Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

One of the most difficult aspects of coaching is deciding on lineups. It is a subjective exercise based on the opinion of the head coach. As such, I don't know if a lineup can be judged to be right or wrong. Effective or ineffective might be a better scale for judging a lineup, but in the end it's really a matter of beauty being in the eye of the beholder.

A first year starting back allows over half his teams goals to be scored through his channel in a zonal defense.  The next year that starting back is moved to a new position for fear of a repeat sieve performance.

A first year starting back takes his place and allows over half of the goals scored against his team to come through his channel in the zonal defense. 

While patience wore thin with the first back and a positional change for him was made. The second back remained where he was allowing the majority of goals scored against his team to come through his channel.

The first back was usually in his channel but played far too aggressively in a vertical sense and not in concert with his back line teammates. The second back was seldom in the correct channel and chased the ball where ever it might go. He was no more in concert with his back line teammates than the first back was. In fact he might have been less so.

I personally see little difference between the two center backs referenced above. Both allowed / allow too many goals through the channel they were responsible for.  Neither worked well with back line teammates. In both cases the players aggressiveness has been used against them. Despite personnel changes at that position, nothing really changed for the team, did it?  It seems goals allowed are more palatable from one as opposed to the other ... and that's just a matter of "beauty" being in the eye of the beholder.