This is not helpful nor accurate and you are missing the point completely and dragging on a conversation way past the realms of debate into personal insult by way of insisting that anyone who expects a defender to bail out his team and do what is expected is delusional. That’s utter bullshit. Defenders are there to defend as that is the point of their place in the team first and foremost and if the team let’s people slip through then their job is to mop that up and if they aren’t doing that properly then it’s their fault. What part of that is so hard to get? It’s like a circus in here at times where perfection is expected from some players in order to turn a blind eye on others. I absolutely guarantee if that had been Gomez he’d be getting rockets left right and center.
Yeah, it’s not just Phillips who has been caught out. Same happened to Williams and the same happened to Gomez, who has had his fair share of awful games in the last 12 months, Villa being one of them. Matip, albeit with the caveat of not playing much, deals with certain situations so much better than those 3, as did Fabinho in most games (recent Chelsea game being the exception, although his first game back from injury).
My main gripe with Phillips isn’t even about him, it’s the constant fawning over mediocre performances. The expectations are so low that any bog standard game is greeted with MOTM shouts and if you disagree then it’s an agenda talking. Games like Fulham, for instance, where Rhys Williams was clearly the better of the two but was the more heavily criticised whilst Phillips was revered for an objectively bad performance. I find that a bit grating personally, especially as Rhys is 4 years younger too.
perhaps you should review the tone of your posts maybe??
Here is a screen shot moments before Kroos launches the ball.
I have questions over the following;
a) Jota is covering the pass from Kroos out wide to his left but there’s no pressure put on Kroos. Why? Look at Wijnaldums positon. Jota cant press hard because he has no back up. Are we playing a double pivot? This scenario is a good positon to press from in my book but we dont trigger it and our starting positions are all wrong.
b) look at Keita’s position. What use is that position to anyone?
c) if it’s not Keita’s position to help shield the channel between TAA and Phillips does that fall to Salah? Probably not but highlights the Keita issue more.
d) The gap between TAA and Phillips is clearly too wide. Phillips has been drawn to Benzema or maybe TAA is slightly too wide. Why has he not called Kabak onto Benzema? Why hasn’t TAA mentioned that he has 2 men to cover and huge gap?
I’ll say it it again. The goal was the sum of several errors, some of which are visible in the screen shot above. I therefore will not put all blame for that goal and our loss on Phillips. The third goal is just an embarrassment IMO, before it even gets near Phillips. The second is again an instance where we’ve let Kroos relax on the half way line with no pressure. Others may see it differently but from a coaching perspective, what do you look to address? Phillips or the shite defensive shape we’ve adopted here and the like as with the other goals.
I’ll leave this thread now. I’m done here for now. I’m not in the mood for arguments, too much stress in my life as it is. I honestly dont need it.
Looking at that all I can say is that isn’t a team that lacks confidence in their CBs as certain keep reiterating. 
You’ve said that twice now and its not really leaving any room for discussion now is it as you are coming across as your opinion is all that matters and how you see it is the end of topic. It really isn’t, You can’t really be having the entire team hold Phillips hand and give him nothing to do the whole game because that’s simply not the way the game works and I have been banging my head against a wall trying to say that.
Kroos is all of 10 yards outside his box, we have a relatively solid position covering all the short passing options he has, either to the right which Jota is closing, to the centre which is covered, to the left which Salah can close down or a short vertical pass which Wijnaldum can cover. Kroos literally has only two options which is to go back or to go long. You call that a lack of pressure and pressing on the ball, I call that a fairly decent set up giving the opposition just the one low percentage attacking option. Pressing cannot take place willy nilly and in itself is a highly tactical method in when to press and when to hold. Looking at that, pressing the ball with opposition players quite wide and also in between the lines would simply have been the wrong option; we did not have the players far enough forward to be effective in closing down nor in the numbers to do so without over committing and leaving us open. We gave the opposition just the one obvious viable attacking option to play that in theory should be Phillips strength so the team has to have confidence in the CB to deal with it and he didn’t.
Yet the 2 long options aren’t covered, yet all it requires is Fabs to be deeper.
It is obvious Nat is on Benzema, no idea if that’s the instruction but it would appear to be (even if I feel it’s the wrong way to go about ‘marking’ Benzema.
If we are forcing the long ball, which is a valid tactic, we are not set up in midfield to cover it. If Nat is instructed to mark Benzema, which seems the case and was often the case during the match, Kanak also needs to be closer to Nat imo.
I don’t think this is anyone’s position.
In the clip posted the distance to Nat and Kabak is fine, it’s the gap between Nat and Trent that has been exploited.
That depends on the system and tactics being deployed. Essentially yes the problem then is where and what Fabs and Kieta are doing. I see a 4213 if so Keita should be pressing their deep lying midfielder and Fabs should be covering between TAA and Nat as TAA can not be left covering 2 players that he is that are so far apart.
Of course TAA could come in closer to Nat but then the wing is left completely open.
Because of the positions of Fabs and Gini any longball leaves us 4 against 5 and that’s what happened. I’m not to bothered about Gini’s position perhaps could be better perhaps it’s good?
As for our tactics they do seem to be disfuntional particularly the role of Kieta. When you see that shot a 433 with both Gini and Keita coming back and Fabs protecting the CBs looks like a much better bet particularly as it’s a CL away match and a draw or sneeky win is the go to scenario. 4213 is just too cavalier imo.
In other words why is that gap between Nat and TAA there?
Kroos is far too deep to expect him to be pressured. He’s basically standing in the CB position.
The defensive line is far too high.
Not to mention they have 3 players between our lines, how I wish we could do that. Then again that’s our midfield allowing that. Niether Fabs nor Gini can see what they (the 3 RM players) are doing and Kieta is out of any play what so ever (and during all his time on the field).
No thanks, maybe it’s you that can’t see the wood for the tree’s. For us to play a high line we need pressure on the ball, without that it is too easy for the opposition midfielders to pick the pass. Against Madrid, 1st half Kroos had all the time in the World as he had no one pressuring him. But f@#k me some can’t see this.
No it’s not, they had more opportunities to score from through balls/balls over the top and as with the Madrid game most concede that our lack of pressure on their midfielders were the main problem, when playing a high line.
If he starts second leg the same will happen again and we will be out.
It’s a world class pass.
Gomez and VvD could have had a similar starting position. Before injuries they were pushing forward more than I would be comfortable with. However the difference is they typically have the pace to recover.
Lack of pressing and positioning not great. But I could see much better players than Phillips getting caught out.
I’m seeing the big picture quite clearly thanks, and no matter how much it gets broken down some people clearly have entrenched views that won’t be changed that has built over the past few weeks where any half decent performance by Nat has been jizzed all over culminating in a situation where a lot of mental gymnastics has gone on ranging from ‘but Villa’ to ‘but the pressing’ ‘to the rest of the team has to be blamed’ in a rather bizarre series of mental gymnastics to absolve a limited, but still well thought of player, of the blame. Right at the beginning of this it was said that it’s not getting on his back and he’s doing his best but the defending was shoddy and the Phillips brigade has jumped all over that to defend him to the absolute hilt when it was not really necessary.
As said above, it’s not even about Phillips anymore its just an entrenched point of view that because he’s limited and should be nowhere near our team he should be lauded for everything and cocooned from criticism. So you guys can carry on the love in and I will carry on being objective about it. I know when to call a spade a spade without being worried about hurting its feelings.
Imagine if this was Lovren there would be a proper meltdown. Don’t understand this mentality.
This is what they did in Kiev as well.
Notice how they again moved Casemiro out from the 6 role in their build up from the back. Both times, we most probably targeted him for our press. He’s not Momo Sissoko (and even if he was our defensive midfielder on paper, he logically never came for the ball as Xabi did) suspect technically, but least good of the midfield 3 for sure.
Their midfield trio doesn’t get enough credit in my opinion for the work they did since Casemiro broke through and made that deep position his own, also allowing Modric and Kroos (was used too high at Bayern and then initially too deep at Real, he’s no Alonso, even if his long passing is top quality) the freedom they need and play in the same “line”.
In a team that is often criticised for not being tactically great, not having a certain style, having a lot of egos… that midfield (all hard workers and/or humble characters) was maybe the key part for their recent success, especially in Europe.
No they had not it still is a BS comparison
Great reply I rest my case