Attack, the best form of defence.

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kevdotbadger

Player Valuation: £2.5m
After hearing about how we've got 8 cleansheets from our first 15 games under RM I was astonished. So, I decided to go back through DM's records. Considering he was always considered a "defence first" coach, he failed to reach 8 / 15 clean sheets in the first 15 games. These figures might be slightly incorrect (due to the bordum of digging through stats, so if anyone fancy checking them that'll be great). But here they are:

2002 - 7
2003 - 7
2004 - 7
2005 - 5
2006 - 4
2007 - 3
2008 - 3
2009 - 2
2010 - 4
2011 - 2
2012 - 2

So, do we all agree that RM's attacking threat is certainly helping our defence?
 

The way RM plays it, we are very balanced at the min, we have lukaku and the 3 lads behind him breaking fast but we also have a pretty solid base with Jimmy and Barry holding and Jags/Distin behind them.
 

Have always thought this.

If you focus on Defending then all you do is spread anxiousness throughout the team and burden your defenders with anxiety; hence they are likely to make silly errors that result in goals anyway.

Don't Arsenal have the best defensive record this season?

There are times during a match that you are under the cosh and have to defend, but that should't be your primary instinct.
 

Under Moyes we had only scored more goals twice at this stage of the season (12/13 we had scored 25 after 15 games & 07/08 we had scored 26 after 15 games).

As far as defence goes, our current record of 14 conceded was bettered only once by Moyes at this stage of the season in 04/05 where we had conceded 12 after 15 games
 
toffeeblue9 said:
Under Moyes we had only scored more goals twice at this stage of the season (12/13 we had scored 25 after 15 games & 07/08 we had scored 26 after 15 games).

As far as defence goes, our current record of 14 conceded was bettered only once by Moyes at this stage of the season in 04/05 where we had conceded 12 after 15 games
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Yep but we always started slowly, its after christmas when we would pick up most of our points, normally though clean sheets. Not convinced we are better in defense to be honest. We look a lot shakier at that end to me..
 
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For me the reason is Gareth Barry the lads pure class controls everything he's constantly talking to the back 4 watch him on sat he's constantly barking out instructions it's deffo no coincidence the only game we've lost was city a game he couldn't play in I think he could turn out to be martinez best signing
 
Lewy3284 said:
For me the reason is Gareth Barry the lads pure class controls everything he's constantly talking to the back 4 watch him on sat he's constantly barking out instructions it's deffo no coincidence the only game we've lost was city a game he couldn't play in I think he could turn out to be martinez best signing
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Can't argue with that though, he's been absolutely superb for us, in fact all 3 loans and McCarthy have been top notch.
 
Ihaters said:
Yep but we always started slowly, its after christmas when we would pick up most of our points, normally though clean sheets. Don't think we are better in defense to be honest.
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Not always, but generally speaking you're right.


02/03 - 3rd place. 29 points
03/04 - 17th place - 14 points
04/05 - 3rd place - 30 points
05/06 - 14th place - 17 points
06/07 - 9th place - 21 points
07/08 - 9th place - 24 points
08/09 - 7th place - 22 points
09/10 - 15th place - 16 points
10/11 - 16th place - 16 points
11/12 - 11th place - 17 points
12/13 - 6th place - 23 points
 

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