Is our defence falsely ridiculed? (Probably Not)

Our defence is nowhere near as bad as made out. What's hilarious is people think the manager (who was a CB) doesn't know how to set his side up.

It's all about balance, United have a good defence but the one game they played expansive they conceded 3 goals to Newcastle.

We're often open but all the best teams are, what let's us down is a lack of pressure on the ball, but in terms of defending, our high line and the way we hold the offside trap on our own 18 yard box is the best in Europe.
 
mayo31 said:
The defence is a symptom of how we play. We attack and I would rather that was the case.

Utd defend and look at how that is working out in terms of style.

As for Vardy and Leicester fans getting all giddy. Good luck to them but tomorrow will be one of the first times their defence will face a team that is constantly at them at the back. How good are they at the back, we shall see.

Put simply I fancy Sergio more against their defence than Vardy against ours.
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A couple of points. I recognise that to some extent the more attacking you are the less protected the back four will be by the rest of the team but I don't think it is an excuse for a back four that has at times looked incredibly badly organised and like they don't really know what they are supposed to be doing. In my opinion the manager over complicates defending generally and at times I genuinely believe the defenders have looked confused and at times (particularly after new year last season) completely demoralised by having to play in a way that wasn't working and was making them look like poor players. Just because we play attacking football doesn't mean the back four can't stay on their feet more often, track runners, mark players who are six yards out when a cross comes in, not step up for offside when the ball isn't being pressed etc. Second point, I don't reckon united are particularly brilliant defensively, they aren't bad considering how ordinary the personnel is but they owe at least as much to a brilliant keeper as they do to sound defending in my opinion.
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
Football is a team game, although individual errors often play a part. Any team can set up defensively. Just put 4 defenders on the 18 yard line and 5 midfielders no more than 15 yards in front of them and you probably won't let many in. You won't score that many but if defensive solidity is your aim then it'll do the job. The more players you push forward, the further the gap between your midfield and defence and the fewer players whose job is to protect that defence, then you'll concede more goals. We might typically have 7 or even 8 of our outfield players forward in certain circumstances leaving our defence wide open. The fact we've still got the third best defensive record suggests we might not be as bad as all that.

But, as usual, the media narrative drives the perception.
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And, of course, this is the sort of the discussion that inevitably leads to me pointing out that we still concede the fewest shots on goal of any team in the league. We do concede too many goals but they tend to be down to making too many costly errors (often a succession of them) rather than us being consistently poor defensively. The team demonstrated in its last two matches that it can sit back, be organised and keep clean sheets.

Anyway, I read yesterday that Pep spends more time on defending than attacking in training; although I'm sure I have seen Pellers make that claim about City. Perhaps both managers think that attacking is more, but not exclusively about, instinct; whilst defending is about organisation and it is far more difficult to be defensively organised when you throw lots of players forward.
 
On paper we are not that bad. Take away the 2 hammerings and it's pretty solid.

However watching us is a bit different. We look as though we could ship any number of goals during a game.

Quite how we kept a clean sheet against Sunderland will remain a mystery and that's a pretty good example of what I'm getting at. Paper said 0, performance said something else
 
I think it comes from the type of goals we concede, we always look suspect to a quick break over the top, but that's more the way we play, and why we score more than anybody else. But the 23 against and 12 clean sheets from 24 games show it's not that bad.
 
My favorite idiocy with regards our defence. Yes it could be more solid, arguably it would be if it were our first choice defence, but the two most influential members of said defence have missed 80% of our games.

Back to my point, our leaky defence, may cost us the league, how does this make sence? Arsenal's by all accounts our main rivals is no better. So our defence will cost us the title to a team with a defence just as porous, a defence that has been an full stregnth all season.

So their full stregnth defence with the saviour that is Cech is no better than our defence largely made up of back up players all season. It's the media at it's finest. Our shaky defence will cost us the league to erm... A team conceding goals at a similar rate. Brilliant.
 
I actually think the media's perception of our defence (and therefore a lot of fans of other clubs too) is suffering from a 6 or 8 game lagtime

our defence pre new year was poor, not particularly well organised and very exposed by a butter-like midfield; there was a 25 game stretch from 15/09/15 to 06/01/16 where we kept 3 clean sheets (all away games, all 0-0).

I thought pre-xmas the media werent really on our case in terms of defending, the odd bit here and there highlighting mistakes but my perception was that we were getting awya with it slightly. However since the turn of the year i've noticed our defence being more settled, plenty of clean sheets coming in but we are now vilified as having this shocking defence, which i dont think we have anymore.

i mean, fuck the press etc, as City fans we have to realise that the defence was shit but also accept it seems to have turned a corner (for now). This next 6 games will really test it.
 
schfc6 said:
My favorite idiocy with regards our defence. Yes it could be more solid, arguably it would be if it were our first choice defence, but the two most influential members of said defence have missed 80% of our games.

Back to my point, our leaky defence, may cost us the league, how does this make sence? Arsenal's by all accounts our main rivals is no better. So our defence will cost us the title to a team with a defence just as porous, a defence that has been an full stregnth all season.

So their full stregnth defence with the saviour that is Cech is no better than our defence largely made up of back up players all season. It's the media at it's finest. Our shaky defence will cost us the league to erm... A team conceding goals at a similar rate. Brilliant.
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So their shit defence may cost them the league.
I don't see what is so difficult to comprehend about that. If either City or Arsenal were to start performing properly as a team they would likely run away with it.
 
I think our defence is going to be under closer attention than many other teams because we're on TV in big games more than anyone else: West Brom away, Chelsea at home, Everton away, West Ham at home, Spurs away, United away, Villa away, Liverpool at home, Stoke away, Arsenal away, Leicester away, Watford away and West Ham away have all been on either Sky Sports or BT.

Our record in those games on TV is 4 wins, 4 draws and 5 defeats. That's nine live televised games in which we've dropped points so far this season, which leaves plenty of opportunity for big mistakes to stick in the public conscious and drive the angle of future coverage. Spurs away, we conceded four; Liverpool at home, we conceded four; Stoke away, we were 2-0 down in 15 minutes; West Ham away, we were 1-0 down inside a minute and West Ham's second goal was a mix-up between Otamendi and Demichelis. We were even behind to an own goal in the Watford game before coming back to win.

If we're going to balls things up when we're on TV then people are going to remember the mistakes. Plus, we've spent over £80m on our four current central defenders (Otamendi £32m, Mangala £42m, Kompany £6m, Demichelis £4m) so that's leaving us open to another type of lazy criticism from the press and viewing public. Although whatever's been said in public about our defence without Kompany is no different to what's been said on here at various points during the season so I don't really see the issue.
 
Lancet Fluke said:
A couple of points. I recognise that to some extent the more attacking you are the less protected the back four will be by the rest of the team but I don't think it is an excuse for a back four that has at times looked incredibly badly organised and like they don't really know what they are supposed to be doing. In my opinion the manager over complicates defending generally and at times I genuinely believe the defenders have looked confused and at times (particularly after new year last season) completely demoralised by having to play in a way that wasn't working and was making them look like poor players. Just because we play attacking football doesn't mean the back four can't stay on their feet more often, track runners, mark players who are six yards out when a cross comes in, not step up for offside when the ball isn't being pressed etc. Second point, I don't reckon united are particularly brilliant defensively, they aren't bad considering how ordinary the personnel is but they owe at least as much to a brilliant keeper as they do to sound defending in my opinion.
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I agree. I think he looks at the fairlyland stuff & misses the obvious.

I also think Utd are a fucking dreadful team defensively imo which forces LVG to worry about it every game or if they played an 'open' game like we do they would get hammered or, as you say, if the keeper hadn't been so good. They defend en masse because they have to.

That of course isn't our problem & neither is Arsenal's defence or any of the others.

Our defence could & should be a lot better, the back 4 & as a team, irrespective of whether we attack a lot, or not. We make a lot of piss poor, avoidable mistakes, individually & collectively & at this time when we are talking about Pep Guardiola, he would see those folks on here who bury their heads in the sand & & say we are ok as others are shit, so that makes it alright & we have nothing to complain about, as having completely the wrong mentality.

He would be having nightmares about the Sunderland game even if we'd won 4-0.
 
You could swap the word 'defence' and enter attack, midfield, injuries, back room staff, medical organisation, the Good Sheikh, Khaldoon and a host of other City items. See that Pellers' press has developed a wholly more sympathetic line now he's leaving. It's all part of the RagDipperMeedya attempt to ridicule anything skyblue!
 
Neville Kneville said:
I agree. I think he looks at the fairlyland stuff & misses the obvious.

I also think Utd are a fucking dreadful team defensively imo which forces LVG to worry about it every game or if they played an 'open' game like we do they would get hammered or, as you say, if the keeper hadn't been so good. They defend en masse because they have to.

That of course isn't our problem & neither is Arsenal's defence or any of the others.

Our defence could & should be a lot better, the back 4 & as a team, irrespective of whether we attack a lot, or not. We make a lot of piss poor, avoidable mistakes, individually & collectively & at this time when we are talking about Pep Guardiola, he would see those folks on here who bury their heads in the sand & & say we are ok as others are shit, so that makes it alright & we have nothing to complain about, as having completely the wrong mentality.

He would be having nightmares about the Sunderland game even if we'd won 4-0.
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I always remember that keeper at Notts County in the cup all those years ago (Cherry?) saying after the match that he always counted the ball hitting the woodwork as saves and so he had played absolutely brilliantly (to be fair he did have a decent game but did need to be saved by the woodwork about 6 times). I think watching us defend at times this season and then to claim that we are fine defensively because we haven't conceded many goals is similarly delusional. But we all see things differently I suppose, all I know is that more often than not under Pellegrini, I have watched our defending and been very disappointed. I loved some of the great attacking play a couple of seasons ago but I do enjoy watching good defending as well and I have missed that side of things. It pisses me off going to matches and finding myself constantly agitated by the defending.
 
Neville Kneville said:
So their shit defence may cost them the league.
I don't see what is so difficult to comprehend about that. If either City or Arsenal were to start performing properly as a team they would likely run away with it.
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You wouldn't, it's obviously escaped you. I haven't heard Arsenal's defence being slated like ours. I'm regularly hearing United's defence being described as 'solid' and 'well drilled'. Ours, shambolic, calamitous. Yet only 2 goals worse off than such as solid well drilled defence. Are you getting the point?

The whole basis of my point, and the one of the op. Our defence is much questioned, yet others with almost identical records are described in such away you'd believe we were conceding many goals more. Again, the irony, our disasterous defence may cost us the league, to a team with a defence just as disasterous.

Not to worry, I know irony is something that often escapes you.
 
Neville Kneville said:
I agree. I think he looks at the fairlyland stuff & misses the obvious.

I also think Utd are a fucking dreadful team defensively imo which forces LVG to worry about it every game or if they played an 'open' game like we do they would get hammered or, as you say, if the keeper hadn't been so good. They defend en masse because they have to.

That of course isn't our problem & neither is Arsenal's defence or any of the others.

Our defence could & should be a lot better, the back 4 & as a team, irrespective of whether we attack a lot, or not. We make a lot of piss poor, avoidable mistakes, individually & collectively & at this time when we are talking about Pep Guardiola, he would see those folks on here who bury their heads in the sand & & say we are ok as others are shit, so that makes it alright & we have nothing to complain about, as having completely the wrong mentality.

He would be having nightmares about the Sunderland game even if we'd won 4-0.
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I see you've utterly missed the point of the thread and hopped straight back on that soap box. As it happens our defence could be better. As you say, it's not perfect.

Problems.

Individual errors, beyond anything expected of a professional footballer.
Over committing in attacking play.
Players not pulling their weight defensively.
Our two best and most influential defenders missing vast chunks of the season.
Our captain missing vast chunks of the season.

Qualities.
An excellent offside trap. If linesmen were not incompetent we'd be at least 3 goals better off from obvious not marginal decissions. See Spurs away.
Excellent set peice defending despite being a pretty small side.


Yes we could be better, a fit Delph/Fernando accompanying a fit Kompany ,Zabaleta & Clichy all season would have made us 4 or 5 goals better off at least.
 
We get a shit ton of abuse and people laud other teams defences, despite the fact that the actual results are about the same. On the plus side, ours has a hell of a lot of room for improvement, given that even when shit we are as good as other teams when they are apparently playing well. The same could be said for the whole team tbh, we've not been playing well yet are just as good as everyone else on pretty much top form. Ominous for everyone else in the league
 
schfc6 said:
I see you've utterly missed the point of the thread and hopped straight back on that soap box.
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In what way has he missed the point of the thread. The OP asked whether our defence has been unfairly ridiculed, Neville has come on and given us his thoughts on our defending. Do you just want him to literally say "no the ridicule is fair" "or yes it has been unfairly ridiculed"?
 
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