Knee-jerking about our defence

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billycopper

Player Valuation: £40m
Ten goals conceded in three games isn't a stat to be proud of but there are mitigating factors.
  • The two goals against Leicester and the first against Arsenal were because we gave the opposition far too much space. Even Arsenal's equaliser was because we didn't close Monreal down quickly enough and Distin didn't get goal-side of Giroud.
  • For some unknown reason we tried to play offside against Chelsea and we allowed them to race into a two goal lead. That set the tone of the game. The decisive third goal was unfortunate. After that we went chasing the game and left ourselves wide open at the back.
  • Even so, Chelsea were clinical. They scored 6 goals from only 8 shots on target.
  • We had a three game spell early last season where we conceded 7 goals in 3 games against West Ham, Newcastle and City. Is this that much worse?
  • Traditionally it takes us well over a month to find our best defensive form.
  • Moyes was beaten 4-1 at home by West Brom, 6-1 at home to Arsenal (as well as two other 4-1 home defeats by the Gunners), 7-0 at the Emirates, 5-1 away at City and 6-2 away at Newcastle but none of those losses sparked a crisis.
  • I'd be more concerned if we weren't scoring goals, but we've netted 7 times in 3 matches including three goals against last season's best defence.
  • Jagielka has been short of his best form but collectively we haven't been good enough. Replacing him (or anybody else) wouldn't suddenly shore up our defence. Roberto is right that we need to get back to basics.
 

our defence was shocking right through pre-season, and we have continued it, would drop either jags or distin for a few games see how we do
 

You can't make excuses they are professionals. We have no choice but to stick with them now so let's hope they get out off this bad form
 
Even putting aside the numbers, visually it's apparent that Distin is clearly half a step slower than he has been in the past. Granted he's still faster than most centre backs in the league, but so much of his game was dependent on using his pace to recover. Look at Costa's goal after Besic's abysmal back-heel, the Distin of last season would have comfortably taken the ball and cleared it because he would have caught up to Costa sooner. Same with the equalizer against Arsenal, Giroud never would have won that header because the Distin of last year would have been first to it 10 out of 10 times.

And Jagielka, he's always been prone to wild errors but they usually don't cost us because Distin / Howard are able to sweep it up. Jagielka has always been a bit of a risky player, I don't think he's a problem in the same way that Distin may be, but he's certainly in a patch of bad form and Distin's decline is highlighting it.

I'm not saying this is an absolute crisis, but it's certainly not a good situation. When our defenders are out of form, it's nice to have other options to bring in. We don't have those options so the players don't have that extra bit of drive to do better.
 
Sounds like Roberto could be tempted to knee-jerk as well:

“One aspect that is very important is to have a competitive edge with your team and your selection. If we keep conceding goals like that then the competition for places needs to be open and allow football to make those decisions. We have very good centre-halves that at the moment are not playing, we’ve got two or three players per position and that is going to accelerate the competition for places. But we have a lot of games coming up and it is that competition we need to see how the players react and perform. Nobody is guaranteed their place in the team and the aspect of a good team is to have options and competition for places. This will be important.”
 

toffeestillidie said:
Even putting aside the numbers, visually it's apparent that Distin is clearly half a step slower than he has been in the past. Granted he's still faster than most centre backs in the league, but so much of his game was dependent on using his pace to recover. Look at Costa's goal after Besic's abysmal back-heel, the Distin of last season would have comfortably taken the ball and cleared it because he would have caught up to Costa sooner. Same with the equalizer against Arsenal, Giroud never would have won that header because the Distin of last year would have been first to it 10 out of 10 times.

And Jagielka, he's always been prone to wild errors but they usually don't cost us because Distin / Howard are able to sweep it up. Jagielka has always been a bit of a risky player, I don't think he's a problem in the same way that Distin may be, but he's certainly in a patch of bad form and Distin's decline is highlighting it.

I'm not saying this is an absolute crisis, but it's certainly not a good situation. When our defenders are out of form, it's nice to have other options to bring in. We don't have those options so the players don't have that extra bit of drive to do better.
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Distin always worries me. He dithers on the ball and tries dribbling his way out of trouble. He popped up at left back quite often on Saturday and left a big hole in the centre for Chelsea to exploit. Both Sylvain and Jags are often guilty of being too relaxed. Stones is pretty laid back too. They need to start concentrating and seeing out danger.

Maybe they have too much confidence in Howard after his exploits at the World Cup? I'm sure they'll get it right before too long.
 

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