The defence is good fallacy

[Balljy]

We can look solid defensively but I feel like we need one properly top quality centre back for Mourinho to have the trust to open up the play more. I think we have the full backs (well, two of them) who are capable of helping out the attack against very defensive teams, but we can look weak against counter attacks which is where the new centre back would fit in.

Our current central defensive partnership is good when playing the ball in front of them but I worry about balls over the top and through them. If you look at the Chelsea team yesterday they had hard workers in the middle rather than true ball players, if Fabregas had played from the start we may have struggled a bit more with trying to put Costa through.

 

[el3mel]

Our defense makes mistakes but it has never been our problem this season. We actually got a better defensive numbers then the league leaders themselves , conceded less and defeated less than them. It's the attack and missing chances who costed us this entire season. Receiving one goal in EPL is normal , the problem is not being able to score 2 goals at least in a home game against horrible teams ! All draws were 0-0 or 1-1 it shows that the problem in the attack.

I still won't mind getting a CB in summer , though , but to replace one of Smalling or Jones who got enough problems to never be in the team. One has a very weak mentality and the other is injury - prone . One of these 2 English clowns is enough while the other should be replaced. Bailly and Rojo are excellent are excellent and and we can build a defense around them, very useful and proved themselves.

But the main concentration on summer should be on Carrick replacement and offensive players.

 

[Klopp_De_Klown]

The defence has improved a lot since the 4-0 at Stamford Bridge. Since then we have conceded 12 goals in 22 games. Our rivals numbers in comparison are

18 in 23 for both Spurs and Chelsea
26 in 23 for City
29 in 24 for Liverpool
30 in 21 for Arsenal

Edit - Phones seems to have messed up the text size

Wow thats a very telling stat if true, im trusting you that it is (i wont be checkin). Thats a huge gap.
But
We have some very tough away fixtures coming up and the potential for a rise in goals against is huge. So it is slightly misleading as other sides have some or all these games out of the way. I'd kinda be of the opinion to wait and see what conclusions can be drawn after the spurs city and arse games. But i like the post.



For me, yesterday was the first "complete defensive-unit" performance we produced this season, that I can recall off hand. Maybe pool away but did we cross the halfway line with real intent that day? I'm not so sure.

I suppose to be fair we have performed well in defense individually and kept out attackers in the little mini one on one battles. But is that the point? That it is more the lone attacker as most teams only play 1 up front and with 4 on 1 we should be winning them battles. We just never seen to look in control and comfortable and we always seem to be one F up away from that sucker punch which we seem to be collecting a lot this season. Well, way too much for my liking anyway.
And there is no getting away from that fact that we gift sloppy goals far too often which has in large part led to our defensive critisism and the consideration that we are not that good defensively. 9 times we have been caught napping this season, 7 coming in the league. If we could have held out in just 4 of them games that us 3 points off spurs with a game in hand. But we are not and all from poor defending.

Yesterday was different, we never looked uncomfortable, we were never stretched and when needed we used the out ball to DDG or hoof down the line perfectly. Everyone will mention Herrera and Darmian and so they should. Hazard and Pedro never got a sniff. Rojo beat up Costa and most surprising of all for me and what some will miss, was the number Pogba did on Kante.
Chelsea at times use Kante as the extra man to bursrt forward with the ball to suck in a defender on a one two or create the gaps out wide. It was mostly nullified. They also never got down the wings. Ash and Tony bossed these areas and again Young showed how good a player he is if used correctly, despite not having his shooting boots on.

We were so effective as a defensive unit yesterday the best team in the league were made to look clueless. The excuse makers will say chelsea didn't turn up yesterday but i'd argue they were out thought and out fought and when our chances came we struck gold where in contrast chelsea were not let play.

If we were this solid every week this thread would never of been created. Sadly we are not as our league position and the 11 draws in 23 games suggests.

 

[Santoryo]

This is when somebody will storm in and tell you that Van Gaal was negative and played the entire team behind the ball. Which isn't remotely true.

Forgetting teams like City and Liverpool are possession whore with average like defensive stats for top teams.

Of course people will simply ignore that and carry on their random narrative about us having 95% of the ball and all the other bla.