.

Our early defensive issues this season were because the entire squad was half cooked and not as fit as the opposition and perhaps because Maguire was feeling abit conscious about what happened in Greece.

That’s it. Nothing else.

now Harry has had a confidence boosting game vs Newcastle and other defenders and CMs delivered a technically and tactically brilliant win vs PSG, those early season issues are resolved.

too many fans have so easily discarded the facts that we had the most improved defence numbers in the league and third overall. And that defence will now get even better.

Our defenders will still make a few mistakes this season but that bizarre early season defensive crisis is over. Most exciting for me is Ole has now shown he has 3 or 4 ways to line up his side.

I am still quite convinced that the results in out first 3 matches had to do with our summer. We were not ready to play football matches when the season started - AWB and Pogba physically least of all due to isolation from breaching covid-19 rules, Maguire wasn't mentally ready to play because of his struggles in Greece

You could see it in everything we did - the players were late all the time. It had nothing to do with them being bad footballers, or being poorly coached. It simply had to with them physically or mentallt not being ready to play after a horrible long season and a short break.

manunited1919 said:

We had a makeshift defense against PSG. But Luke Shaw looks better as a LCB than he does as a LB playing next to Maguire. I didn’t have any worries whatsover about Lindelof, which I normally have several times a game. And Tuanzebe looked like a young but fully seasoned defender.
What happened here? Did everyone raise their game because we were playing Neymar & Mbappe? Did Fred and McT just do an outstanding job at protecting the defense? Is Luke Shaw really better as a LCB? Or is it the absence of an Maguire that actually improved us?

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We had a compatible collection of CBS
. It's that simple.

As I've said before on here. Pair Lindeloff or Maguire with a Tuanzebe or a match fit Bailly and you will get an excellent pairing. Pair Maguire and Lindeloff together and all you'll get is problems.

The most important point from last night imo is the midfield. Both Scott and especially Fred did a marvelous job protecting the defense.

I put pretty much all of our early season issues down to a complete lack of fitness throughout the team. They all looked miles of the pace and it affected everything. One week preseason v teams who had a full month and 4/5 friendlies under their belts. It was bound to be an issue.

They all look back up to speed now and confidence is quickly returning. Normal service resumed. That's all it was. You could see it from the first few mins against Newcastle that they were fine again.

Nitewolf said:

People keep saying we played with 3 at the back, yes we did, but only for 66 minutes until Pogba came in for Telles this we shifted to the usual 4 at the back with a diamond of midfielders in front of them. Even after that change, the defense remained solid, and we controlled the game and started going forward with numbers, yet we still felt comfortable at the back.

The difference was we played Fred and Mctominay as double pivot behind Bruno, which makes the team more balanced. And having two quick defenders, plus to be honest a bad PSG setup and poor game management and bad choices for subs. Tuchel handed the game to OGS once he subs Guye off for Kean. That was a mistake.

They could have played us for 3 days and not get a goal. Not taking anything from AWB, Axel, Shaw and DE Gea

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Bit dumb seeing that they got a goal within 90 mins of play today.

shamans said:

Bashing Maguire really is the flavor of the month isn't it. He will be back as our best CB soon enough. I think the fact we played a back three is messing some folks up (though everyone played really good)

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I think that 3 at back would suit him much better than backline 4. Lindelof as central defender, Tuanzebe right and Shaw or Harry on the left.

As I see it, a lot of mitigating factors play into our start of the season form in the defensive department.

Our defence is not as bad as portrayed in the first games of the season, in those, the midfield was not helping as much as today because we weren't fit yet.

And on yesterday's game,

Tuanzebe is quick. So that helped against psg's quick attakers.

Shaw is better at defending when he does not have to attack (shocker!).

And the team overall is more fit.

Maguire is not the problem. He's just having a bad patch of form.

No preseason and our late europa league finish definitely messed us up at the start of the season.

manunited1919 said:

What’s even more stupid and idiotic is not wanting to know what made our defense look totally solid today. All season long, whenever we are under the slightest pressure we look insecure and look as if we will concede, and all of a sudden we play the CL semifinalists and are completely able to absorb pressure without looking the least bit wobbly. I want to see more of this, frankly.

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Its not rocket science mate, play an extra defender with two midfielders sitting in front. Instruct them all to sit deep and set up to attack on the counter and your defence will obviously look more solid compared to employing a back 4 in a more attacking set-up consisting of players struggling for fitness and form.

Class of 63 said:

We've just won ten away games on the bounce, almost certainly a club record, in fact I doubt any other English club has EVER achieved that, is that not consistently enough for you?

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Well no because we don't only play in away fixtures

VP89 said:

Well no because we don't only play in away fixtures

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The home form is good as well over that same period, don't let the Palace and Tottenham results fool you.

Would a Maguire & Axel partnership work better or should we look at a back three of those two plus Lindelof or Shaw

The difference in this game wasn't our defence suddenly becoming world class. Ole picked a team of players that were ready to work collectively, 2 players in front of our CB's who were willing to run for 90 full minutes and be switched on the entire game.

Now all they need to do is do it for 60+ odd games

No... no it didn't.

Class of 63 said:

The home form is good as well over that same period, don't let the Palace and Tottenham results fool you.

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Looking at the previous say 10 Premier league games, we dropped 2 points vs Spurs and Southampton last season and this year lost to Palace and Spurs. So yeah, it's not as consistent as the 10 away wins on the bounce.

It's because we played in a defensive formation with two high energy midfielders that put themselves about and disrupt the opposition. We won the game because PSG have a very lazy and indulged forward line that doesn't help out in a defensive sense so we could break with lots of space.

We were poor in the first 3 games of the season because we were not fit. We are now finding our better from last season.