Alot has been made about our defence being toss and how we need samba cahill mertesaker baines santos jagielka to sort it out first of all if these defenders are so good and can cure our problems why do they play for teams lower than us ie teams that get beat alot such good defenders should protect that no? The main problem with our defence is our high line as a defender you want to get your tackle/block in infront of you or jockey with the attacker and force him into a bad attacking position if your at the half way line neither of these things can be done the obvious and arsenals plight the ball over the top/through ball which straight away puts you the defender on the back foot not only has your ability to tackle/block been denied your also now in a foot race with the generally faster attacker going the wrong way ( towards your goal) again it stops you from being able to force your attacker into a bad position hes running alongside/infront of you you cant exactly block him or force him anywhere but towards your goal The same with the ball on the floor you force your attacker out wide he jus sprints down the wing and has half a pitch to get behind you my solution? Obviously drop back stay within say 10/15 yards of our own area this serverly lessens the ball over the top etc straight away and means positioning and knowledge can help solve it that bit more with less space to protect 2. Stop the fullbacks going up so far so much limit them as a rule to say 15/20 yards from the opponants box unless obviously the situation requires more and as we dnt need to cross they can do everything from where they are 3. A DM! A DEFENSIVE midfielder not a defensive attacking midfielder which we seem to have currently again limit him to 30 odd yards from the opponents box maximum generally going to be slower than fbs and in a more dangerous area so needs less space to recover for the break so basically when fully attacking wed have 2 defenders 20/30 yards from the keeper a dm and both fullbacks round about the halfway line to middle of the other half and everyone else in and around their area also my choice for players which nobody will agree with.... Szneznky sagna metesaker koschielny santos frimpong koshielny would suit mertesaker perfectly 1 big strong tall clever defender to do the high balls etc and 1 smaller near perfect tackling sweeper kind of defender and a bigger stronger more defensive mid thankyou and goodnight!
You've hit the nail on the head with the high lines. It makes us susceptable to balls played over our heads, for opposing attackers to run on to.
If you watched the games, we rarely give up goals to balls played over the top. It is more the space between midfield and defence that causes the problem. It is when the defence chicken out and back off the high line set by the midfield that the ball is played past the DM screen and the backpeddling defence is overwhelmed. There are very few one on ones against our keeper for example. The defence plays the high line very well, but our DM screen is not dicsciplined enough and too often goes missing, allowing the opposition a free run at our back 4.
Toledo is right - we do not suffer from over the top - midfield allow a run through and catch our defence sleeping. We then give away fouls and concede goals from free-kicks near goal.
It's not just that slack marking in the box leaving people free to score on a regular basis. How was Welbeck allowed to get ahead of 3 defenders to score the weekend.
Djourou is a major headache in defence, cannot defend any set peices or arial threats despite his size, defend like a zombie. Metesacker won't be getting caught out anywhere near as much so that will saves us a fair few goals conceded.
