Our Defence - Has it actually been fixed?

youmeletsfly

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This might be unpopular, but we don't need a rw and cb.
Absolute top.priority should be lb and rb. The current crop hurt our play so fecking much.
 

The_Midfielder

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We need a faster CB.. a quick ball over the top on the channels and our CBS are struggling
 

Banana Republic

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The defence are being made to look a lot worst than they should be, by being hung out to dry by absolutely dire midfield defensive work.
A few of our so called best players are the biggest culprits.
Pogba, a liability. A proven, by his track record, being nothing but a party trick player. He is poor.
Bruno, afraid to make contact or get close or physical. He is weak and far too sloppy at times.
Rashford, trots around when the opponents have possession and shows no inclination to help break down or stop the opposition.
Martial fades away and hides. Won’t put any physical work in and doesn’t help the team when we don’t have the ball.
If all 4 of those players are on the pitch together, we struggle against any team who have a go at us.
 

Crashoutcassius

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Defence looked great when it was some combo of McTominay / Fred and Matic. Now it looks much harder since teams seem to be able to draw us out and counter us, coupled with having much less cover in the middle.

If we had to play a one off match and win I don't think in a million years pogba is in that 11 right now. If you really wanted to get creative, play him in a left forward position and let him draft in. but in the double pivot it makes our defence look very shakey without adding anything going forward at the moment
 

Idxomer

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Shaw is the only one I would keep and probably just as a squad player.
 

Lee565

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It's our entire set up under solskjaer, we are just not a cohesive team defensively and offensively
 
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AWB for £50mill isnt looking like a good purchase, i did suggest Meunier and people laughed. Would have been cheaper and would have allowed us to invest in the RB positon again.
 

Banana Republic

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Brighton having wave after wave of attack, pinning us back in our own box.
Utd are just trying to hold out for the win.
We’re not under the cosh because the back four are failing, it’s because of the midfield and forwards are contributing nothing.
All the criticism on our defence and nothing aimed at the real culprits.
 

Bobski

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I would say that was a no.

To be fair, our midfield is desperate defensively, Pogba in his current condition offers virtually nothing as a defensive shield and we don't have a single deep lying midfielder who can contribute over 90 mins. Might be able to get away with some of that with more mobile CB's but not with our pair.
 

sunama

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Based on what we saw against Brighton, I believe it is fixed.
We brought in a player on a free transfer and he has solved our defensive issues.
His name is T. Woodwork.
He also goes by other nicknames: T.Post and T.Crossbar.
 

Icemav

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We shift to 5 at the back and then proceed to leave the back post unmarked for the last 15 minutes. I am too stupid to figure out who what and why, but it certainly was totally moronic and led to an inevitable equalizer.
 

sugar_kane

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Should give Williams a shot at RB in the cup, need to see if he can do a better job than AWB there - he was dreadful today
 

charlenefan

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Disgusting how many chances we allow on our goal, didn't matter how many chances Brighton missed you knew they'd score that goal at the end
 

Lee565

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Why are people not pointing the finger at ole's coaching for not being able to organise side even when we went 5 at the back!
 

PitTon

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As a whole we are so passive and reactive when we are defending around our penalty area. We are not closing down well and give them a lot of time to look, check and pass.
 

#07

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Rio's analysis of our defending was spot on. The way we defended today was just another example of that. No surprise that their goals came from two balls across the box. Nobody sniffs danger when the ball's in wide areas nor do they position themselves well. Also, the lack of speed at centre back makes us vulnerable to balls in the channel when we go forward. We'll be relying on our front four to bail us out until our defenders either shape up or ship out.
 

Woziak

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Defensive shite aside. Anyone else feel that a prime DDG would have saved that second goal of theirs? Was completely out of position.
Totally agree and possibly prime Henderson might of as well, he made one save of the season against Luton and his kicking and passing looks much better, I’m guessing by January De Gea will be no 2, maybe looking for one final transfer, but no one will pay a once great GK £375k per week not Real Madrid not even PSG !
 

Woziak

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We need a faster CB.. a quick ball over the top on the channels and our CBS are struggling
And that’s my point spot on but the two much maligned and criticised FBS who do indeed have pace are knackering themselves out running back to cover all the time, we are a narrow back 4 Which is why teams use wingers, wing backs to hug the touch line against us, they know we only have pace on the flanks and the 2 full backs have to play narrow to cover the lack of pace of our Centre Backs !!!!
 
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The defence is horrific. Today Brighton had 18 shots, with five on target and another five hitting the woodwork. The centre backs were all over the place, and the full backs kept leaving the back post unmarked. This is Brighton; a top side would have humiliated us today. I'm seriously worried about this defence; we must sign a centre back at the very least.
 

PSV

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Defensive shite aside. Anyone else feel that a prime DDG would have saved that second goal of theirs? Was completely out of position.
Totally agree and possibly prime Henderson might of as well, he made one save of the season against Luton and his kicking and passing looks much better, I’m guessing by January De Gea will be no 2, maybe looking for one final transfer, but no one will pay a once great GK £375k per week not Real Madrid not even PSG !
What? Did we watch the same game? There's two possible headers before the final one that he's correctly positioned for. To my knowledge he doesn't possess the ability to teleport. De Gea did his job today. Can't fault him for either goal.

Oh, and for what it's worth Henderson was poorly positioned for that save vs Luton but recovered through a good reaction save, but that was a ball hit at the back post, this one was hit at the front post with noone connecting.
 
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Isotope

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"Best defence in Europe", they say. That's what happen if you watch stats instead of the actual games.
 
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Hughie77

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No, it's not, but last season, it wasn't to bad errors cost us, still think Bially is the one along side Harry, in some games until we can get another in or Tuenazabe gets fit and pushes for the place.
 

romufc

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Our defence may be the problem but if you look at the chances they created all game from poor pressing. The way Brighton were able to get at the defence is poor. No one was getting close to the ball.
 

Strelok

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Our defence may be the problem but if you look at the chances they created all game from poor pressing. The way Brighton were able to get at the defence is poor. No one was getting close to the ball.
Agreed.

After the last match I started to think the biggest issue is not our defence but rather our midfield and strikers. Brighton was able to cut through them too easily. Most of the time it was our defence with some of our midfileders falling back but our forwards were no where to be seen. While when we attacked their fowards pressed the shit out of our back four or our midfielders.

Most teams now defend and attack as a whole. So when our midfielders and attackers don't do their jobs properly it's kinda normal for our defenders to suffer. You can see how infuriated was Lloris when Son failed to track back a single time. And we had our forwards basically didn't track back at all for a whole match.
 

romufc

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Agreed.

After the last match I started to think the biggest issue is not our defence but rather our midfield and strikers. Brighton was able to cut through them too easily. Most of the time it was our defence with some of our midfileders falling back but our forwards were no where to be seen. While when we attacked their fowards pressed the shit out of our back four or our midfielders.

Most teams now defend and attack as a whole. So when our midfielders and attackers don't do their jobs properly it's kinda normal for our defenders to suffer. You can see how infuriated was Lloris when Son failed to track back a single time. And we had our forwards basically didn't track back at all for a whole match.
This shows the lack of understanding from fans who say... Defence is shit. Is it the defence fault that in the last 10 minutes we kept giving the ball away every time we won it? Martial, Bruno, Rashford all trying too hard. Martial at one point was trying to dribble 4 mans in our own half and lost it.

How many goals in the PL get scored on the transition? it is criminal to lose the ball in your own half when you are a goal up. Kill the game, pass the ball around and make them chase.

Then there is our press, wow that was shocking, at times one pass and they split right through, going at our defence.

Teams now know our weakness, get the ball wide and put a cross in.
 

flappyjay

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1: it's not been fixed
2: it's not Brighton hit the post 5 times bad
3: it won't win us titles
4: our cb partnership is not balanced
5: it's either tactics are bad or the defensive coaching is bad.

Ole has to also learn to play to their strengths too. Looks like Maguire and Lindelof are low block defenders not highline defenders.
 

Pjisared

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Laughable maybe but I don't think we could go far wrong in playing Smalling. He is a proven defender, currently playing well and could compliment HM. We seem obsessed with defenders who can play outfrom the back, but invariably can't defend. You ever know he could just be our saviour.