I did think he means you. Was some knob jock who came on here tossing off about **** all. Can't remember his name. He was that memorable!
I don't think our defence is the best either. Whether a defence is good is measured by how many goals are conceded in a season or how many clean sheets or shut outs they've had. By that measure we have certainly one of the best in the league. The GK is part of the defence. It would be nonsensical to say for example that the GK is making lots of errors or that we are conceding loads but our defence is great. And I didn't mean that defence against Arsenal specifically, I meant our defence squad in general with the likes of Bailly and Jones coming back. If we have lots of clean sheets, fewest goals against, surely the defence is one of the better ones in the league? . Everything is relative. So if ours is not that good, which teams have the best defences? Serious question.
This is the exact logic that I think people are missing. We keep looking at individual players rather than the organization of the team as a unit. That is what makes our defence exceptionally strong. Not just Bailly, Jones or Valencia. It is the connection between the defence and midfield. Matic and Pogba, for example, play massive role in keeping the job of the defenders simple enough. The amount of blocked shots by the team was equally exceptional to De Gea's saves. Arsenal were kept to play from outside of the box and had limited clear cut chances. The strength of our defence is in our discipline. As for the absolutely exceptional De Gea, there have been many games this season whereby De Gea had nothing to do all game because of the strength of the unit in front of him. But whenever called upon, the man rarely lets us down. That is the mark of a great defensive unit. Lastly, hugging possession play; I would give Arsenal 85% possession all day and take that performance and win against them. I never fault a come coming to OT to defend. That is their prerogative. It is entirely up to us to find the guile to unlock such defence. Like I said before, we could have easily gone up yesterday and score more as required based on the predictable nature of Arsenal's play.
Didn't realise I hadn't finished that post to Cini65. Might have been AW not sure, think it was on the transfer thread. Maybe I'm imagining things. My bad.
I wouldnt go that far But in a league where defending is not a strong point... in the land of the blind the one eyed is king ...or something like that. Ive got to say that Wenger boasting that Arsenal played exceptionally well with 33 shots on goal etc. is a bit OTT. United only played like that because they were defending a 2-0 lead. And United were always more likely to score from one of their counters. Yes, they had lots of shots but then many of those were from longer ranges and even though they were good ones a GK of DG's calibre should stop them. Possession of 75% for arsenal was to be expected. They had to hold the ball and pass it around to get an opening. United with <30% of the ball and fewer shots deserved to win. More clinical and fewer errors I hope we can put whatever we learnt for the City match to good use. In a way I hope if we were going to concede we do so early, because like all their recent matches have shown City will let you score especially from set pieces. And going behind will mean JM will have no choice than to attack. And our front line has to be as clinical as they have been at the Emirates.