I think credit has to be due to both Ole and Maguire. 6 games out of 7 is no fluke.
6 clean sheets in last 7 matches - are we defensively solid now?
- Thread starter SinNombre
- Start date
Two sides to every story. We have only scored 7 and 4 games ended in a draw.
We need a cb with Lindelof. Fact.
Seriously; you watched our last games? Lindelof was flawless. As he often is.
We scored only 5 goals and we didn't created much. But also oppo teams barely had a clear chance including City.
It is all about approach. We are playing more deep than usual. Our attack suffers and our defence profits. Simple as that.
It is all about approach. We are playing more deep than usual. Our attack suffers and our defence profits. Simple as that.
We are solid, until the next game, and the next, and the one after. Without going through the entire season how can you tell? If we can concentrate during 1st 10th and last 10th min, I am sure we can reduce leakage by at least 1/3.
So has Maguire been, recently. We just don't really need a CB at all. At least, less than we need a defensive midfielder, a #9, and a right winger.
One injury to Linde or Mag and we're in trouble. Tuanzebe barely played 10 games this season. Bailly can't string 5-10 consecutive league matches. Jones is probably dead and they're replacing him with android. Kambwala and Mengi didn't even played as much as Axel who's almost non-existant.
Sometimes it feels like miracle we're still 2nd in the league and cup tied to later stages.
Look what happens when we put in a goalkeeper who isn’t afraid of coming off his line
Henderson and us not scoring a lot are the two main reasons. We always see clean sheets when we are going through dry spells in front of goal and the opposition settles for a nil-nil.
Wait until we're scoring more than a goal per game and we'll go back to conceding three..
Wait until we're scoring more than a goal per game and we'll go back to conceding three..
We can’t argue with stats. 6 clean sheets in 7 games, including against good teams like City, Chelsea, West Ham and Milan, means we are defensively solid.
Why are we defensively solid? We have a goalkeeper now in Henderson who aside from being a good shot stopper and distributor, he is vocal, claims every cross and commands his defence so naturally. That would be one of the main factors, alongside Shaw being the best LB in the world this season.
Centre backs have been good too of course. Maguire has been one of the best CBs in the league for a few seasons now, and Lindelof’s improvement since the Everton game has been astounding. He is a colossus now and looks genuinely world class. More of this and fans will trust him more as well.
However, I disagree with people saying we don’t need a CB. One defensive debacle next season and we’ll see threads popping up telling us again how ‘Maguire is as overrated as Pogba’ (why even bring Pogba up
) and how Lindelof is simply weak and dreadful. We need a consistent, top centre back who next to Maguire, will give us a defence who can play a major role in challenging for the title.
Why are we defensively solid? We have a goalkeeper now in Henderson who aside from being a good shot stopper and distributor, he is vocal, claims every cross and commands his defence so naturally. That would be one of the main factors, alongside Shaw being the best LB in the world this season.
Centre backs have been good too of course. Maguire has been one of the best CBs in the league for a few seasons now, and Lindelof’s improvement since the Everton game has been astounding. He is a colossus now and looks genuinely world class. More of this and fans will trust him more as well.
However, I disagree with people saying we don’t need a CB. One defensive debacle next season and we’ll see threads popping up telling us again how ‘Maguire is as overrated as Pogba’ (why even bring Pogba up
) and how Lindelof is simply weak and dreadful. We need a consistent, top centre back who next to Maguire, will give us a defence who can play a major role in challenging for the title.You need to judge Lindelof on the season not just a couple of games recently where's he's played ok. He's not good enough for the top 11 to start a game, very inconsistent for me.
I agree we're thin there. But we've never once this season not had two out of the three first-choice (Maguire, Lindelof, Bailly) available. Axel is 'non-existent' because he's basically not been needed.
Whereas without Cavani we simply do not have a proper centre-forward in the entire team. James and Diallo are the only proper right-wingers available. And Matic is the only DM. So we are thinner in all three of those positions than we are at CB, and the first-choice players are less convincing too.
Exactly when did our defence leak like a sieve? We conceded a lot the few first games but then it’s been solid. I would say, come back when we have leaked like a sieve 30 games.
I don’t think there is a big chance we can find a CB who could walk straight in to the starting xi and improve the defence. No matter what we pay. Ask Pep, he spent 500 million euro on defence over the last 4 years, that’s the price of 6 Maguires. But we for sure need one more CB as. We are vulnerable for injuries.
Priority should be a DM and a world class striker.
Priority should be a DM and a world class striker.
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Cheers for that - that's is actually more weighted in Dean's favour than I expected
No, but we can abstain from focussing only on the most recent stats....We can’t argue with stats. 6 clean sheets in 7 games, including against good teams like City, Chelsea, West Ham and Milan, means we are defensively solid.
Why are we defensively solid? We have a goalkeeper now in Henderson who aside from being a good shot stopper and distributor, he is vocal, claims every cross and commands his defence so naturally. That would be one of the main factors, alongside Shaw being the best LB in the world this season.
Centre backs have been good too of course. Maguire has been one of the best CBs in the league for a few seasons now, and Lindelof’s improvement since the Everton game has been astounding. He is a colossus now and looks genuinely world class. More of this and fans will trust him more as well.
However, I disagree with people saying we don’t need a CB. One defensive debacle next season and we’ll see threads popping up telling us again how ‘Maguire is as overrated as Pogba’ (why even bring Pogba up
Just like I wouldn't agree we're a team that plays boring, defensive football just because we've had a dry spell recently, I don't think our string of clean sheets proves we no longer have any serious issues in the back 4. There's been more than enough negatives this season to justify a need for strengthening that area of the team, with a CB and an RB that can complement AWB. But if they keep recent form up for the rest of the season, maybe that starts looking different (at least regarding how high a better CB ranks on our list of priorities).
That’s precisely what I’m saying. We’re defensively solid atm due to a myriad of factors (I don’t like McFred playing together, but they help too).
However, that doesn’t mean a CB isn’t a top priority in the summer. If we stick with this current defence, the clean sheets might well dry up next season, especially because if we buy Sancho, we’ll need to get Pogba back into the centre. He’s a brilliant player, but he’s no defensive presence. Konate would be my first choice, and Kounde would be fine too.
Yup!
Because most of our attacking players and 3 playmakers have been out.
Completely agree with this.
This is actually really relevant. Most teams facing United will sit in and try to hold United out until they go behind.
If they don't go behind, they will continue to play more defensively and will be less of an offensive threat.
Worth remembering that we've scored 10 in that same time period, with 4 coming in one game.
This highlights a familiar issue our teams have had going back to Jose and arguably beyond. We are capable of shoring up the back/putting goals past teams, bit struggle to combine the two aspects for any sustained period.
I think we've focussed on shoring up given the injuries to the squad/the manner in which we've dropped points recently.
This highlights a familiar issue our teams have had going back to Jose and arguably beyond. We are capable of shoring up the back/putting goals past teams, bit struggle to combine the two aspects for any sustained period.
I think we've focussed on shoring up given the injuries to the squad/the manner in which we've dropped points recently.
With a bit of luck that'll change with Pogba back in the side.
On what do you base the assumption that we now "play defensive"? I can't see that there's anything different than before - same personnel, same formation, and, just like before, we push the full backs and the defensive line higher against weak opposition than when we play stronger teams. If anything, we seem to have tended to play with a higher line recently than before. We haven't put up much offense lately, but just because we're not performing well offensively, that doesn't mean we're playing defensively.
Fred and McTominay in midfield (not entirely by choice, but still), James in attack etc. Midfield pair is usually the most telling sign — we've played our most coherent and threatening attacking football with Pogba + 1 at the base and a front three of Rashford/Martial/Greenwood (last season). Mata was featuring more at the beginning of the season, same as van de Beek — at this stage of a season Ole prefers to play James, who gets us much higher pressing intensity but doesn't provide any real goalthreat or creativity.
There isn't a clear cut cause and a consequence here. It's hard to say whenever we began to play more defensively because our forwards and midfielders fell out of form (and Pogba got a serious injury) — or whenever our switch to a more defensive style hurt our forwards and the chances for the likes of van de Beek and Mata to feature more, as it's really all of those things happening simultaneously and affecting one another.
Maguire is certainly playing much better than he did at the beginning of the season, when he was genuinely shocking. Shaw has played himself into the best form of his life. But this was not only a result of them improving individually — Maguire really benefits from having 2 defensive midfielders in front of him and Shaw became our only reliant ball-carrier from both defense and midfield (and the more he played in that role, the better he got).
There were clearer cases of United switching from an attacking style of play to a defensive one throughout a season — most noticeable were Fergie's 6:1 loss against City (after which we stopped battering teams left right and centre but became way more compact) or van Gaal's reaction to the Leicester loss after which we switched to an uber-defensive possession-oriented version of his football. But Ole had certainly been affected by the Tottenham trashing at Old Trafford and changed his priorities after that game, even though we still had fantastic games here and there, usually picking teams out on a counter (Leipzig, Leeds, Southampton...).
Yup and the most worrying part is we could be forced to choose between reinforcing just one or two formations while leaving one without aid because of the financial mess.
We could really use few miracles from the academy, to stop being dependent on summer windows which are mainly one hit & few missed opportunities.
Deano is very vocal and critical about the defenders positioning. That helps
You're still just assuming that we are playing more defensively. In my opinion, there is no simply basis for that assumption. The line-up of late reflects the players available, and do not as far as I can see provide any sort of argument for a defensive switch. The formation is the same. We're not playing with a lower posture. No one from the team has said anything indicating a change in approach. There's nothing.
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I also feel that many just assume we have started to play more defensively, because we concede very few goals and score few goals. Imo it’s a mix of things. We play better in defence, have managed to iron out odd mistakes and defend setpieces better.
Our midfield lost an offensive force when Pogba got injured.
Bruno has gone from world class to average.
Our forwards have either gone from good to poor, or been injured.
All this has lead to that we have been better defensively and worse offensively, compared to earlier this season. But it’s not a more defensive setup.
Agreed. I think we should really push Tuanzebe. He's been in the senior squad for a long time now, it's time to see if he's got what it takes or not. I'd like to see him used as a DM a few times this season. He's certainly got the skillset for it, and such a defensive midfielder would, if he bedded in nicely, allow us to play Pogba as a CM more comfortably than we can with the less defensive Fred or McT.
Agreed. Time to evaluate him. Don't see him playing a big part of our team as a centre back going forward. I mean he's 23 and most of us want to sign a starter who would be around the same age for example Kounde or Milenkovic.
Well, in what universe does a team locked in a struggle for 2nd place with ten rounds to go, the FA cup and the Europa league hand significant playing time to an untested option at a key position in order to evaluate him?
No.
The stats about our defence are pretty much meaningless. We already learnt that last season. We can concede 0 goals in 10 games and I won't still trust those clowns in defence (+keeper).
Being a defensive side helps.
Not when it really matters.