I know the defending has not been good enough, we've been conceding too many shots at goal, but please answer my question - in what way has Pickford, before the derby, had to be out of what you'd expect as the ordinary for him to keep teams out?
We've also had a midfield two of Iwobi-Doucoure/Iwobi-Davies/Iwobi-Onana in 4/6 games. Now we've got a midfield three, which should offer more protection, especially with Gana in there - hopefully less shots.
And yes, of course that outstanding derby performance, this early in the season, is going to skew the stats. It can't not do. As I said, Opta's goals prevented (which is a very accurate model) figure jumping from 1.1 to 2.6 in one game is huge.
This is all to say, Pickford is gonna be a massive miss, hopefully not for long. But I also don't think it's outrageous to say we should be able to cope. Arsenal wasn't going to be easy with JP in, it'll be that bit harder now you'd imagine, and yes we do need to defend better, but having a better structure and better players in front of the defence will help with that.
