1. The same team played 100x better against City a few days previously than against Villa, even though City is a much better side. Simple fact. What had changed?
2. How do you propose we make Ivanovic run faster? Bartley a better defender? Ajayi a better passer? How do we get Sawyers to suddenly be the DM we need?
Like I said, it's all well and good saying we need to defend better but these are the defenders we have.
1. You've not answered my question. I will do you the courtesy of answering yours. The difference was the red card.
2. He will put a system in place that hides individual weaknesses, your examples: Ivanovic (play deeper), Bartley (dropped), Ajayi (instructed to get rid), Sawyers (dropped or deployed further forward). You know, just like Hodgson did for the RDM team and Pulis did for the Irvine team, before him.
They will be drilled on shape and patterns of play. It was widely reported Hodgson did one session a week that was like musical statues, just getting the players into defensive shape. It was reported Pulis did several sessions on defensive positioning that didn't involve a football on the training pitch. These are areas that were obviously overlooked by Bilić and his staff.