We need an entirely new defence

[Martial'sEmergingSmile]

The overall quality of centre backs has dropped massively as a whole. If Maguire was playing 15 years ago he would’ve been captain of Blackburn or Bolton. He wouldn’t sniff a top 4 club.

Absolutely true. I do still think there are plenty of good centre-backs abroad. Especially when you're prepared to pay crazy money: Gimenez, Romagnoli, Upamecano, Konate, Kounde etc.

Even Lampard's apparent intention to take a chance on somebody like Rice - who could make a Rio-like transition to centre-back - is more interesting. High potential players like Ben White are more interesting.

With Maguire, there's no improvement to come and he's in no way better than defenders like Dunk or Tarkowski.

Buying a carthorse defender with the turning circle of blue whale - especially with the meta of the modern game being what it is - was absolute complete and utter lunacy.

 

[WR10]

Nope. United shareholders wouldn’t accept a new defence line after + 200m spent on the current one unless you can sell them for 200m again. Which clearly won’t happen.

What you need is smart coaching to implement a better defensive system. There’s simply no balance in a team of risky passers like Pogba and Bruno. One of them has to step down.

 

[crossy1686]

A few of us have been saying this for seasons, it isn't new.

De Gea should have been sold when the contract issue came up.
Shaw has always been average but somehow has managed a cult following.
Maguire is never worth £80m.

The rest of the defence have won feck all and never played at a high level.

 

[Lentwood]

We need a new owner, new DOF, new manager & new defence. So just a few changes nothing major

These might not be world class players but they’re international footballers.

The reason clubs have managers and coaches is that if you just throw players onto the pitch, the result will be something similar to what we just saw

 

[groovyalbert]

Why have we constantly bought the wrong CBs? They can't be this bad. That today was the worst you'd see in the league, by a mile. And Fulham play in the same league as us.

This has to be down to coaching as well. We're at fecking sea back there, but we can't just keep forking out mad fees.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

It's hilarious that this is even being discussed.

Imagine Chelsea fans after all that spending on Havertz, Werner, Ziyech etc wanting a new attack.

 

[Arka_BleedingRed]

In truth, some of us could see this coming last year. We have THE sh!ttiest transfer policy of top clubs(if we can even be called one). No alternatives, sticking to the 1 player unable to move on, every club by now has realised that sooner or later we are going to pay, so they start extorting us. Then, when we get transfers wrong, we are completely unable to move the player on. Absolute shambles of a club.

 

[Walters_19_MuFc]

We're not City. We can't just buy and sell if they're not doing well. Whether people think we were lucky or not, we were statistically the third-best defence in the league last season. Personally, I think they need more protection. Maguire isn't Van Dijk. You can't have our full-backs pressing high and expect him to sweep u because he just hasn't got the pace to do so.

I look at Liverpool and they have three very hard-working midfielders to cover their full-backs and to protect their back four. Today, we had Matic, who, despite good on the ball, has obviously lost his legs, and Paul Pogba, who is just not a defensive midfielder.

Going forward, I think we need to beef up the midfield. We saw Jose do it today. Are their midfielders technically as good as ours? Most likely not, but what they had was energy and fight.

Having said all of that, the game today was a complete shitshow. Basic errors cost us the game.