Is our defence falsely ridiculed? (Probably Not)

BobKowalski said:
This was all said when Pellers first arrived. High line. Pressing. Fitness. We will be buying players that fit into Pellers philosophy. Players will be worked harder. Have you seen Vinny's tweet about how he has never worked harder in pre-season? Yada, yada.

Three seasons later we are getting bitch slapped at home by Leicester. And Liverpool. And away at Spurs. We are losing games 3-1, 4-1 and right now Spurs at home is starting to feel like it did when Hughes was in charge. Hope rather than expectation.

On the other hand we ain't Chelsea so there's a plus and if Leicester win the title then fair play to them.
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yep , all boils down to the manager not getting his message over to the players.

He's not an idiot, he will know that we aren't working hard enough off the ball to implement his strategy. What is on him though is not dropping the players who cant or wont do as is asked. Young players should have been blooded over the past two seasons to freshen up the squad and provide that hunger that younger players possess.

If we had a core of say 6 or 7 youth team players that had experienced first team football , we could be using them now to allow players to be dropped or rested. We are now in a position where we have to chuck a kid in and hope for the best. This is the exact same predicament that Mourinho found himself in when his trusted players weren't doing it for him he had nowhere else to turn
 
There do seem to be problems with our defence and it is fair to point them out. Our captain and inspiration has been out nearly all season and his leadership has been sorely missed. Other injuries have meant it's been impossible to have any consistent selection of a back four. We rely heavily on our full backs to provide width in attack and they are getting stranded upfield. I do feel, though, that the heart of the problem is midfield rather than our defence. We tend to struggle when opposition midfielders are able to run from deep; Liverpool at the Etihad, Surs and Stoke away are examples where things really went wrong. At WHL we were not helped by the officials who made sure we had to chase the game, but Ross Barkley again showed that midfielders can wreak havoc. We start matches without a midfielder to screen the two CBs and with only two CMs. Our possession game has been much poorer this season because our passing can be careless. Some teams play without a recognised striker - the case with both Liverpool and Stoke - and pack the midfield to draw City upfield and then break. There is always space to exploit between our defensive line and our retreating and disorganised midfield. Running at any back four in those circumstances draws them out and forces them to try and tackle in circumstances which almost certainly condemn them to failure and put them out of the game. Or, alternatively, as in the case of Everton and Barkley, the ball was given away carelessly, Barkley found himself in space with Otamendi out of position and forced to lunge into a doomed tackle, exactly as he had to on Saturday on Mahrez.

For me the heart of our problem lies in the failure of our passing game and the sloppy surrender of possession which is characteristic of our disasters and even of periods in our good games, as 20 minutes in the first half at home to Newcastle showed. When our attacks break down our formation is non-existent and we are stretched out in a linear fashion and are not compact at all. This is made worse because Ya Ya takes 6strides to reach full speed, which effectively puts him out of the game, and Ferna has to scramble to try and get back. Pellers does not start with Fernando to protect the back four so that he can play three of Sterling/De Bruyne/Silva/Navas behind Sergio in attack. It is the high line in attack which causes as many problems as the high line in defence! It will be interesting to see what Pep does about the personnel in midfield, especially deep midfield, in the light of our alleged interest in Busquets.
 
We aren't good enough defensively. That's been badly affected by Kompany being out for so long but it's not just our defensive mishaps that have caused so many problems.

My biggest concern about us this season is how we go a goal behind to often, look at this:

Sept 19th - West Ham beat us 2-1
Sept 30th - We leave it late to win away at Borussia.
Oct 3rd - Newcastle 6-1.
Oct 21st - We leave it late home to Seville 2-1.
Nov 21st - We get leathered 4-1 at home to Liverpool (3-0 at one point in the first half).
Nov 25th - Juve beat us 1-0 away.
Dec 5th - We're comfortable outclassed by Stoke away from home again. 2-0.
Dec 8th - We come from behind to beat Borussia.
Dec 21st - Arsenal beat us out the blocks and go 2 goals up, a late surge in the last 10 mins makes the scoreline look a respectable 2-1.
Jan 2nd - We come from behind again, to beat Watford 2-1.
Jan 6th - Everton beat us 2-1 in a semi final first leg.
Jan 23rd - West Ham take advantage of us and get a 2-2 draw. Scoring straight from kick off.
Jan 27th - A must win game in the 2nd leg, we go a goal down early on giving us a mountain to climb, which we thankfully manage.
Feb 6th - A sloppy start gives Leicester an early advantage. Another sloppy start to the second half gives them the 3 points. Losing 3-1 at home.

There's 14 examples of us conceding first this season. Can anyone else remember a team that went on to win trophies that threw away early goals as much as we have done this season? Our play is to keep possession and slowly get the opposition team out of position, but our pedestrian attitude reflects on how easy we are to play against. In most of the examples above we conceded in the first half. I think it's a case of our players either not being warmed up properly or the use of reactive tactics rather than pre-planning and prediction. When we've won leagues we've got early goals against the cannon fodder in the league and then picked them off as they've tried to get back into the game. We need to re-think our tactics if we want to win the league and I personally think it revolves around our midfield rather then the defense.
 
Lancet Fluke said:
I'm going to try this one last time although fuck knows why. There is nothing in the OP that suggests that your way of interpreting it is any more appropriate than the way some others have interpreted it. Some people like you have chosen to discuss the treatment other teams' defences get compared to ours in the media and plenty of other people have chosen to discuss the reasons why our defence gets the bad press it does which obviously involves discussing our defence. Both of those seem perfectly reasonable ways to respond to the OP if you ask me. You say you didn't bollock people but you did tell Neville that he shouldn't be using the thread to discuss the defence, and you told me I shouldn't and that I should be discussing how the media don't give others teams' defences as hard a time. You just come across as arrogant, pedantic and bit thick to be honest.
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I could quite easily use that last line to describe you too.
 
Midfield brings it all back to the defence. The tactics emplyed so far have been below par, and the players are being caught out time and time again. I've not seen so much ballwatching since Anelka was with us
 
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