Finney Is Back
Andy Thompson
I thought that second goal either showed how poor our defensive coaching is or how poor Dier is as a cental defender (perhaps a bit of both)....Yep
The runner ran off sissoko who was staring at someone else abs Hojdjberg tried W late block with Sanchez I think.
It's easy (but very wrong) to look at Sissoko as the main culprit because he was (at one point) the nearest to Gundogan but it actually absolves our chief culprit for the goal of any blame.
Sissoko is (rightly) covering the possibility of Sterling beating Sanchez on the inside and being able to get the shot away. Ndombele is actually looking directly at both Sterling, on the ball and Gundogan in space, and Ndombele is also in a deeper position than Gundogan so able to cover his run if he wants.... and seeing the chasm of space he was running into perhaps he should've done this... However even that would just be covering for some appalling defending by Eric Dier.
As the move develops Sanchez is actually doing a decent job with Sterling, Tanganga rightly pulls wider to track Foden as he makes a run in behind. When Tanganga does this it creates a HUGE chasm between Tangana and Dier. Dier is looking directly at this huge chasm and not actually marking anyone at this point. As soon as this gap opens up Dier should be moving across 3 or 4 yards and helping to cover this space. Tanganga probably moves a good 6 yards across in this sequence and Dier simply stays standing in exactly the same spot as Tanganga does this. It is absolute schoolboy defending. Any decent/decently coached centre back would've moved into this space and be perfectly positioned to be immediately goal side of Gundogan as the ball was slipped in. Unfortunately though Dier is a poor centre back. Most people will watch yesterday's game and think Dier did alright because they won't feel that he has made an individual mistake but it is his complete lack of awareness and terrible defensive positioning that consistently causes us trouble.