Zezti
Player Valuation: £70m
Looked at some defence stats for Koeman, and thought this was an interesting comparison. We know that Goals against is marginally better than last season, but for a couple of years we've had a serious issue with causing our own problems, and making defensive mistakes.
I think this may be what Koeman saw as the first thing to sort - getting the stupid errors out of our game.
Compare the defensive errors and errors leading to goals stats over last 3 1/2 years.
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Now some of that has come from being less risky at the back, and taking less chances on the ball - hence the increase in long balls, which for me is not a tactic in terms of how we intend to attack, but more a consequence of ensuring we don't make the same stupid mistakes at the back and knowing when to clear your lines.
This is still a work in progress, but this change in the type of goal we concede, and not gifting teams goals, is definitely a positive and something to build on.
Good stuff, but its not just about being less risky, you could also put that down to having a better defensive midfield protecting our back 4. They'd be under a lot more pressure and make more mistakes if it wasn't for Gana breaking things up before it gets to them. That's where Koeman and el Bob really differ - el Bob wanted his deep midfield to join the attack whereas Koeman wants them to be, well, defensive midfielders...