DOES DEFENCE WIN YOU TITLES?

 

DOES DEFENCE WIN YOU TITLES?

Sir. Alex Ferguson once said, “attack wins you games, but defense wins you titles.” He did just that in his first season at Manchester United conceding nine fewer goals than the next best team defensively. Liverpool’s acquisition of Van Dijk and Alison have been credited to contributing hugely to their clubs triumph in the 2018/19 premier league season and the champions league the following year. All credited to their high defensive solidity, so does defense win you titles? Yes, but only with the right balance.

Looking at the Premier league when it begun in the 1992/93 season to date, the team with the lowest number of goals conceded have won 11 titles. That with the best goal difference have won 21 titles. A team with the best defensive record winning the title applied to United winning the 92/93 season. This has only happened 3 times up to and including Arsenal’s 2003/04 invincible season. Afterwards, it has been witnessed a further 7 times. The 2014/15 season saw Chelsea win the title that year conceding only 32 goals. The next best defensive team was Southampton finishing in 7^th position conceding a goal short than Chelsea as they found scoring hard all due to lack of balance. As much as a team would like not to concede goals, so should it score as many goals as possible. An average of 3 goals per match and conceding 1 would serve just right.

Omar Chaudry neatly sums it all up, “if you’re a very good defensive team, it means matches are lower-scoring and therefore you’re vulnerable to dropping points against weaker teams.” “Whereas if you’re an attacking team its easier to blow away weaker opponents out of your countless attacks on opposition goal.”  According to data collected from the Premier league, LaLiga, Bundesliga and the Serie A, it shows that between 1991 – 2010, the best defensive team won a championship 46% of the time as compared to 51% won by the best attacking team.

When looking at avoiding defeat rather than winning, the goals clubs don’t concede are each 33% more valuable than the goals they score. This means that when looking at winning, scoring goals and not conceding goals are of roughly the same value. That’s the balance needed. When considering how not to drop points by losing, its more valuable to focus on defense, exactly what’s been happening to Manchester United who have not been winning titles.

When avoiding defeat, the goals prevented were worth a third more than goals at the other end for Liverpool. Meaning, a team upgrading its defense like Liverpool, Real Madrid and Manchester City would certainly help them avoid defeat and challenge for the title. As upgrading a pretty poor defense and making it more solid provides a platform for a superb attack with less worries defensively. When that is done, a team can not only archive victory in games but also avoid losing them. That balance really is what wins titles.