Thread by @nonewthing

Within the past 3 years, United and Liverpool have each spent close to 200M euros trying to improve their defense. City have spent even more.

Yet when Arsenal squeeze out 120 million on young boys like Gabriel, Saliba, White and Tomiyasu, people grumble that it is too much.

People just don't get it.

In this day and age, elite defenders are almost as valuable as top attackers in many ways. One of those ways is in how a top team organizes itself to score. A top team nowadays scores most of its goals with its defenders quite high up the pitch.

This is to compact space and pile pressure on the opposition, making sure that they do not rest or 'get out'. Defenders in top teams are necessarily highly involved in keeping the ball and distributing it. The better they are on the ball, the better your attack can be.

Defenders who can distribute the ball well, win aerial and ground duels, intercept passes and are comfortable in such a high line are extremely rare, increasingly necessary and expensive.

Any one defender in such a backline who is not good enough is disastrous for his team.

In this modern scheme, errors from the defenders are critical, especially (but not only) when it concerns distributing the ball.

Not only are you likely to concede from such an error, your whole team is dragged from attacking positions to come back and organize defensively.

Suffice to say that such errors are not permitted in such a scheme, especially against quality opponents who can punish immediately or seize control of the game via possession.

This is why Liverpool and City have spent so much on high line defenders with enough quality.

One bad defender in such a scheme or even a good high line defender having a bad season is utterly devastating to the entire setup. Remember Otamendi at City? That was a player that didn't have enough quality.

This is why Liverpool have given Van Dijk a new 4-year contract.

This is part of why Ben White and William Saliba were so expensive and why the signings of Tomiyasu and Gabriel have to be regarded as masterstrokes.

This is also why Arsenal found it difficult to score or to even play with coherence with the likes of Mari, Holding, Chambers.

None of these defenders are good enough for a lowblock (with the exception of Holding), much less playing in a high block.

They can't pass it frequently and well enough. They can't win 1-on-1 duels. They can't track runners and cover space in behind. They can't intercept.

No wonder Arsenal play such slow and indecisive football. It all starts from the back, from the beginning. The quicker it comes from there, the better for Arsenal.

The whole Arteta system rests on having quality high line defenders.

Same for Klopp and Pep. Make or break soccer.

When it works, you have a 90-point team. When it doesn't, you have what Arsenal have been playing and what City played with a title-wining squad in Guardiola's first year.

Defence is still what guarantees winning in modern football. Ask City or Liverpool fans.

It will be amazing to people how Arsenal will play much better football over the rest of this season with White, Tomiyasu, Gabriel and Partey in.

Over the next few years, Arsenal will never buy a poor high line defender again. This is the effect of Juego De Posicion at a club.