- Aug 31, 2012
- 17,034
- 34,780
I think it's still a bit early to say whether the defensive numbers we're seeing (goals and XG conceded) are indicative of a positive trend or just natural deviation from the mean. I think we will have a better idea over the next 2-3 games as to how we are defending.Lots of talk about us conceding too many goals, yet only three teams in the league have conceded fewer (Liverpool, Arsenal & Newcastle). Before last weekend, only Liverpool had conceded fewer goals than us.
Also still lots of talk about us being too vlunerable on set-pieces, but I believe we've only conceded 1 goal from a set-piece this season.
In my opinion, the most worrying thing about us defensively is that Romero (supposedly an elite defender) has been directly at fault for about 50% of our goals conceded. Had he not switched off for multiple goals, we'd have barely conceded a goal and would be fair higher up the table...without Ange being any less gung ho.
There have been several games when we didn't take our chances / couldn't create enough, which clearly isn't a result of being too gung ho. Aside from that, individual mistakes have led to goals at unfortunate moments (mostly Romero), and we've had a few poor 15-20 minute spells (e.g. against Brighton & Leicester), but have otherwise been playing well.