A bit early to say, isn't it. Ours look better right now, but playing a motivated City side at the Etihad is probably the toughest fixture in the PL, and that Swansea side are going to score a lot of goals against good teams.
Manchester United are the best drilled defensive unit in league - G Neville
- Thread starter VanGaalEra
- Start date
-
In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
A bit early to say, isn't it. Ours look better right now, but playing a motivated City side at the Etihad is probably the toughest fixture in the PL, and that Swansea side are going to score a lot of goals against good teams.
We have been very good in defence for a while now.
It was a 4-4-2 diamond, iirc. And that second half was solely due to a mental breakdown.
Sooner or later we will have to play more attacking football, we can't expect to challenge for the league with our current attacking play. Unless we get some spark up front, we will have to commit more men in attack, and that's when we'll really see how good we are in defense. For a top team, being good defensively is about managing to defend effectively with fewer men than weaker teams. As of now, both our fullbacks and two midfielders spend large parts of the game behind the ball. Nothing wrong with that in itself, but we need to create more chances, one way or the other.
Depay finding his feet, Rooney getting into form plus Pedro and we'd be more effective up front. I do worry that with Herrera not playing, we seem to lose the urgency when we go forward.
We are not playing a defensive football, our attacking players are just disorganized, they play individually instead of playing like a unit, they are also not very confident. For the defense it's the opposite, they are playing as a unit, they understand their role individually and collectively, sometimes they make a collective mistake like against Arsenal in Cup, sometimes they make an individual mistake like Valencia against Arsenal or Everton, but most of the time they are spotless.
Last edited:
Not defensive, but very very cautious. To play like that and challenge for the league, you need a talisman, a goal scorer who can create things on his own. I can't think of anyone winning the league for a long time without such a player.
Conceding less goals isn't great in itself if it is at the expense of our attacking power. If we maintain defensive stability while taking more risks going forward then the improvement of the team would be more obvious.
Agree. That's the standard a title contended should be held to. Conceding few goals while also scoring few goals is not exactly a fantastic achievement. 1-0 wins are of course great, but we can't expect he odds to always be in our favour like they've been in the last two games, and when they aren't, we need to be able to outscore opponents as well.
I disagree on the very very cautious part , the problem isn't tactical per se, we have a problem with the attitude of our front four, they only want the ball at their feet and they rarely try to create some space between themselves and the defenders. They are continuously forcing the midfielders to make perfect passes in crowded areas. Also they make too little diagonal runs, they don't test the width of the defense, the space between the opponents.
People were right to be critical of Blind at the back. He's not been tested period. So he's passed nicely and helped keep a defensive shape but don't be fooled. Now, if we'd come under defensive pressure and he was part of a defense that was worked? Then yes. he'd be doing great! Providing we were as solid. I think it's no surprise we're so great defensively because we've been so useless offensively. We've not created many chances and we tried to keep a shape but we were negative last season - probably at the start because we had three at the back and all those injuries. We do have a pretty good defense and the core has been strengthened with the players we've brought in. Just don't go overboard with this Blind stuff, come back at the end of the season. At some point we'll need to adjust the balance of the team back to being offensive. We can't continue creating so few chances.
All this means is City have had barely any work to do in defence, which clearly reflects their results!
We'll have to disagree, then. I think it's more to do with ability than mentality. I hope you're right, though.
I think we look significantly better defensively this season than we did at any point last.
The counter-argument to Neville is that we made a LOT of defensive errors last season, but conceded relatively few goals from them. Probably something to do with De Gea, I'd hazard. We weren't anywhere near as 'well drilled' in 2014/15.
The counter-argument to Neville is that we made a LOT of defensive errors last season, but conceded relatively few goals from them. Probably something to do with De Gea, I'd hazard. We weren't anywhere near as 'well drilled' in 2014/15.
Fair enough. Maybe we can pick this up mid season. I am sure their Goals Conceded column will be 15% or more higher than last time around, if they don't bring in another CB.
Where did you find that URL? The URL for that video on the streamable website is:
Code:
http://streamable.com/9l2pThat's what the embedding code is looking for.
I think we look significantly better this season than we did at any point last.
The counter-argument to Neville is that we made a LOT of defensive errors last season, but conceded relatively few from them. Probably something to do with De Gea. We weren't anywhere near as 'well drilled' in 2014/15.
I lost the source but United conceded the least amount of shots per games, so the defensive error stat is misleading, they haven't led to shots or shots on targets, De Gea didn't had to make significantly more saves.
Just on the whole De Gea bailing our defence out thing, I did some more Squawka stats.
He made the same number of saves/game as Joe Hart (fractionally more than our other rivals) but seems to have had to punch/catch considerably less balls coming into our box (less than any other keeper I compared him with).
So I suspect he was given more protection than people think.
He made the same number of saves/game as Joe Hart (fractionally more than our other rivals) but seems to have had to punch/catch considerably less balls coming into our box (less than any other keeper I compared him with).
So I suspect he was given more protection than people think.
As a defensive unit we look far improved on last season so that's a good start and right now you'd put us in the top 3 I guess? But that's only based on 2 games and that's dangerous to do.
Blind will bring with him a composure to the back 4 but he'll also face big tests. Clubs who are more direct will get at him and I can guarantee Jose will target him when we play Chelsea.
But credit has to be given for the improvements made in our organisation this season. We never really looked troubled against Villa and there were only 1/2 touchy moments against Spurs. That's a huge step up from last year when De Gea was constantly saving our skins.
It's hard to judge City so far because they've been so good going forwards they've not had to defend much. We've started the season slower performance wise so I think it's more impressive we've not yet conceded.
Blind will bring with him a composure to the back 4 but he'll also face big tests. Clubs who are more direct will get at him and I can guarantee Jose will target him when we play Chelsea.
But credit has to be given for the improvements made in our organisation this season. We never really looked troubled against Villa and there were only 1/2 touchy moments against Spurs. That's a huge step up from last year when De Gea was constantly saving our skins.
It's hard to judge City so far because they've been so good going forwards they've not had to defend much. We've started the season slower performance wise so I think it's more impressive we've not yet conceded.
Not according to those stats I posted in the post above yours.
What exactly is a defensive error?
Mata passed the ball straight back to Villa (think he was looking for Smalling) and they got a shot off on Friday, does that count as a defensive error?
Mata passed the ball straight back to Villa (think he was looking for Smalling) and they got a shot off on Friday, does that count as a defensive error?
All that tells you is saves though and how much he had to do from crosses. That does not say the type of save or how good the shot was. It also doesn't say whether or not he had less to do from crosses because he stays on his line more thus avoiding contact! Plus city isn't a great example last season as they weren't great defensively.
De Gea punched/caught less balls than any other keeper in the top four (and Mignolet) so the comparison isn't with City alone. Fair point on him perhaps being less willing than other keepers to come off his line but that would still imply a similar amount of crosses coming into our box for him to (not) deal with. I would also question if he's as good as we all think he is if he's so much less effective at clearing crosses into the box than all his peers.
In terms of saves/game, there's not much between them all. It's just about possible that De Gea had a uniquely challenging set of shots to save but very unlikely that this difference will be significant over the course of an entire season.
I think it's a hard one to gauge. His weakness has always been aerial balls and I think it will be an issue throughout his career. He's much much better now than he was but it'll never be something he's comfortable with. Of course in Spain it won't matter as much.
I'd disagree with this because if overall the shots DDG faced weren't more challenging then why was it such a huge discussion? I can see your point and for the other top keepers I agree but DDG stands out here. Our defence made more mistakes that led to shots at goal than pretty much every team. But it also conceded the least goals from these chances. If your defence is making mistakes then it's likely the chances your keeper faces will be on better areas for the strikers.
He was definitely weak under high balls in his first few seasons but I noticed a huge improvement last season. I certainly don't think he is so much worse than all the other keepers on that list to completely negate the big reduction in number of catches/punches per game compared to the others. Close the gap slightly, maybe.
Well that's the point I'm making. Once a narrative gets established, people cling to it long past the point where it's no longer true. Last season, there was a narrative established earl on that we couldn't defend for shit and De Gea was single-handedly stopping us slumping to mid-table. Now we're seeing stats that (after the early season wobble) we had the meanest defence in the league, with our keeper facing comparable shots on goal to all the other top teams and punching/catching a lot fewer balls/game. To me, that means we need to re-think the narrative. Perhaps De Gea was better protected than our defence has been given credit for?
I mean, don't get me wrong, he did make the highest number of saves/game of any top four keeper, so he definitely could have been protected better but those stats do imply that he was nowhere near as exposed as people seem to think.
No,was the diamond. Blind at defensive mid with early season Herrera and Di maria as the midfielders, with Rooney, rvp and falcao was always going to be a bit short on the defensive side.
You make some great points mate. And yes I would agree that maybe our defence was as bad at we were made to believe. However no GK saved his team in my opinion as much as DDG saved ours. No keeper made the same number of truly world class saves. And to me that's the big difference and why DDG is the best in the league.
Imagine this season we continue to look a lot better defensively... And DDG gets back in the right frame of mind! I'm not sure we'd concede a single goal!
I think the best thing we can do is have another 23 man squad trained and frozen in a cryogenic chamber just case all the main 23 man squad get injured, all we have to do is hit defrost.
Btw, what's wrong with McNair?
You make some great points mate. And yes I would agree that maybe our defence was as bad at we were made to believe. However no GK saved his team in my opinion as much as DDG saved ours. No keeper made the same number of truly world class saves. And to me that's the big difference and why DDG is the best in the league.
Imagine this season we continue to look a lot better defensively... And DDG gets back in the right frame of mind! I'm not sure we'd concede a single goal!
It's a nice thought alright
The stats are good but we'll be put to the test with the Champions League I think.
I don't think we're strong enough and sure enough to cope with the best teams there that are able to pull our defenders around.
We aren't far off though.
I don't think we're strong enough and sure enough to cope with the best teams there that are able to pull our defenders around.
We aren't far off though.
Yes I know
Didn't get the stat you are trying to highlight there? That link seems to be wrong.
Click on shots. for 2014/2015.
Edit: We concede the least amount of shots per game, but we have the highest shot on targets percentage and the 4th goals per shots against percentage.
So what I understand is that we don't concede much opportunities, but we concede big opportunities, so while De Gea doesn't have much to do, he has important save to make.
Last edited:
Sssssssh apogee, you're doing it wrong
I respect Nevilles opinion but I also know hes a pundit and his opinion will change next week. The reality is that our defence played well against two average teams and to be honest its what you would expect. The midfield were genuinely threatened by Bacuna for part of that game and Villa had plenty of chances to get to the byline and get the ball in the box where better teams would have punished us.
Great start but theres a long long way to go and better teams than Villa and Spurs.
Plus the stat Blind v Kompany. feckin hell, Id take Kompany into the team every day over Blind. Crazy use of statistics.
99% of stats are bullshit, the other 35% are lies.
Great start but theres a long long way to go and better teams than Villa and Spurs.
Plus the stat Blind v Kompany. feckin hell, Id take Kompany into the team every day over Blind. Crazy use of statistics.
99% of stats are bullshit, the other 35% are lies.
Were they? I thought for half an hour Gana was their best player and then like villa he faded! And ultimately the midfield did just enough so that he never really threatened.
The one moment I thought he really got away was when he did a lovely Cruyff turn on the edge of our box and tried to thread a pass through which Smalling intercepted. Other than that I really didn't think they threatened?