Therefore we cant say that song and our defence/goalkeeper are good. We overrate them in my opinion. It simply isn't possible for our defence, defensive midfielder and gk to all be class or we wouldn't concede so many goals. So, who isnt really that good? I dont rate Kol or Verm that much because they always seem wide open. Good centre backs dont make amazing recoveries and last ditch tackles like Kolsceilny does! They are in the positions to cut these off.
It's hardly that simple. Stats tell you one part of a story but it's not the whole picture. For a start, we had all our full backs injured at one point. So, we had start shifting CB's to cover. So that affected the defence in a major way. The infamous United game where we let in 8 was a horror show, and we had bloody Traore still playing for us at left back. Jenkinson at right back and Coquelin (first league game) as the defensive midfielder. Could not have got any worse. Vermaelen had a month or so out with an injury and Merts was just brought in and settling down. We have had a few runs, where the defence has looked good, and in both those spells we had a settled back four. Also, we do not defend as well as a unit, so that goes for the whole team. Our game is based on going forward and attacking so the defence will get left exposed at times. I think we need to find a better balance and a better holding player (M'Villa).
The facts say otherwise i'm afraid; we have conceded more goals than most teams in the top 8 this season 44 (only Newcastle have conceded more). We have also conceded more goals that most of our rivals for the last few seasons so there is more to this than injuries. We are short of at least 1 world class center back, maybe 2. The ones we have just don't cut it.
They are good. It's injuries and the style of play. If you take out the 8-2 loss which was down to horrible amounts of injuries, we've improved on last season... even with those injuries affecting more than that one game.
Quite amazing how some are now blaming the 8-2 on injuries, instead of the fact the Board& manager sold 3 of our best players (Cesc, Nasri and Clichy) without adequate replacements. To have any chance of winning the PL a team needs to concede less tha a goal a game, we have not managed this in quite a while, reason a poor defence.
I think you need to look at the amount of goals conceded with our first choice back four in place to get an accurate picture of how well they perform
Clichy was one of the few recent players to hold a League winners medal. As to which team i watch and why, that is a question i have often asked of myself this season, all i know is not so many years ago i was watching the Invincibles, now i seem to be watching the Incompetents (RVP excluded).
We are not consistent, and our tactics can be exploited in many cases. I've said this in another thread, but consider this: 18% of our goals conceded come from a single match! (the 8-2). Take out some of the games where we were a shambles as a team (attack and defense) and our stats aren't that bad. I don't think the issue is with individual players. (though this is a bad season for Vermaelen, he has made too many critical mistakes) If you look at the players and compare us to say Man Utd who still have a chance to win the title, bar Vidic (who wasn't there for them), I really rate both Kos and Verm higher than all of the rest of their CBs. It just comes down to us being more one dimensional compared to Man Utd, who aren't as easy to 'figure out' tactically.
You're inviting TheBear with his "we concede least when vermaelen is there, therefore he is defensive master race" stat again.
Well the OP was trying to claim that Kos, Verm and Chesney aren't good players because we've conceded so many goals, but surely you can only get a measure of how good those players are when they play together ?
We can get a better measure, sure, especially if we disregard the whole first 8 weeks... but whenever we've conceded most, the whole team under-performed. If your midfield is losing possession in critical areas, if your midfield isn't confident on the ball, they aren't pressing enough to keep the play on the opposition's end... then the whole team will suffer, and you are more likely to concede. When i think back to the games where we were the worst, our midfield looked lost, we weren't keeping the ball well and looked very fragile all around... and as I've mentioned the average stats are skewed from those type of 'fringe' games. So I don't think that is a good measure of the performance of our back four.
So, if the defense aren't any good, the midfield is crap, and we only have RVP up front, how the hell have we won a game this season, let alone ones against Spurs, Newcastle, Man City and Chelsea?
Except if you read what I wrote I didnt say this did I. I didnt say they arent good players Just that I dont rate them as much as others.
I think our CBs get pulled out of position too easily and we are far too offensive, we don't have the balance right. I don't think we have any steel in the centre of the park and we get cut apart too easily. I don't think we defend well as a team. Thats why we concede too many goals. I think our CBs are decent enough - if they had a proper defensive screen in front of them they wouldn't concede half the stupid goals they do
Well you are proving my point. If we are so good in every defensive position then why have we conceded so many goals?
