Is Pep ever going to address the defensive side of our game?

[Southern]

Ruli Real Sociadad £7m £50.000
Sidebi Monaco £30m £75.000
Laporte Ath Bilbao £50m £90.000
Stones
Rose Spurs £50m £125.000
Weigl Dortmund £50m £80.000
Sterling
Alex Garcia
Gundagun
Dino
Ali Spurs £60m £125.000
Sane
KDB
Silva
Jesus
Aguero
Yaya 12 month contract
Mafeo
Kompany
Zabaletta 12 month contract
Brahim
Willy 12 month contract
Otamendi
Zinchenko
Roberts
Sancho



Spend £237

Sagna free
Kolarov £4m
Clichy free
Adarabioyo loan (championship)
Iheanacho loan (premier league)
Nalito £3m
Bravo £ FREE
Nasri £15m
Hart £15m
Fernando £7m
Delph £7m
Navas £3m
Bony £15m
Mangala £15m

Sold £80m??? Wages £1.2m a week

Net spend £150m
wages saved £500.000 a week

At least £10 mil if Kola goes China and way more for Nolito and Bravo! And Ali is not worth that much and not needed.

 

[Gorton_Tubster]

Defence arent rubbish tbh... Attack have had problems last few months and not scoring means defence are always under pressure right up to last ten mins and then we bottle it. Pep said so himself the other day in one of his press conferences.

I still expect the defence to be changed a lot in the summer though but not from a defensive point of view, more from an attacking and more intelligent player point of view, and of course age.

 

[BlueAnorak]

Interesting stats, but that stats hide the fact that many of our chances conceded are full-on, through-on-goal chances; whereas the Chelsea ones typically are not. That's a very big factor in why we conceded much more. And our keeper has been crap too!

Totally agree.

 

[BlueAnorak]

Eventually Pep will work out that to succeed in England you need true quality in defensive midfield and fullback positions.
YaYa is Ok, Fernandinho is better than OK but all our current fullbacks are over the hill.

 

[schfc6]

That is fine to disagree. Its rarely sides have opened us up this year or we have not had enough cover it players making mistakes or performing poorly in individual situations.

Off the top of my head I can think of Clichy against Lukaku
Otamendia against Hazard
Bravos positioning against William and poor positioning of full back
Bravo drop against Ivrahimovich
Stones back pass against Southampton/ Everton/Leicester
Weak headed clearance for Leicester second and poor keeping
One ball over the top with kolarov and Otanendi not tracking the runners.

All those goals were not the fault of the system but a consequence if poor individual play.

The one you've blamed Clichy for, for me was the system. Otamendi flew in/chased the ball where a right back would have. Stones was too easily rolled, no system error for part 1 & 2. Clichy was left sided centre half, he had too much ground to cover on Lukaku and when he got to Lukaku, Lukaku was at full tilt and in total controle of the situation. A traditional back 4 would/should have seen a traditional centre back tracking Lukaku who'd have matched up better physically and positionally, we had a left back doing it who in a 4 would be covering a centre back. Not being left 1vs1 from half way on. For me the system + mistakes from Otamendi & Stones caused that goal.
I think Clichy was hung out to dry that day by his team mates and manager, especially considering how well He'd done with Lukaku all game on the left side. The rare occasion Lukaku wandered over, we conceded.

I never blamed the manager for idiotic mistakes and lack of professionalism last season so I won't do it this year. These are highly paid experienced internationals.
The only way a system could be blamed is the 3 at the back and it was horror errors in that system apart from Leicester that stand out the most. But as you correctly say, those errors are also evident in all systems we've played.

In response to the op, I'm sure Guardiola will be working on it!

 

[jimharri]

Ruli Real Sociadad £7m £50.000
Sidebi Monaco £30m £75.000
Laporte Ath Bilbao £50m £90.000
Stones
Rose Spurs £50m £125.000
Weigl Dortmund £50m £80.000
Sterling
Alex Garcia
Gundagun
Dino
Ali Spurs £60m £125.000
Sane
KDB
Silva
Jesus
Aguero
Yaya 12 month contract
Mafeo
Kompany
Zabaletta 12 month contract
Brahim
Willy 12 month contract
Otamendi
Zinchenko
Roberts
Sancho



Spend £237

Sagna free
Kolarov £4m
Clichy free
Adarabioyo loan (championship)
Iheanacho loan (premier league)
Nalito £3m
Bravo £ FREE
Nasri £15m
Hart £15m
Fernando £7m
Delph £7m
Navas £3m
Bony £15m
Mangala £15m

Sold £80m??? Wages £1.2m a week

Net spend £150m
wages saved £500.000 a week

Who's this "Nalito" fella?

 

[harvo the blue]

Ali for 60M is optimism, as are his weekly wages.

Levy won't do business for anything less, we paid nearly £50 for Sterling & this kid is better, £60 will be met by someone.

 

[bugsyblue]

Is this a thread based on a future prediction because either the op is fucking dumb or he's very cleverly posted this now to post 'I told you so' in two years time when pep has been here a reasonable amount of time to warrant this post.

 

[Brightwell’s left peg]

Levy won't do business for anything less, we paid nearly £50 for Sterling & this kid is better, £60 will be met by someone.

I meant optimism on your part, not Spurs'. There's not a chance in hell we'd get him for £60M. Levy would want closer to £100M than £60M

 

[harvo the blue]

We can all pick bits from all the shite games we have lost points, tactics, selection, keeper or fullbacks but the one for me is simple we haven't taken our chances in front of goal.
Boro we missed half a dozen
Everton I lost count
Chelsea should have won by HT
Liverpool 1 chance not taken there 1 chance lost us at least the point we deserved
Spurs at home we dominated but missed great opportunities, that's 10 points thrown away we dominated all those games.

Everton away & Southampton at home fair result not good enough over the 90 minutes & Spurs away we were shite.

Talk about BrAvo, Clichy, Stones all we want but at the end of the day Aguero, Sterling, KDB, Silva, Nacho have all fucked up in front of goal & cost us 10 points.