How bad was the defence last season?-League

It was awful.

Can't really rule out conceding 14 from 4 games this season either

We're not going to see a dramatic improvement in our back 3/4/5 until Bellerin, Holding and Tierney are fit and ready imo.

I'm hoping however that the developenent/settling of Guendouzi & Torreira can be a big influence on our defensive performances this year. Plus Ceballos and Pepe hopefully will be more efficient at keeping the ball in the oppositions half.

If we can get all of that right this season, then buy a standout CB & CM next season, we'll definitely be going in the right direction

As long as you've got a strong holding midfielder or two you'll be fine.

A better argument would be to apply our goal conceded average for those four games instead of simply taking fourteen goals off our count. We conceded 1.1 goals per game but for those four mentioned, which puts us on 41, and 5th overall. Which is, of course, where we finished.

I don't think you can make a good argument for ignoring those ten extra goals conceded across four games. They were comfortably the difference between Champions League and fifth and conceding three in a game is not so shocking an anomaly.

Xhaka is still here unfortunately. Hopefully Mustafi will be off sooner than later.