Our Defence - Has it actually been fixed?

Peterfeeter

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This back 5 isn't good enough to win any major trophies, IMO.

We have two big problems in the shape of AWB and Maguire. AWB is not the worst defender we have at the club, but he's just average. He's not a £50 million defender. And I know bringing money into it as an argument is always tricky because it can come off as a bit vague as it's difficult to judge monetary worth, but I think people will know what I'm getting at. There's just so much lacking in his game. One on one, he's still excellent. But other areas of his game are either lacking or just nonexistent. And just like Maguire, because he cost so much and he's supposed to be ort main RB, he's always going to play.

But Maguire is the bigger problem, for me. Not because he's the worst defender in history or anything daft like that, but he's just painfully average and not good enough for where we want to be. But he cost an absolute fortune, he's the first player on the team sheet, he plays every game and he's our captain (which is mind-boggling). So with all that you expect a leader who marshals his backline, is cool under pressure and doesn't panic. He doesn't do any of that. He's an absolute nervous fecking wreck when he's under pressure. And the reason why he's a big problem is that he's always going to play, and will do for the foreseeable future. Certainly under Ole, anyway.
I agree. Maguire isn't a leader. If Bruno was our CB he would be screaming at the defence to get tight on the attackers. I don't know what Maguire was doing during the build up to the second goal last night.
 

Hammondo

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Oh, 100%. Particularly these last few weeks, he's been excellent. Been our best defender, definitely.

Don't mind Lindelof, either. He's decent. Nothing special but a good squad player. I concentrated on Maguire and AWB because they are our first choice defenders who also happened to cost a fortune. Maguire in particular, obviously.
I agree. Maguire is so slow he is late to attack anything and its just easy to find space around him.
 

Ekeke

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We've regressed because we are expected to come onto teams and attack them more. Last season we played 2 holding midfielders and reacted to opposision as we only had the players for that. No Bruno no Pogba no Martial/Rashford for periods so we played like a midtable side for large parts. Now we have to attack teams as they respect our attacking talent but it leaves us exposed and we don't know how to attack well and defend well in the same game.......
We still play with 2 holding players :confused:

And we still play on the counter.
 

Stacks

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We still play with 2 holding players :confused:

And we still play on the counter.
We don't play on the counter every game. We were not playing on the counter today as our oppo sat back. We did not sit and try to hit Fulham on the counter. Nor Burnley nor Wolves. Wolves did the same as Sheffield. Teams basically try to hit US on the counter now.
 

Ekeke

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We don't play on the counter every game. We were not playing on the counter today as our oppo sat back. We did not sit and try to hit Fulham on the counter. Nor Burnley nor Wolves. Wolves did the same as Sheffield. Teams basically try to hit US on the counter now.
Well we had more of the ball in each of those games (and not by a couple of percent) than the opponents that much is true. We still try to counter though with our players like Rashford and Bruno with a quick movement of the ball. And sometimes teams try to counter after our counter has broken down and our attacking players have taken themselves out of positions to help defend.
 

croadyman

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There is clearly absolutely no organisation on set pieces, particularly on corners where we should be having our best header of the ball Maguire on the front post but instead he is always in the middle which makes no sense at all. Then there is the zonal rather than man to man marking which don't even get me started on how that is such a bad idea
 

Dante

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Our defence is brilliant at shithousing its way to a clean sheet. As a group of players, you won't find many backlines more capable of playing up against a massive onslaught.

But ask them to defend in a match where we have >50% possession, and there's a big chance they'll fall apart.

The problem is they don't defend as a unit. They're a bunch of individuals (with some admittedly fantastic individual qualities) who too often play for themselves.
 

Sultan

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The defence and the whole team should be upset with De Gea big time.
 

Fooza

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Shame the title could have been won this season had we just improved our defence. Shambles
 

Bobski

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They look great when it is easy, when it matters they don't get it done.

He has to move on from this partnership, passive Lindelof and slow Maguire, there is no certainty there.
 

Andycoleno9

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When you spend 80 mill on defender to fix your defence and he becomes weakest link of that defence. With Maguire in team this defence will never be fixed
 

Icemav

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Goals win games, defense wins championships. We won't at this rate because our defense can be very very fragile.
 

dove

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We can't defend set pieces and set pieces are mostly coaching. James goal was also pretty much a carbon copy of Sheffield's one and a few before that. Insane gaps in our box, we are learning nothing and it cost us yet again. Tuanzebe is trash, why are we always trusting him to defend properly in vital moments is beyond me.
 

U99ted

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Top scorers in the league- joint 11th best defence with Brighton.
 

Machine Elements

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Don't worry guys, Ole is getting rid of the deadwood like Smalling, Rojo and Romero and we're apparently better than before at the back with Mr.Pussy, £80m fridge and the best keeper ever in club's history + a nothing player who's only in the team because he's from the academy :lol:

I wish we had Romero in goal today and Smalling - Rojo combo at CB. We wouldn't be that bad defensively, that's for sure.
 

MU655

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On course to concede 49 goals this season, which is 13 worse than last season (we are only 6 off last seasons goal concessions). That is going to really cost us if we want to keep up a title challenge. You have to drop down to Leeds in 11th before you find a team that has conceded more goals.

The worst goasl conceded since 14-15 for a title winner is 36 goals. The rest are lower.
 

Renegade

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Has anyone ever asked Ole why we insist on playing a high line when our captain and most expensive defender is the slowest in the league?
 

Betson

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It is a shambolic defense , you can't challenge for honours with two very substandard centre backs and a spent Keeper.
 

2 man midfield

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It's so frustrating that the only thing holding us back is the defence. It's the easiest thing to get right, there's no real excuse.
 

Idxomer

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I mean we're probably going to concede a record number of goals since that start of the premier league.

It's easily the worst area in the team.
 

Mic

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Without having an entire new high quality backline + a quality DM, Utd will never ever win a significant trophy in the near future.
 
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Thirty league goals conceded already; that's pathetic.

I'm sick of raging at this defence; it's now up to Ole. Either he sorts out the centre backs or they will ultimately get him the sack. I don't care how much Maguire cost, he isn't good enough. I'm running out of expletives when describing this defence and the way we defend as a team. Tonight's equaliser was schoolboy stuff in the 95th minute. First priority in the summer is centre backs.
 

Bojan11

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I would start with a GK and CB first. We can't replace them all in one go because we don't have the funds and there are other areas that need addressing. Hopefully there's some interest in DDG from Italian clubs. We never learned from the Rooney situation as we should never have given him that contract.
 

NinjaZombie

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When you spend 80 mill on defender to fix your defence and he becomes weakest link of that defence. With Maguire in team this defence will never be fixed
This is the most worrying thing for me. How do we fix our defence when the guy bought to do it is a big part of why it's so bad?

Ole needs to find a reliable Bailly like centre back.
 

Andycoleno9

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This is the most worrying thing for me. How do we fix our defence when the guy bought to do it is a big part of why it's so bad?

Ole needs to find a reliable Bailly like centre back.
We can buy prime Rio, Evra and Cafu with Buffon on the goal. But with Harry in team it will still suck. Less suck of course but he will always be a problem.
 

spiriticon

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We need to get Lindelof and De Gea to compete jumps against each other in training. Whoever loses gets a Keano stamp to the fecking kneecaps. I'm sick of pussy defending.
 

Redlyn

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The only player good enough in our back 5 is Shaw. Rest need to be improved upon before we can actually win things. DDG could be helped by a better defense infront of him.
 

Anustart89

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It's not hard to score against us and we don't make teams work hard for their goals. We put in an excellent shift in attack, pressed them brilliantly to not give them anything in the first half and managed to score a couple of well-worked goals, but all it takes for the opposition is to get two or three balls into the box and someone will inevitably make a mistake for a simple goal.

Just think about it. How many goals or chances do we concede from the following: AWB not holding the offside line, our defensive midfielders failing to pick up a free man in the box from an obvious cutback, Maguire struggling for pace, Lindelöf losing a header or de Gea being weak in the air or rooted to his line instead of just collecting the ball?

Almost every goal is conceded due to the same players making the same mistakes week after week and they don't seem to be improving as players as time passes. Quite the opposite in fact. I'll refrain from holding Maguire's lack of pace against him as we knew what he was about when we bought him, but to see these recurring deficiencies and not acting on them in three transfer windows will be a big reason behind us not challenging for titles. It's shocking squad planning to spend £130m on a slow central defender and a RB that can't hold a line if your intention is to play a high line, so we'll have to sort that out somehow, and I don't see AWB's positional awareness being addressed two years on.

Shaw's good though...