There was no free run. They were easy chances for a defender at that level to deal with. If you’re expecting a side like Real Madrid to never get into a situation when our defenders have to perform basic defensive actions then you’re living in cloud cuckoo land. Even when we were winning it and recording over 90 points in the league the likes of VvD and Gomez were still having to deal with high balls over the top and cut out balls to attackers. We are never going to be able to stop everything especially against Real Madrid even when we are at our best, which we clearly aren’t right now. You’re asking for the impossible and if we could deliver it we wouldn’t even need Phillips on the pitch anyway and could play with an extra attacker. They really weren’t that great an opportunity for Real. We just didn’t deal with them.
I’m done discussing this to be honest. There’s zero point in taking it forward when you will never acknowledge that the problem was that our wider performance as a team rather than the individual.
Yes we were out played in every departement in the 1st half. Particularly in midfield. Surely it must be clear that if your midfield is over run an inexperienced makeshift defense is going to struggle and get caught out. Kieta and Gini were appalling and Fabs was all over the place doing not much at all depite his effort. It was sad to see.
It is a team game ultimately based on individual performance and individuals at the pointy end of the outcome bear the lions share of the responsibility when it goes tits up. Let’s use an example like this; Salah loses the ball cheaply at the other box, Fabinho then gets a runner by pass him, Kabak has a 2 on 1 to defend resulting in a clear run on goal and the attacker completely fluffs his shot that Alisson then kicks straight to the other attacker who slots home. Who are we blaming here? You can pick out the play up field but Alisson had the goalkeeping to do and fluffed it resulting in a goal, not the fact that Salah lost it cheaply and Fabinho missed a runner. You can’t always stop the attacking players getting into a good position, it’s going to happen, it’s just the way football is. That’s why you have defenders to defend and keepers to make the saves.
Defending a poor piece of defending is not helping and making the discussion binary where it’s really not. Everyone knows Nat is limited, nobody is bashing him in that we understand he’s not at our level but doing the best he can but at the same time it’s really okay to point out that he made a hash of it without it being viewed as over critical. All the Phillips love ins that have been taking place really haven’t helped as it’s created a sort of siege mentality where any criticism is viewed as over the top.
I actually think that you’re both right on this. Nat should have done better, but the midfield should have done a lot more to prevent that ball in the first place.
You don’t let a player like Kroos put his foot on the ball and pick his passes. That wouldn’t be the first time this season we’ve let an opposition midfielder completely run a game (The 7-2 comes to mind).
But when that ball is played, a better defender has anticipated it and is already dropping back to cover.
Maybe it’s a bit of the midfield, as especially Keita who hasn’t played with the new defenders still being in ‘Virg will sort it’ mode?
You’re the bigger man and you’ve done the forum a favour by withdrawing from this discussion. I am sure now everyone can agree that Nat Phillips was personally responsible for our defeat to Real Madrid and culpable for all three goals. For example, for the second he should have anticipated that Trent would head it straight into the path of a unmarked Madrid player 10 yards from our goal. Trent’s always looking to boost his assist stats.
This is actually pretty much what I’m getting at. There were other mistakes that lead to that first goal and the others too, and yet the focus is on Phillips. My point is, it shouldn’t be.
Philips can only be blamed for two of the goals.
Not in my book. Not 100%.
Is he at fault? Yes. Was he wholly responsible? Not a chance.
To my mind the way we played the other night we could have had 4 VvD’s in the back 4 and still lost. We were that poor as a team, Real would have found a way.
That is really overegging it. One VVD and Real do not score goals 1 and 3.
Agree with the Benzema, Phillips covered ho movement and Trent should have come inside or the alternative as you said Kabak should have been aware of Benzema’s position. Good communication could have easily solved this from all 3 players and players need to adjust their positions according to the opposition and also their own players positions
VVD played against Villa with the same midfield in front of him and no pressure on the CM’s and conceded 7
How can a defender be blamed for a shot going through his legs, for me i had more blame on Fab for not picking up or being aware of Modric’s position, but alas Fab isn’t an easy or popular target/scapegoat
I have heard this line trotted out time and again as if to make it seem that well if that can happen with VVD then well he won’t have made a difference anywhere else. It’s a lazy comparison that has been used to excuse poor defensive performance and it really gets on my nuts. That game was a once off, Villa had deflected goals go in left right and centre and a competent ref would have given us more than we got. It happened, it is what it is and is unlikely to happen again. Using that example every time defensive lapses are brought up is really not helping the debate and once again leads it to becoming a binary argument. VVD, or any decent CB at a level approaching ours, would have cut those out Villa winning 7-2 or not.
Phillips could and should have done better but he is limited and doing the best he can so good on him for trying. What the fuck is wrong with simply admitting that instead of a whole tranche of posts trying to deflect it. Fuck me.
But my point is we were so poor it was only a matter of time that they score one way or another. Real might be old but they are not stupid. VvD on his own doesn’t stop Real attacking the right channel does it?
VvD didn’t stop Aston Villa scoring 7 when we were shite in that game either did he?
And this is my point, blaming Phillips for us losing the other night is just crazy when there were at least 7 or 8 others on the pitch that were equally as bad. Mane in particular had an absolute shocker but no one is blaming him are they? Perhaps he should have been pressing Kroos?
In brief, my thoughts on the first goal are as follows and can be extended to the others as well:
a) One there were a number of errors in the lead up to Phillips being caught with a runner behind him. These include, and I’m sure there are more:
i) Completely disorganised shape up front that allowed Kroos to drop deep and basically get half an hour on the ball
ii) Huge gap between TAA and Phillips
iii) Clear lack of communication in pulling Phillips back to close that gap. That should have been TAA.
iv) TAA left isolated in between Vinicius and whoever Real had on the far touchline.
v) No LFC midfielder visible in that channel.
After that credit goes to Real I feel. They’ve pulled our defensive shape open, negated any press and then exploited the space with a run from a slightly deeper position. Could a different defender done better, quite possibly (unless it’s Lovren, that said Gomez has been un done by the odd ball like that as well) but it appears that people want to over look everything that was wrong before Phillips was exposed.
Personally I’d prefer to highlight everything that was wrong so we can avoid that same scenario again. Just throwing your arms up in the air and saying Phillips isn’t good enough solves nothing. It fails to address the simple premise that Madrid pulled us open with ease. I’m sorry but the simplicity in which they did that really bugs me, far more than Phillips inability to deal with the scenario after the ball was played.
Er, no. I brought up Gomez as that is exactly how he was caught out in the past and got slaughtered for it even when there was a covering defender and the keeper then got caught out at his near post but it was all Joe’s fault then… The standards used to defend a really poor piece of defending is staggering, including a once off game that Virgil played in that is unlikely ever to repeat itself.
At the end of the day, football is a game where individuals make a difference and it is impossible to always stop a team getting into good positions. It is simply the nature of the game. Teams will get into good positions, they will get chances and then the onus is on the defender and then the goalkeeper to make the difference. Otherwise they might as well just hold their hands up and say, ‘fuck you Gini, you cunt. You didn’t close the fucker down so fuck off’
Whatever. The level of delusion is staggering. Carry on ignoring everything else that was wrong with all the goals we conceded the other night and see how far we get. The comparison with VvD is valid because the best defender in the world was still not able to stop the opposition scoring when the rest of the team were shite. He was unable to prevent shots on goal.
I’ve just gone back and watched them again and they are honestly shocking on a number of levels before the ball gets even close to Phillips. But lets just blame Phillips, it’s easier.
I reckon we got off lghtly only conceding 2 in the 1st half and that had a lot to do with Phillips and Kabak working hard. At some points they looked like our only players in the game. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with pointing out mistakes/errors they made but there needs to be context and here the context is they were left open to abuse from Real Madrid. I was surprised they hung on as long as they did.
When Real did score my frustration was with our midfield which was letting Real run riot!
That is a BS comparison, 3 of the Villa goals were deflected and 2 howlers from Adrian. On a normal day and with Becker in goal, it would have been 2-2 at its worse.
Always blame Adrian! 