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No case for the defence

mattls

Stephane Dalmat
This season we've already let in 45 goals in the league, last season it was 51 in total and 46 the year before. I think right now defensively I've not seen a worse defensive unit since Martin Jol was in charge, there's just so many individual errors ok some of these guys are leaning but they don't seem to learn that fast, perhaps poch needs more time on the training pitch is one thing perhaps? I think also a lot of it is down to the fact we haven't replaced Sandro and modric one a great warrior and defensive midfielder and the other a fantastic passer and top player in possession I think until we get some really good midfielders in we will have the same probs. we really need to push the boat out and bring in schneiderlin or a yohan cabaye in the summer,Who's gonna boss games and take the pressure off a young defence
 
Since Jol? More like Ramos.

Totaly agree though, our defence sometimes makes no sense and is left wanting, something really needs to change.

As for pushing out the boat on a midefielder....I don't know, whilst there is no cover we have the fluidity that we badly missed for two years, it's called 'The Tottenham Way' :)
 
We need a defensive midfielder otherwise, as I've said elsewhere, we're pretty much playing with a 2 man defence as Rose & Walker are often playing up the field.
 
I'm one of those who wants to see us using a 3 man midfield, but I have to be honest and say that a lot can be said for the individual players in our current system not performing their roles.

Bentaleb performs his role of covering for Rose and Vertonghen well. He drops in when Vertonghen advances with the ball and covers the fullback area when Rose is caught upfield during a counter attack. Mason does not offer the same level of protection for Walker and Dier. He's a far more offensively minded player, which given his development we expect. He is very aggressive and is a key part of how we press.

As for the fullbacks; Rose has come along nicely this season. He is still too offensive for my liking and is sometimes too eager to bomb on before watching to see how play develops. His positioning at times can be wrong, but compared to last season he has come on leaps and bounds. Walker on the other hand seems to be having a poor patch where he is completely off his game. I said in the OMT that I think he's missing that senior CB inside of him talking him through a game to keep him positioned.

The CBs are stretched all over the place because of the system we play. Vertonghen and Dier are both having to cover the wide areas at times and again there seems little communication between them.
 
There's probably not one simple answer to this, but what we are seeing is that our cb's are time and time again getting exposed one on one. Like the last goal today for instance, completely avoidable, but there is no room for error. When Vertonghen failed to clear the ball, he was clean through. The errors our defenders are doing is very visible due to a high risk way of defending.

There's pretty much only two ways of fixing this. 1. Get better defenders who will make fewer mistakes, or 2. Give them more protection.
 
Officially we have the worst defensive record at home in the PL now. No team has conceded more goals at home(22) than us and Sunderland. Even the bottom 3 teams, Burnley, QPR and Leicester have conceded less goals than us at home. And we have conceded a total of 45 goals, home and away. Only Saudi Sportswashing Machine and the bottom 3 teams have conceded more goals in total.
 
Officially we have the worst defensive record at home in the PL now. No team has conceded more goals at home(22) than us and Sunderland. Even the bottom 3 teams, Burnley, QPR and Leicester have conceded less goals than us at home. And we have conceded a total of 45 goals, home and away. Only Saudi Sportswashing Machine and the bottom 3 teams have conceded more goals in total.
That's not a good stat to read. Obvious area to improve
 
Our defending from set pieces yesterday was dire. No organisation, free headers, Rose marking Huth??? We play such a high risk game that simple errors leads to 1 on 1's. Added to the fact we have too many who don't want to defend. The big worry for me is how much we have to improve given the fact that we would be destroyed by the top CL teams if we did qualify and the ease at which we lost to Utd and Chelsea recently was scary.
 
We need a defensive midfielder otherwise, as I've said elsewhere, we're pretty much playing with a 2 man defence as Rose & Walker are often playing up the field.

I don't agree. We play a high risk, high reward strategy. When the team defend from the front as a unit we look very good, when we don't, we don't. Our team lacks depth and I think that we are paying the price for that a little. We also have a very young squad which inevitably lead to bigger fluctuations in form. Adding a dedicated DM would mean a complete change in tactics and I do not think that our performances have been so bad this season to warrant abandoning Poch's preferred approach.
 
I don't agree. We play a high risk, high reward strategy. When the team defend from the front as a unit we look very good, when we don't, we don't. Our team lacks depth and I think that we are paying the price for that a little. We also have a very young squad which inevitably lead to bigger fluctuations in form. Adding a dedicated DM would mean a complete change in tactics and I do not think that our performances have been so bad this season to warrant abandoning Poch's preferred approach.

We consistently look defensively exposed. We can't be that weak if we are to challenge for top spots. If we are to fight for a top 4 spot, we need to be a lot tighter defensively. Unless our system can be tweaked to allow us to keep more clean sheets, then an overall change is needed in order to ensure that we don't ship quite as many goals we we have be conceding. We shouldn't need to score at least 2 goals+ to win games, sometimes 1 ought to be enough.
 
We've scored more goals then any club in the Premier League in 2015.

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We've scored more goals then any club in the Premier League in 2015.

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That stat has to be taken into account, we are being productive at the other end. It would be more of an issue if we wasn't scoring well. We haven't lost since November at home so I'm not overly concerned to be honest....
 
Our defending from set pieces yesterday was dire. No organisation, free headers, Rose marking Huth??? We play such a high risk game that simple errors leads to 1 on 1's. Added to the fact we have too many who don't want to defend. The big worry for me is how much we have to improve given the fact that we would be destroyed by the top CL teams if we did qualify and the ease at which we lost to Utd and Chelsea recently was scary.

We can't be expected to be organised at set piece after Lloris was injured. That must have been his job.

This was the basis of an actual excuse given here yesterday.
 
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