Otamendi

Status
Not open for further replies.
Calv_from_the_frog said:
We have major problems in defence. End of.

Our midfield & attack (assuming the recruiting of De Bruyne & Pogba) can trouble any defence in world football, but our defence is so weak that - out of 8 players (1st choices & back-ups) we have 2 (Kompany & Zabaleta) - we have just two that are reliable.

We'll be involved in a lot of gun-fights next year (especially as I expect all PL teams to perform well in the CL).
Click to expand...

I don't agree, i believe we have a good defence and if you look back over the last few seasons goals conceded and Joe's golden gloves it is hard to argue otherwise.

I believe the problem we have had is the formation we have played which has left us particularly exposed at times, if we reverted to a 4231 formation we would be much more solid.

Bobby won the title based on a solid defence, Pellegrinni won it on a record front line.

I do accept that lots of individual errors also cost us heavily last year but the problem is not as bad as people would have us believe.

Put it another way, if Mouriniho was our manager our same defence would have a much better record and we would be scoring a lot less.
 
abu13 said:
I don't agree, i believe we have a good defence and if you look back over the last few seasons goals conceded and Joe's golden gloves it is hard to argue otherwise.

I believe the problem we have had is the formation we have played which has left us particularly exposed at times, if we reverted to a 4231 formation we would be much more solid.

Bobby won the title based on a solid defence, Pellegrinni won it on a record front line.

I do accept that lots of individual errors also cost us heavily last year but the problem is not as bad as people would have us believe.

Put it another way, if Mouriniho was our manager our same defence would have a much better record and we would be scoring a lot less.
Click to expand...

I do not agree that we have good defence especially left side Clichy and Kolarov they poor and Mangala suffers.You could see yesterday Kolarov was bad in defence and when Ljajic shot free kick Kolarov turned backs and penalties miss not first time.Clichy is HG he need to stay for now.We need to buy Alex Sandro he is better of the Clichy and Kolarov and he play with Mangala in Porto and they look very good.
 
abu13 said:
I don't agree, i believe we have a good defence and if you look back over the last few seasons goals conceded and Joe's golden gloves it is hard to argue otherwise.

I believe the problem we have had is the formation we have played which has left us particularly exposed at times, if we reverted to a 4231 formation we would be much more solid.

Bobby won the title based on a solid defence, Pellegrinni won it on a record front line.

I do accept that lots of individual errors also cost us heavily last year but the problem is not as bad as people would have us believe.

Put it another way, if Mouriniho was our manager our same defence would have a much better record and we would be scoring a lot less.
Click to expand...

Balance is the key imo.

If we played more like Mancini, we would have a good defence, but not always so good an attack, if we play like Pellegrini even with 451, we are too wide open v the best teams because our 11 don't work hard enough without the ball & it ends up with the cbs etc defending on their own.

Otamendi in last year's team, would find himself several times 1v1 vs Raheem Sterling. He would certainly, get skinned on more than one occasion, just the same as our players did then.

Whoever we sign at the back, if we are so open, the defence will struggle.
 
Neville Kneville said:
Balance is the key imo.

If we played more like Mancini, we would have a good defence, but not always so good an attack, if we play like Pellegrini even with 451, we are too wide open v the best teams because our 11 don't work hard enough without the ball & it ends up with the cbs etc defending on their own.

Otamendi in last year's team, would find himself several times 1v1 vs Raheem Sterling. He would certainly, get skinned on more than one occasion, just the same as our players did then.

Whoever we sign at the back, if we are so open, the defence will struggle.
Click to expand...

I still think we need a top class left back though, someone who's adept going forward and defensively. Kolarov isn't good enough for me.
 
Calv_from_the_frog said:
We have major problems in defence. End of.

Our midfield & attack (assuming the recruiting of De Bruyne & Pogba) can trouble any defence in world football, but our defence is so weak that - out of 8 players (1st choices & back-ups) we have 2 (Kompany & Zabaleta) - we have just two that are reliable.

We'll be involved in a lot of gun-fights next year (especially as I expect all PL teams to perform well in the CL).
Click to expand...
I completely disagee with this, if our defence was that bad Joe Hart wouldnt have won the golden glove four tmes in the five years. Also Demichelis has proabably been more solid than Kompany in the past two seasons. The main problem has been our midfield which had been wide open with playing Toure playing in a midfield two which clearly doesnt work particuraly in Europe. Also you can have the best defenders in Europe but if the manager consistantly rotates then they will never find there best form, its no coincidence we had a great run of clean sheets towards the end of last season when pellegirini finally kept a consistant back four.
 
City_Sean said:
I still think we need a top class left back though, someone who's adept going forward and defensively. Kolarov isn't good enough for me.
Click to expand...

For what we saw v Roma, if we are developing into that kind of style, we eventually need two really shit hot overlapping, up & down, Barca style fullbacks imo. None of the current 4 fit that as I see it. Either not fast enough or not good enough on the ball. None have the full requirements.

It's the beginning of a new road this, as I see it. This season's team may be a transitional one (albeit seriously good) rather than close to the finished article.
 
Neville Kneville said:
For what we saw v Roma, if we are developing into that kind of style, we eventually need two really shit hot overlapping, up & down, Barca style fullbacks imo. None of the current 4 fit that as I see it. Either not fast enough or not good enough on the ball. None have the full requirements.

It's the beginning of a new road this, as I see it. This season's team may be a transitional one (albeit seriously good) rather than close to the finished article.
Click to expand...

I agree, I can easily see Sagna and Kolarov going soon, replaced by maybe Fabinho and a left back.
 
City_Sean said:
I still think we need a top class left back though, someone who's adept going forward and defensively. Kolarov isn't good enough for me.
Click to expand...
It would be nice, but I don't think it need be a priority at this stage.
Clichy has generally been good for the past four seasons, and last season was, for me, arguably the most consistent perfomer of our seven frontline defenders (Zaba, Sagna, Kompany, Demichelis, Mangala, Kolarov, Clichy). Going forward he obviously offers little threat, but the changes we're seeing/expecting to see in the team's shape might make that less relevant anyway. At the moment, we rely heavily on our full backs to provide width going forward, especially on the left because of the lack of a proper wide player; but if Sterling is going to play from that side as part of a front three/a three in behind the striker, then the left back's role will probably become something more akin to that which Azpiluceta plays for Chelsea - i.e. concentrate on defending, be tidy on the ball, back up the attacking play but don't overlap and block off the space that the winger wants in front of him. That's a job that I think Clichy can and will do fine.
I'm not a huge Kolarov fan, but think he's ok as a back-up, hopefully until Angelino is considered ready to step up.
 
The problem last season was consistency(or lackthereof) of the holding midfield and attacking balance.

The defense was under pressure because we were not opening teams up with ease like the season before, but still also playing wide open. Aguero was red hot when not injured though, and if not for this i dread to think how the season would have ended. I do agree that defensively the players seemed to lack consistency based on last year though...but it was more lack of form from yaya, fernando being an absolute fail, and playing an antiquated 4-4-2 in some risky games that really didn't help matters.
 
Calv_from_the_frog said:
We have major problems in defence. End of.

Our midfield & attack (assuming the recruiting of De Bruyne & Pogba) can trouble any defence in world football, but our defence is so weak that - out of 8 players (1st choices & back-ups) we have 2 (Kompany & Zabaleta) - we have just two that are reliable.

We'll be involved in a lot of gun-fights next year (especially as I expect all PL teams to perform well in the CL).
Click to expand...
Kompany has been injury/mistake/card prone in the last two years. Zaba struggled for months with poor form last season.

Demichelis has been our best defender in the last 18 months.
 
I personally havent watched much of otamendi, but wouldnt we be better off giving denayer a run there and if need be buy a CB in the next window? If getting him costs 35 million now i would much rather spend that money on isco or KDB.
 
We only conceded a couple more goals last year, but scored 20 fewer than 13/14. Our summer signings show that the upper management prefer to remedy last season by getting back to setting goal scoring records rather than having the best defence in the league. That's why we have an attacking manager like Pellegrini anyway.

On the other hand I think with a front 4 of KDB, Sterling, Aguero and Silva we can afford to have a LB who is primarily a defender more than an attacker. Let Zaba bomb forward, but keep a 3rd man back and we'd be so much more secure in defence. The problem is that they are very rare.
 
Without digging too far back through the pages, is this just a combined "Otamendi to Rags" and "Our defence is the weakest part of the team" thread? We aren't in for him are we?
 
City_Sean said:
That was my idea, we could replace Sagna and Kolarov next year, and eventually replace Zaba and Clichy with Maffeo and Angelino.
Click to expand...

I live in NYC and have tickets for NYCFC, this has given me the luxury of seeing angelino play and wow he has all the talent in the world...his skill on the ball is very nice to watch but he will definitely need to work on his strength especially in the defensive end considering he is still on the smallish side. But in another year with all the playing time he is getting over here I can see him being implemented slowly into the first team
 
LittleEgg said:
The problem last season was consistency(or lackthereof) of the holding midfield and attacking balance.

The defense was under pressure because we were not opening teams up with ease like the season before, but still also playing wide open. Aguero was red hot when not injured though, and if not for this i dread to think how the season would have ended. I do agree that defensively the players seemed to lack consistency based on last year though...but it was more lack of form from yaya, fernando being an absolute fail, and playing an antiquated 4-4-2 in some risky games that really didn't help matters.
Click to expand...
The key was the MF.

We were TOO OFT exposed, as Pelle refuse to play with 2 defensive MF. Fernando is just average IMO, and if we add to this that our defenders ar also not the fastest, we have then there a bad ecuation.

Cheers!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top