People talk about "the defence" but anyone who's studied Pep' methods to any degree knows that defence starts from the front and much of his tactical approach focuses on being organised behind the ball if you can't win it back within 5 seconds of losing it. It's that latter part we haven't been doing and have looked completely shambolic when a team like Monaco hits us at pace. Players like KDB and Yaya just don't seem to get it properly. Sterling and Silva seem to understand and Sane is getting much better but the full-backs seem to be letting us down. Hopefully he will be able to work on this over the summer and, with new full-backs who understand their role and execute it better, we'll get a it tighter.
But any team can defend if it really wants to. Chelsea play with two out-and-out defensive midfielders in Kante & Matic, in front of their back four. Neither Dinho nor Yaya can really do that role and even Gundogan isn't a pure defensive midfielder so we'll always be more open but I can't see Pep changing the way we play. The players will change but not the tactics.
