What's Happened To Our Defence?

[Keeper!]

Our defence has plenty of options...

 

[supercity88]

No control in midfield has lead to our defence being put under the sort of pressure they just can not cope with.

But all three Spurs goals were nothing to do with that as it happened.

• 1st - No Walker on the half way line to stop any fast break after our corner (did get back eventually).
• 2nd - Shocking pass from Foden that put Spurs on the attack, Ederson positioning not good.
• 3rd - Wishy washy defending against Spurs tallest player and Ederson transfixed.

The headline is right but the summary of the goals I see quite differently.

1st - Doku has to deal with Son and Ederson has to be saving it. Walker was in position but was with the runner who Son would have played in otherwise.

2nd - Alvarez tries to flick the ball round to Haaland rather than controlling it and passing to feet. One header and it's straight to Lo Celso and Dias allowed him too much space to get the shot away.

3rd - Walker should stop the cross coming in. He had Bernie as backup but trots over to Johnson rather than getting tight and forcing him backwards.

The whole team needs to be smarter in possession and defensively. It's a collective effort. With the soft underbelly we have at the moment we need to be taking our chances too. We're conceding far too easily, as we did last season, and like last season it's because the side isn't playing with the right balance.

 

[Manchester33]

It’s more to do with the midfield. We’ve lost Gundogan and KDB who played the majority of games last season.

We’re missing stones stepping in too.

 

[theres only one carlito]

Akanji has a mistake in him every game. Ederson needs to be saving us points by making crucial saves at crucial times. Dias is at sixes and sevens. Gvardiol struggles at left back. Rodri is overrun. We arnt finishing teams off upfront. All these little details cost us points. But we arnt losing which is a saving grace. We need to iron out some things and become difficult to play through and win second balls. We also need ederson to start making some saves that fill the back four and team with confidence.

 

[wolviedinho]

It’s very simple.

The forwards/midfield press is not quite working. Teams can then run free past the midfield and onto the defenders who will be playing a high line. Individual mistakes will then happen.

Lose that extra 5% closing down and it is noticeable. Lose 50/50 and it’s noticeable.

As a team we either need a shift in mentality or we have tired legs or both. It will resolve itself soon enough. Small margins and all that.

So until we effectively press and win the ball higher up the pitch our problems will continue.

 

[Gorton_Tubster]

We score those shots after the first goal and we win. Spurs would lose belief and fight, they dont attack as much, the defence doesnt become a problem. It really is as simple as that. We need to score more and put them to death. Its the pyshological battle we're not winning. Exactly as it was in previous years.

I also wonder how much more emboldened our opposition are becuase of the CONSTANT references to the charges. We need to use that shit like last season.

 

[eastmanc]

Gvardiol at left back, not getting the midfield balance and Doku and Foden offering a lot less than Grealish and Mahrez defensively.

We aren’t set up well enough to contain counters at the mo. That’s fine if we score more but the other issue is we aren’t taking our chances and so leaving ourselves more vulnerable as we’re not killing the game off and reverting to countering ourselves.

Mahrez?

 

[meltonblue]

Mahrez?

Yes. People are just basing his defensive performance on his inability to tackle. It wasn’t about that, it was his positioning. He was brilliant at getting back into the right place and then retaining the shape.

 

[Nour]

Start stones alongside Dias and Ake on the left and Bench Akanji that's my opinion .whenever Akanji plays that stones role it's chaos in the mid and our defence gets destroyed

 

[bobbyowenquiff]

We are missing Stones and still need a left back. We need a proper defensive midfielder to help Rodri.

 

[Chi-town blues]

I think dias can’t play as a left sided cb. I prefer left footed as a left side cb but we play with 3 right footed and one left footed left back.
walker dias/ akanji jasko ake would be my choice.

 

[Damanino]

Pep needs to sort out conceding goals at this rate.

Last season 38 PL games, total of 4 times we conceded more than 1 goal and we did well result wise in them
City-United 6-3
City-Spurs 4-2
City-Palace 4-2
Castle-City 3-3

every other game we conceded only one or not at all.

This season we already have 3 games like this and won none of them and 24 games still to play:
Wolves 2-1 loss
Chelsea 4-4
Spurs 3-3

and we have some of our hardest fixtures still away: Castle, Pool, Spurs bogey teams last two and Castle at home seems to be a fixture all our rivals have problems with...

 

[citymad]

No protection when we lose the ball high up the pitch.The lack of pace is hurting us when Stones and Kev are back would like Rodri to sit a bit deeper.This does not disguise the fact that Dias and Gvardiol should be nowhere the 1st 11 at the mo.
Im sure that Stones will play the Rodri role against Villa.Be interesting to see the roles of Lewis and Bobb against them also and this is a big shout do we think Bernado could play the Silva ,Gundo role thus offering more control.We had a bad window i have yet to see what Nunes or Kovacic will offer us.Hindsight is a wonderful thing but would have liked us to have tried hard for a Maddison type player.But as others have said trust in Pep felt after the game some of the comments of our fans were very self entitled no one has a devine right to win and with betrer finishing in the 1st half the conversation would be different.

Good post, however I would be surprised if Stones was to play the full 90 against Villa.

 

[Bozzie]

It’s very simple.

The forwards/midfield press is not quite working. Teams can then run free past the midfield and onto the defenders who will be playing a high line. Individual mistakes will then happen.

Lose that extra 5% closing down and it is noticeable. Lose 50/50 and it’s noticeable.

As a team we either need a shift in mentality or we have tired legs or both. It will resolve itself soon enough. Small margins and all that.

So until we effectively press and win the ball higher up the pitch our problems will continue.

I'm not particularly astute with tactics and all that malarkey but even to me it was pretty obvious that Spurs were playing through our midfield with alarming ease and regularity. They took some quite risky chances around their own penalty area and apart from the odd occasion we didn't put them under enough pressure. It just seems that a combination of things aren't aligning at the minute: injuries, chance conversion, individual errors and now (Rodri and Grealish) suspensions. Credit to Spurs though who made us work bloody hard all game and didn't back off despite their own injury problems.

 

[eyalluvitt]

This is why I’m unclear why this forum thinks Gvardiol was the worst player on the pitch last night and in the team in general (that’s playing regularly). I’m not saying he had a great game, but he didnt seem complicit in any of the goals or worse than anyone else. And realistically, I think the Sterling goal at Chelsea was the only one that he was really responsible. Which puts him on par with most of our defenders this year in terms of individual errors leading to a goal. Sure, maybe we didn’t need him this year. But other than Ruben our defense is on the older side. Doesn’t some long term planning make sense?

You do wonder if his bigger size would have stopped the last goal as 5’10 Ake got cleaned out.

 

[meltonblue]

You do wonder if his bigger size would have stopped the last goal as 5’10 Ake got cleaned out.

Always thought Ake was taller than that!

 

[PolarBearCub]

Not good enough. Need a CB pairing and AKE at LB. Gvardiol nowhere near LB please. We are not going to beat Villa.

 

[Chi-town blues]

Always thought Ake was taller than that!

Ake has a good leap for his height but his positioning was poor and should‘ve done better .

 

[Bournemouth Blue]

A lack of Stones, Gvardiol still relatively inexperienced, but he was our best defender yeasterday. Akanji goes from great to poor in a flash, Dias probably exhausted, Ake and Walker are the only solid defenders at the moment. I thought Lewis would play in defence more this term but with Stones out he is filling the gap that should have been filled by Phillips, but yes, we have a soft underbelly exposed in the last month. Hopefully Stones will return soon full time and when Kev gets back things might be back to normal. I know some on here will totally disagree but I can only record what I saw on TV yesterday.

 

[yankblue]

Teams are less scared of us