It raised a few eyebrows when we spent most of our summer budget on a keeper and 3 defenders, but I think we’re starting to see why now. The defence needed to be rebuilt.
Last season’s defence could defend well, but they couldn’t play high and that seriously stretched our midfield and isolated our attack. It also needed midfielders to constantly drop back to get moves started.
This year’s defence has the athleticism and recovery pace to play high and they can also distribute (some of them can even take the ball for a walk if they need to) and there’s far less distance between front and back, and we no longer need midfielders to drop back to get things started. It’s debatable whether we even need a deep passer like Xhaka at all in midfield now we have Ramsdale, White and Tomi showering balls around (Gabriel’s distribution looks like it’s come on a level too this year).