Our Defence - Has it actually been fixed?

Stacks

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I’m a bit worried about the defence still, but Maguires individual performances have been below his usual standard, so there’s that to consider. He’ll get back to his level at some point. But still, four goals conceded is a concern when our rivals have each conceded just one (albeit only at half time in the Chelsea game) despite us not having played a big team yet.
I feel This Is normal for him. He has always had a degree of shakyness and we conceded more than Arsenal last season. The Euro performances do not emulate the Utd ones
 

Irwin99

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Maguire is in horrible form, Varane injured, AWB is just not progressing to that elite level yet and Shaw is having one of his rough periods again where he looks devoid of confidence. The defence is a mess but to be fair, the whole team is.

The difference between Liverpool's fullbacks and ours today was night and day. I'd actually start Telles and Dalot if just to give them a warning or a rest or whatever it is they need. Playing them isn't helping and we're leaking goals.
 

Zoo

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It’s the structure of the team that’s the problem and the lack of any organisation and coaching.
 

BorisManUtd

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Think Maguire and Shaw have not been the same as last season, can understand it as they played non-stop for some time now. But can't think about individual performances isolated from organisation of defence and team in general and that's job of coaching staff so perhaps with other coaches we become more stabile at the back again.
 

izec

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Maguire is in horrible form, Varane injured, AWB is just not progressing to that elite level yet and Shaw is having one of his rough periods again where he looks devoid of confidence. The defence is a mess but to be fair, the whole team is.

The difference between Liverpool's fullbacks and ours today was night and day. I'd actually start Telles and Dalot if just to give them a warning or a rest or whatever it is they need. Playing them isn't helping and we're leaking goals.
AWB isnt even on a good level, nevermind elite. He will never reach it. The only thing he is good at is tackling, after often being out of position in the first place.
 

Van Piorsing

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Burning money on every possible defender out there is hardly fixing stuff and possibly we're about to spew another chunk of budget on RB.

The whole team feels like it's being made of parts that are not entirely matched to fit each other. No chemistry and on top of that formations being separated against each other instead gelling them together into unit.

Harry Maguire returns from the international tournament in which only couple of Italian defenders could match his overall superiority and now is being reduced to Titus Bramble drone without basic sense of positioning. Shit has hit the fan on entire football club level.
 

Irwin99

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AWB isnt even on a good level, nevermind elite. He will never reach it. The only thing he is good at is tackling, after often being out of position in the first place.
I really want to give him the benefit of the doubt and say he will improve but his positioning just never seems to get better. Last year against Leipzig (away) showed how badly our full backs can get dragged all over the place and it just seems to happen too often.
 

2cents

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Valid case to be made that a new manager will ideally want three new first choice defenders and a new GK.
 

davidmichael

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Just looks so fecking disjointed but it’s never helped when Matic is expected to play 90 minutes when his legs went a good couple of years ago, defensively Dalot and Telles are always have a mistake or two in them whilst Fred couldn’t trap a concrete block and has the worst first worst touch I’ve ever seen from a Brazilian.
 

DevTheRed

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Teams create far too many chances against us which is ultimately down to the midfield.. wouldn’t say it’s down to the defence being poor.
 

RedAlert27

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Varane doesn't look any better than Maguire and Lindelof. How the hell do we still need a whole new defence and midfield. Matic playing 90 minutes shouldn't happen. Asking for trouble.
 

Orton

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We have no midfield. The defence is literally exposed every game. Players run right through us. I swear every game the opposition have a mini Messi in their team.
 

pascell

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We have no midfield. The defence is literally exposed every game. Players run right through us. I swear every game the opposition have a mini Messi in their team.
This. Judging the Lindelof-Varane partnership tonight is like trying to judge the handling of a car without a steering wheel.
 

Lentwood

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As I keep telling you all, we have a World Cup winning, multiple CL winning French International CB, England's best CB, Sweden's captain and Eric Bailly, who when fit is one of the best CBs in the league.

The problem is not and has never been our individual defenders. Our midfield is arguably the worst in the league and we have a GK who is capable of making the odd reflex save but does nothing at all for his back four.
 

Adnan

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Our midfield isn't anywhere near good enough in both defensive and offensive transitions. And when your midfield is worse in comparison to mid table clubs, then you're in trouble. Our aim should be to have a midfield which is comparable to teams like City, Bayern, Madrid etc, when it comes to controlling games both in/out of possession. And our midfield isn't anywhere close to the aforementioned teams, and if i'm honest, I doubt any one of Mctominay, Fred, Matic, even make the Aston Villa first 11.

Improve the midfield and improve the fullbacks, and there'll be a big improvement collectively when it comes to defending imo.
 

Judas

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As I keep telling you all, we have a World Cup winning, multiple CL winning French International CB, England's best CB, Sweden's captain and Eric Bailly, who when fit is one of the best CBs in the league.

The problem is not and has never been our individual defenders. Our midfield is arguably the worst in the league and we have a GK who is capable of making the odd reflex save but does nothing at all for his back four.
On what planet is this statement true, because it isn't this one.
 

Red_toad

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Its impossible to tell with our midfield.
Pretty obvious there’s a lack of organisation and responsibility regardless of who plays. Shame Harry didn’t play so the blame could have been on him.
We were pretty solid until Matic gassed out and we had zero options to replace him. Be nice if Ralf was allowed to bring in a cheap punt to at least give us numbers.
 

arnie_ni

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Pretty obvious there’s a lack of organisation and responsibility regardless of who plays. Shame Harry didn’t play so the blame could have been on him.
We were pretty solid until Matic gassed out and we had zero options to replace him. Be nice if Ralf was allowed to bring in a cheap punt to at least give us numbers.
Our midfield was madness.

Cavani appeared to be defending slightly left, Bruno was in cm, matic was deeper and Fred was our furthest forward player without the ball.

I can't for the life of me work out what was going on.
 

Rozay

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Midfield is the real problem. With the midfield we have, we’d make a home game against Plymouth Argyle an end-to-end battle where we have to rely on the superior quality of our forwards to win us the game. We’ve barely had an easy/comfortable game, at ANY level, for about 3 or 4 years.
 

Kerry Donaghy

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So long as we have the most timid goalkeeper in world football playing for us then our defence will never be fixed.
We could have Maldini and Baresi playing in defence and we would still concede goals because they get no help at all from the goalkeeper.
Yes, he's a decent shot-stopper, as all goalkeepers are, but the fact is that there is more to goal-keeping than shot stopping and when it comes to the other aspects such as communication, command of the box, distribution, sweeping and organising the defence, De Gea may as well not be there.
Elite level sport is all about fine margins and this is costing us week in week out.
How anyone can watch a Man Utd match and not see how much of a major concern this is is baffling to me.
I'm not saying it's our only problem at all, I agree the midfield is a shambles too but, in my opinion, De Gea's blindingly obvious flaws are the main reason we concede a lot of possession, chances and ultimately, goals.
 
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A-man

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As I keep telling you all, we have a World Cup winning, multiple CL winning French International CB, England's best CB, Sweden's captain and Eric Bailly, who when fit is one of the best CBs in the league.

The problem is not and has never been our individual defenders. Our midfield is arguably the worst in the league and we have a GK who is capable of making the odd reflex save but does nothing at all for his back four.
Agree 100%.