Azpilicueta, Rudiger, Zouma and Alonso should all play every game from now on ... we've had 4 games this season when those 4 have been starters and are yet to concede a goal ...

Tottenham (A) 2-0 ; Liverpool (H) 2-0 ; Everton (H) 4-0 ; Norwich (H) 1-0

I said this on the matchthread but it's equally applicable here.

Today shown exactly why we're buying a lot of attackers before we "fix our defense". I wouldn't have blamed the defense if this ended 1-1 even if one of them made an absolute howler, it would have been all on the attack.

Unless a bonafide WC safe bet CB option comes along then it can wait. Get a proper LB, competent keeper, play Zouma and Rudiger together and stick with them and i don't think things will look half as bad as they are currently, and that's before we mention Ziyech, Werner and (hopefully) Havertz will kill games like tonight and Arsenal at home off before the defense have a chance to self combust.

52 minutes ago, Argo said:

I said this on the matchthread but it's equally applicable here.

Today shown exactly why we're buying a lot of attackers before we "fix our defense". I wouldn't have blamed the defense if this ended 1-1 even if one of them made an absolute howler, it would have been all on the attack.

Unless a bonafide WC safe bet CB option comes along then it can wait. Get a proper LB, competent keeper, play Zouma and Rudiger together and stick with them and i don't think things will look half as bad as they are currently, and that's before we mention Ziyech, Werner and (hopefully) Havertz will kill games like tonight and Arsenal at home off before the defense have a chance to self combust.

Yes. 

Also helps when the team you are playing can't attack or defend crosses into a box. 

Seems like there are a quite a few decent options, and we allear to have very deep pockets. 

Gk

Oblak

Onana

Ter stegen

Cakir

Henderson

Pope

Rajkovic 

Donnarumma 

 

Left back

Chilwell

Tagliafico 

Telles

Grimaldo 

Gosens

 

Centre back

Rice

Gimenez 

Romagnoli 

Skriniar 

Upamecano 

Ake

Koulibaly 

Now we havent been linked to all of these players, but they all seem to be "available" to some degree, and if reports are true that we will spend big, surely we can fix the defence sufficiently with this pool of players to target. 

 

On 24/07/2020 at 15:00, big blue said:

Seems like there are a quite a few decent options, and we allear to have very deep pockets. 

Gk

Oblak

Onana

Ter stegen

Cakir

Henderson

Pope

Rajkovic 

Donnarumma 

 

Left back

Chilwell

Tagliafico 

Telles

Grimaldo 

Gosens

 

Centre back

Rice

Gimenez 

Romagnoli 

Skriniar 

Upamecano 

Ake

Koulibaly 

Now we havent been linked to all of these players, but they all seem to be "available" to some degree, and if reports are true that we will spend big, surely we can fix the defence sufficiently with this pool of players to target. 

 

In priority i feel GK is the position we most need improving and then CB. I actually would be happy with Alonso for LB. I see us getting Onana and Rice, would prefer Oblak and Koulibaly, i just dont see the club spending BIG money on players unlikely to have a good re-sell value.

Man Utd will never sell us Dean Henderson and I reckon he will be included in their squad next season to challenge De Gea.
I read that Kepa is willing to take a pay cut to go to Atletico so I reckon a swap deal for Oblak is most likely.

Chilwell is English so he counts towards the HG quota, although we might be good anyway next season but he just doesn't look all that great to me.

Declan Rice is a decent player but still a gamble since he isn't the finished article and will cost a bomb, he also has only filled in as a CB for a few games.
Ake is too short to be a CB for us, we already have problems defending set pieces but if the price is right we can use him as a midfielder if we sell Jorginho or Kante.

On 18/06/2020 at 14:43, RIP Mourinho said:

Sell Alonso to Newcastle if their takeover materialises and spend big on a top quality LB. If Lamps thinks that is Chillwell, so be it, although i'm not convinced. Emerson we either keep as a backup or move him on and use Maatsen/Azpi as backup.

Bring in a veteran CB to play alongside and mentor Tomori for a year. T.Silva will be available for a free this summer and then reassess the situation next summer when hopefully a new CB will have appeared and shown he's worth buying.

I think we have to keep Kepa for another season, possibly swap goalkeeping coach?

RB we're sorted for a decade.

Happy to have been proven wrong about chilwell and so glad we had the budget for Mendy to replace Kepa.

Bang on the money with Silva though, what a signing he's turned out to be.

3 hours ago, RIP Mourinho said:

Happy to have been proven wrong about chilwell and so glad we had the budget for Mendy to replace Kepa.

Bang on the money with Silva though, what a signing he's turned out to be.

It certainly looks different with those guys in there.  

Has any other thread turned around as much as this one? Really encouraging to see the defense come together. Still look a little disorganized without Silva, but the rest is doing very well. 

13 hours ago, PhilH930 said:

Has any other thread turned around as much as this one? Really encouraging to see the defense come together. Still look a little disorganized without Silva, but the rest is doing very well. 

Great work done by the scouting team, purchasing team. 

Anthony Barry made a big difference too. I honestly think our defence would still be pretty bad if it wasn't for him, obviously not as bad but certainly not as good as it is now.

I knew our problems last season were more personnel than structural but the improvement has been beyond even my expectations.

21 hours ago, PhilH930 said:

Has any other thread turned around as much as this one? Really encouraging to see the defense come together. Still look a little disorganized without Silva, but the rest is doing very well. 

Probably kepas but for the worse

Thread resurrection time ... this one had slipped all the way down to page 4 !

Giving it a bump, as I think our defence deserves some praise. We've now conceded 24 goals in our 24 PL games, which is the second meanest defence in the league behind Man City !

Since Tuchel came in, we have shipped one goal in 5 games, and that was an own goal ...

 

We are looking very solid now ... and recently even with the much maligned personnel from last year !

Good stuff 🙂

9 hours ago, Sexyfootball said:

Thread resurrection time ... this one had slipped all the way down to page 4 !

Giving it a bump, as I think our defence deserves some praise. We've now conceded 24 goals in our 24 PL games, which is the second meanest defence in the league behind Man City !

Since Tuchel came in, we have shipped one goal in 5 games, and that was an own goal ...

 

We are looking very solid now ... and recently even with the much maligned personnel from last year !

Good stuff 🙂

It helps when you go to 5 a the back and 2 defensive Midfielder, or 3 like we had last night. Its definitely the first thing a manager should look to do though, but our defence at he start of the season was much better than last season. Bringing in Silva had a huge impact on our defense.

1 hour ago, dkw said:

It helps when you go to 5 a the back and 2 defensive Midfielder, or 3 like we had last night. Its definitely the first thing a manager should look to do though, but our defence at he start of the season was much better than last season. Bringing in Silva had a huge impact on our defense.

As amazing as Silva's been Mendy's been the biggest difference in my opinion.

I honestly think Kepa would make even him nervous. It's why I'm not against another chance for any of last season defenders, even Christensen.

1 hour ago, dkw said:

It helps when you go to 5 a the back and 2 defensive Midfielder, or 3 like we had last night. Its definitely the first thing a manager should look to do though, but our defence at he start of the season was much better than last season. Bringing in Silva had a huge impact on our defense.

Two of those five are CHO (who to be fair has been putting a shift in at the back) and Alonso who seems to be anywhere but in a defensive position on the left...

8 minutes ago, Munkworth said:

Two of those five are CHO (who to be fair has been putting a shift in at the back) and Alonso who seems to be anywhere but in a defensive position on the left...

CHO is a funny one you look at the position maps from last night and he was pretty much playing as a right winger.

For me it's largely been about having a lot of very safe possession and keeping players behind the ball (which Lampard was often guilty of not doing). When we build up from the back we're always doing it with 5 players close to the ball and playing largely pretty safe. When we get higher up, we've always got at least 3 if not 4 behind the ball. Makes it harder to counter. Again we're very safe with the ball. Possession is prioritised over chances.

What I will say is that no team has had a proper go at us yet. I am interested to see how we go over the next few months against a higher class of opposition.

7 minutes ago, Spiller86 said:

What I will say is that no team has had a proper go at us yet. I am interested to see how we go over the next few months against a higher class of opposition.

But how many more teams doing little to nothing against us will it take for the narrative to shift to they ain't testing us to maybe we're actually quite good at this defending stuff....

1 minute ago, Argo said:

But how many more teams doing little to nothing against us will it take for the narrative to shift to they ain't testing us to maybe we're actually quite good at this defending stuff....

I see your point and I could also see that from the outside that this argument could be those who wanted Lampard to remain belittling Tuchel by saying we havent played anyone yet.

But the truth is, we've had a pretty easy run, including playing Spurs without their best player and talisman. 

Now I think we've tightened up by having more very safe possession and keeping more players behind the ball. This is strikingly similar to the approach under Sarri (albeit with a different formation). Our defence that season was pretty tight.

What I'm simply saying is that this approach will be tested more over coming weeks against Atleti, United and Everton and that we'll be in a better position to judge the effectiveness of our new approach then. No agendas just not jumping to conclusions.

1 hour ago, Spiller86 said:

What I will say is that no team has had a proper go at us yet. I am interested to see how we go over the next few months against a higher class of opposition.

Leeds will certainly be an interesting encounter... They're one of the few teams who go all out attack.

1 hour ago, Shweaves said:

Leeds will certainly be an interesting encounter... They're one of the few teams who go all out attack.

Yes I think that will be an interesting match.

2 hours ago, Spiller86 said:

including playing Spurs without their best player and talisman. 

Who has scored 6 in 16 matches against us.  I don't think that's a great return for a talismanic mouth-breather myself

To be honest I’m glad Kane didn’t play against us. He’d probably seriously injure Silva or any of our defenders doing his back trick.

42 minutes ago, dansubrosa said:

To be honest I’m glad Kane didn’t play against us. He’d probably seriously injure Silva or any of our defenders doing his back trick.

Ah that really f**ks me off, cant believe he gets away with it. Back into defender as they are jumping creating a potentially dangerous landing for them while flopping to the ground and screaming in pain.