Matip won't get near the team when Gomez is back. Both Van Dijk and Gomez are better than our best central defender, and Alisson was far better than De Gea last season. Shaw has improved defensively but Robertson is still as good if not better. Alexander-Arnold is their weak link defensively, but ours is weaker in the central areas and, as I said before, they have a far better screen in front of them.
I'd be shocked if we match them defensively in terms of clean sheets and goals conceded, but I do think we will be much improved on last season.
Gomez is a right back converted center back. Even though he did well the first half of the season, he is not a better individual defender than Lindelöf or Smalling. He just complemented Van Dijk well, who seem to turn average defenders like Matip, loveren and Gomez into decent/good ones. I even believe Tuanzebe would have done as good as Gomez if he played in the Liverpool system.
Becker had only one season at the top. when he can consistently have multiple good season like De Gea then there can be more credibility added to his ability. De Gea was also only poor towards the end of last season. Alison has never had a game like De Gea had against Spurs last season. Robertson is good going forward, but not as strong defending as is Shaw.
Nevertheless, we will have to wait and see what happens next season. I don’t believe any United fan would rather have Liverpool center back option minus Van Dijk. I rather have Smalling, Lindelöf, Tuanzebe, Bailly and Jones over Matip, Lovern and Gomez.
Utter bollocks.
Shaw is miles behind Robertson, sadly he's the best LB on the planet forward and defensively. You don't see him making the types of mistakes that Shaw does and he's miles fitter too.
I agree Matip isn't better than Lindelof and probably on par with our others but because they've got VVD it's immaterial. The guy on his own would be better than ALL of our CB's playing at the same time because he's the best CB on the planet.
TAA probably isn't better defending than AWB but we'll have to see. I like the look of AWB from what little I've seen.
And as others have said, their midfield screening and the setup is much better than ours so even if we did actually have better players (and we don't) we'd still be at a disadvantage.
And then you talk about how solid they are at the back which allows their full-backs to go forward where they're brilliant attackers and we're nowhere near close to them defensively.
Don’t think Shaw is miles behind Robertson defensively. Attackwise definetly, but I see improvement in Shaw games in that aspect. The screen they have in front of their defense is Fabinho or Henderson. We have Fred, Matic, or Mctominay. No doubt Fabinho is the best of the lot, but Fred and Mctominay showed they are able to screen the back four as showed against Barcelona and team after that match when they hit great form.