John Stones - 2016/17 performances

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Tugay One Cup said:
Imo he did step up in that he was our best player and the only one who looked willing to fight. Like I said, not the best performance (not even his best for us) but at least he showed a bit of bottle.

The second point I agree with to an extent but you can't expect us to be able to stop every chance for the opposition we bring on ourselves by making two absolutely amateur mistakes in the centre of our own defensive third. Sometimes you can get away with it but at CL level it usually takes one such error to concede a goal.

Ideally we can make up for every single mistake made but we're talking about the best teams in Europe who punish single mistakes, not playing in the Premier League, having our captain fall over on the halfway line and allowing Demba Ba to do his best Moses impression.



But I'm sure Robbie Savage said it was true.
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Defending involves mistakes, or otherwise few teams would ever score & nobody would watch football.

A large number of goals we concede, are down to very poor defending imo. It's not because we pass it out from the back, or because of a formation or anything, most goals we concede, including those conceded when we had 3 at the back, are directly down to poor play by individuals.

If we could improve that to a decent standard of competence, I don't think we would let many in. If we could improve it to a high level, we would beat everybody (well if we also finished a bit better).

I don't think anyone in our defence, individually, has typically been any better than any run of the mill, mid table defender would be. Occasionally maybe, but on the whole, no.
 
Neville Kneville said:
Defending involves mistakes, or otherwise few teams would ever score & nobody would watch football.

A large number of goals we concede, are down to very poor defending imo. It's not because we pass it out from the back, or because of a formation or anything, most goals we concede, including those conceded when we had 3 at the back, are directly down to poor play by individuals.

If we could improve that to a decent standard of competence, I don't think we would let many in. If we could improve it to a high level, we would beat everybody (well if we also finished a bit better).

I don't think anyone in our defence, individually, has typically been any better than any run of the mill, mid table defender would be. Occasionally maybe, but on the whole, no.
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The only problem is that a lot of the individual mistakes being made are ones that lead directly to chances and can't be recovered from. Stones' back passes against Southampton, Leicester and Barcelona are examples of this. There's no way to prepare for those kind of mistakes and recover from them, you are entirely at the mercy of whoever has gone through one on one.

But I agree almost entirely with what you're saying.
 
Tugay One Cup said:
The only problem is that a lot of the individual mistakes being made are ones that lead directly to chances and can't be recovered from. Stones' back passes against Southampton, Leicester and Barcelona are examples of this. There's no way to prepare for those kind of mistakes and recover from them, you are entirely at the mercy of whoever has gone through one on one.

But I agree almost entirely with what you're saying.
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If you look at the Falcao goal & the Otamendi pen in he first leg, they fall into the catagory of 'uncoverable' by other defenders a bit of awareness & straight forward defending solves both without much trouble. And that is fairly typical. The finish by Falcao was wonderful, but the build up was nothing. Boot it, run after it, cut inside.

Imo, there is a limited amount of time we can wait, for our current defenders to learn to deal wth those straight forward kind of situations, before we have to find, & sign someone who can.
 
Our system is partially to blame in that it leaves us completely exposed if the defender does make a single mistake. We are often left with a one on one or two on two. We rarely have a defensive advantage.
Peps system so far relies on defenders being world class. We don't have any. Not even close. It's a huge flaw
 
super_city_si said:
Our system is partially to blame in that it leaves us completely exposed if the defender does make a single mistake. We are often left with a one on one or two on two. We rarely have a defensive advantage.
Peps system so far relies on defenders being world class. We don't have any. Not even close. It's a huge flaw
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I agree.. It's the same system he had implemented at Bayern, but obviously they are streets ahead of their opposition so were exposed less often. We don't have that luxury, we have to compete in every game, every opponent poses a threat and that threat continues to grow with the money in this league. So either Pep changes his defensive system(unlikely) or we buy the players that help increase the gap in quality to our opponents. Think both would be most advantageous, Bayern, even with their world class players, still struggled when facing elite opponents with this system. Some tweaks & some shrewd signings then it'll all click and Stones has the potential to be at the center of it all.
 
One of his best games this season. Fantastic performance. Made some game saving tackles, passed the ball well and started a few attacks.
 
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