It's far easier to stop the good teams high up but the problem McCarthy and Gana have is that our defense doesn't move up so when they press high it leaves a massive gap where the number 10s love to play and Spurs have 3 of them.Mate honest to god teams have been able to do that to us with relative ease this season regardless of how many DM's have been on the pitch.
Spurs was a glaring example - McCarthy & Gana could barely even get close to Dembele, Alli & Eriksen all game.. and I even advocated that selection before kick off!
Our problems when defending are all down to having a poor defense that can only play deep. Against Liverpool it worked (to a degree) because they had a bit of an off day without Coutinho.