Defending

[Rom2013 446]

No team is going to remain compact every game, all game. You found one example from the start of the season where they had some defensive issues and weren't parking the bus (which was the criteria)? It's amazing that you have to look so far back to see such issues with Atletico while you could just look at any single one of our games. You will also find gaps in the game between Atletico and Real, 7 Jan 2015? I'd like to see that. I think you heavily overrate our defence as it is definitely not one of the best in the world.

It were the first 3 highlights I saw. Atletico de Madrid-Real Madrid, Barcelona-Real Madrid and Atletico-Celta. As you can imagine I don't see everygame of Atletico. In the highlights of the game between Real and Atletico there are dangerrous situations but nothing too worrying, I would need to see the all game to find it.

Anyway they conceded 19 goals (the same amount we conceded but we played one more game), many of them will be because of organization problems. They have the 6th best defensive record in La Liga, we have the 2nd best in the Premier League. They defend well, in my opnion better than us... but they are far from perfect or a great example.

It's not that hard to put Turan and Torres Griemzman, our Willian or Oscar... go tell that to Cesc, Cristiano, Hazard, Messi, SIlva, Toure and other super stars. I'm all the "stars" we have, the team balanced to attack almost every time and the lack of quality we have in defense we do it well. And for me yes we have oneof the best organizations.

[dee25 1,044]

That compactness though. Second pic is from when we were actually parking the bus and had 10 behind the ball lol.

One of the biggest factors responsible for our poor defending IMO is our disjointed pressing, which has been a problem since Jose's return - I remember us using it in the 2-0 defeat to City last year. Players often do not press in tandem, apparently having no clearly defined pressing triggers. When we do press the whole team doesn't shift across (or up) the pitch very well to accomodate for the press (second pic) and this makes it local pressing only which is much easier for the opposition to overcome. Our defensive transitions once the press is overcome also tends to be rather poor as we don't get enough men behind the ball quickly enough. Disjointed pressing ultimately leaves big gaps for the rest of the players to cover and for the opposition to exploit (first pic), leaving us very vulnerable. It should be noted that against City this season we decided not to press at all which meant we had no attacking threat and were thus pinned back into our box and fortunate not to concede before we did. Improved pressing is the answer rather than not pressing.

Definitely, our pressing is disjointed at times and easily bypassed. I think the problem though is more done to personnel than tactics. A big part of pressing effectively is dependant on defenders being able to engage the opponent further upfield. In that still image from the spurs game you posted, the defensive line should push up to close up the gap. If they do that the space in midfield would be smaller and it would then be easier to recover the ball. Pressing is about minimizing space but it's hard to do that against good opposition when the centre backs are slow.

Speaking about defending, saw this floating around...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWgXoDWxh3M&feature=youtu.be

How can the team press effectively, when you have defenders backing off and backing off and backing off? That's the opposite of pressing and it also makes the job of the holding midfielder a lot more difficult because each time a defender backs off the space grows. It sounds so simplistic, but if you put in a quick and mobile centre back in that defensive line, our pressing will improve significantly.

[The Chels 2,502]

It were the forst 3 highlights I saw. Atletico de Madrid-Real Madrid, Barcelona-Real Madrid and Atletico-Celta. As you can imagine I don't see everygame of Atletico. In the highlights of the game between Real and Atletico there are dangerrous situations but nothing too worrying, I would need to see the all game to find it.

Anyway they conceded 19 goals (the same amount we conceded but we played one more game), many of them will be because of organization problems. They have the 6th best defensive record in La Liga, we have the 2nd best in the Premier League. They defend well, in my opnion better than us... but they are far from perfect or a great example.

It's not that hard to put Turan and Torres Griemzman, our Willian or Oscar... go tell that to Cesc, Cristiano, Hazard, Messi, SIlva, Toure and other super stars. I'm all the "stars" we have, the team balanced to attack almost every time and the lack of quality we have in defense we do it well. And for me yes we have oneof the best organizations.

5 of the 6 teams who have a better defensive record than Atletico have played 1-2 games fewer so that statistic is somewhat misleading. Atleti have also conceded the second fewest shots on goal in the league after Barcelona (8.1) which suggests that teams tend to be clinical against them in front of goal. Personally I prefer our approach against the smaller teams to Atletico's because we tend to play better football. Against the big teams, however, both teams want to do so the same thing - have less possession, defend well and score on the counter attack. They have to play against Real and Barca remember and are often very successful against them: whereas they beat Real Madrid 1-0 away in the league, we drew to an awful United side 1-1. And it's not just the results which are in their favour, their performances are also generally a lot more convincing because they don't have the issues of pressing and compactness that we tend to have and their attacking play tends to be a lot better too.

Atleti are definitely the best example of a brilliant defensive (but balanced) side for the big games (and away games) which is why I see them going very far in the CL.

Definitely, our pressing is disjointed at times and easily bypassed. I think the problem though is more done to personnel than tactics. A big part of pressing effectively is dependant on defenders being able to engage the opponent further upfield. In that still image from the spurs game you posted, the defensive line should push up to close up the gap. If they do that the space in midfield would be smaller and it would then be easier to recover the ball. Pressing is about minimizing space but it's hard to do that against good opposition when the centre backs are slow. Speaking about defending, saw this floating around... How can the team press effectively, when you have defenders backing off and backing off and backing off? That's the opposite of pressing and it also makes the job of the holding midfielder a lot more difficult because each time a defender backs off the space grows. It sounds so simplistic, but if you put in a quick and mobile centre back in that defensive line, our pressing will improve significantly.

Haha wow Cahill's defending and Ivanovic's lack thereof is comical. I agree that having more mobile defenders would certainly help our pressing but not entirely. It wouldn't compensate for the problems we have upfront where for example Costa sometimes presses on his own and has to shout frustratedly at the other players to press with him since they don't seem to know what the pressing triggers are. Also our press ends up being easily bypassed far too often (due it to being not very aggressive and very local) with slow defensive transitions following and again that's not something more mobile CBs would necessarily improve. Interestingly Mourinho often used a broken press at Real Madrid too especially against Barca and they had very mobile defenders so I guess it his style. Though I have not seen it applied very well here in many games at all and when I compare it to Atletico's collective pressing system I just cannot see the advantages.

[lucio 5,391]

with cahill , you have to park the bus, or the defence will simply suck. which is why he has no business in this team. playing zouma/ivanovic instead... not sure which one. filipe and apzilicueta have to be our fullbacks.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

The high pressing midfield and defense that backs off creates quite big gap in midfield I guess. And it doesnt help that we dont have pacy powerful runner in pivot. While Matic and Cesc works most time, if they get beaten by pacy player, no one will catch him. Thats why Yaya is so important in city, he adds power and pace to their midfield. Or Essien back in time for us.

Real under Mou with Xabi Alonso and Modric/Khedira had same problems too. They got exposed in middle many times. Yet under Ancelotti, their defense and Alonso become more responsive and proactive

Think this got to do with Jose setup and/or having wrong players in defense.