Manchester United are the best drilled defensive unit in league - G Neville

VanGaalEra

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Was just watching Monday Night Football and Nev was praising our defensive unit, shape, high line and praised Blind for 'marshalling' the defence. Showed some examples of us at Villa playing the high back line and the team being very compact.

Carried on to say the next two weeks would be crucial for United, we can't afford to lose De Gea, look short up front and could struggle at CB if we get a couple of injuries (referenced the fact Jones is out at the moment).

Carragher also said Schneiderlin was the signing of the summer.

Anyone able to upload a video, would be great for those who haven't seen it? Was only a 4/5 minute segment.
 
tbh there's not much to see OP has said it all already
 
Just to add there was a stat that since November 2014 we have conceded the least number of goals in the premier league
 
Yea think there was a stat saying that we concede 23 from 8th November till today,4 less then Chelsea on 2nd place.
 
I'm surprised nobody is in here slagging Blind off as per the usual narrative.

We should take massive positives that we have a very mean defence, without what we can call recognised defensive leaders. I love what Blind has done since he joined us, whatever been's asked of him basically, a great player and attitude, quickly becoming a fave for me.

Would love another established CB though.
 
Yes, that stat of only conceding 23 goals since Nov 8 of last year is an impressive one.
 
That goals conceded stat is very surprising. Is it possible we are overly critical on the Caf? Surely not!
 
I didn't know that United just conceded 23 from Nov 2014, but I do know and noticed the team are playing much better as a unit and they seem to know their purpose on the field. Just imagine if United still have the likes of Vidic to lead the line, or have better personnel.
 
stu_1992 said:
That goals conceded stat is very surprising. Is it possible we are overly critical on the Caf? Surely not!
Click to expand...

No of course not, we're shit, Blind is a midget slug, Shaw has a fat ass, I don't even know who Romero is, and we will probably never score more than a goal in a game ever again because our players will not improve with time.
 
Find it damning that with the number of people paid to write, tweet, blog about the sport, nobody else bothered to move past the narrative that United can't defend and actually look at the facts.
 
Only caveat to the least goals conceded stat - De Gea
 
shabadu84 said:
Find it damning that with the number of people paid to write, tweet, blog about the sport, nobody else bothered to move past the narrative that United can't defend and actually look at the facts.
Click to expand...

They accept the figures, but just say that De Gea has saved us every single time and that without him, we would have conceded three times as many goals. They're wrong, but De Gea is an important part of why we have conceded so few.
 
I'm surprised by that stat too, we do have a great base to build on. If we added a top goal scorer to the ranks then we could be a real threat.
 
Would really appreciate a link, missed the end of MNF.
 
I do find it incredible that we lost 3 of our 4 legendary defenders in Ferdinand, Vidic and Evra and in under a year Van Gaal has managed to make United look competent in defence again. Can't imagine how tough it must have been to have to build up an entire defence from scratch. Though that's not to say the likes of Smalling were completely worthless, but they did very well to grow into the role of a United defender.

De Gea did save our arses in the first half of last season, but there's no doubt that we grew less and less dependant on him as the season went on.
 
Red-Jeff said:
No of course not, we're shit, Blind is a midget slug, Shaw has a fat ass, I don't even know who Romero is, and we will probably never score more than a goal in a game ever again because our players will not improve with time.
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:lol: Couldn't have said it better myself.
 
Raw said:
That's 23 goals conceded in 30 games, not bad at all. Especially considering our mini implosion at the end of last season.
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Roughly this time last year (once ADM and Falcao were signed), everyone thought we'd be trying to outscore teams and our defence was weak and would suffer from not having brought in reinforcements.

It's turned out the complete opposite, our attack needs reinforcements and working on and the defence is fine.

It's good to have a solid base to the team, just need that chemistry in attack.
 
stu_1992 said:
That goals conceded stat is very surprising. Is it possible we are overly critical on the Caf? Surely not!
Click to expand...
That's an understatement. May 1999 on here there would be inquests into fee haggling as a possibility why we didn't also win the League cup.
 
Randall Flagg said:
If he hadn't arsed around with that 3-5-2 malarkey our defence would be best since start of last season
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The defensive record of the 3-5-2 was excellent. We shipped most of our goals when we played a 4-1-2-1-2 diamond.
 
moses said:
Any idea how many clean sheets?
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11 clean sheets in 30 games. Through those 30 games we tend to only concede 1 goal maximum, the only exceptions are the Swansea 2-1 away loss, the City 4-2 home win and the Everton 3-0 away loss.
 
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Possession is the best form of defence

edit: ooooh I have a tagline. How exciting!
 
Yeah, anybody who watches us could tell we're really good defensively and were last season once we settled down a bit as well... We only looked short at the back whenever Carrick was out injured as we had no holding midfielder, but now we don't have that problem with Schweinsteiger and Schneiderlin here as well. Don't think it's close at all either, we are far better defensively then Chelsea, City, Arsenal, Liverpool... Anyone in the league. We defend as a team from back to front and that's the biggest difference we have seen from Van Gaal I think. Just excellent organization. Now we just need to combine it with some attacking play and find the balance.
 
Pexbo said:
The defensive record of the 3-5-2 was excellent. We shipped most of our goals when we played a 4-1-2-1-2 diamond.
Click to expand...

Zues forbid we go for functionality instead of entertainment value and try to win some games. Not a fan of the 3-5-2 but it was defensively sound when we used it.
 
Indeed the defensive and midfield core is there, all we need is a Suarez 2013/14 player who when isn't scoring/assisting is causing problems which allows others space.
 
Think it stems from how Van Gaal set up his Holland team for the World Cup. Very organised, compact, pressed well... only difference is they had Robben just to run at defenders. Did well for them, think the whole of the Netherlands complained about him abandoning the dutch style, but they he got 3rd place with one of the weakest, and ageing dutch teams for a whilst and probably unlucky not to get to the finals.
 
But but Otamendi......:(:(

I've maintained since beginning of the season that nothing is wrong with our defense. People just like the idea of new players.
 
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