If things don’t work out for Slot and he is sacked by Liverpool at some point this season, he will definitely have more coaching jobs in his future. He did well in the Eredivisie and then he won the Prem at Liverpool. That will get the attention of lots of teams, even if this season hasn’t gone well.
Who knows what the next opportunity might be for him? Could be a stint back in the Eredivisie, or one of the teams mentioned, or something else. He is young and will have years to continue to carve out his career.
I am hoping something sparks for him to turn it around at Liverpool. We are struggling but we are definitely much better than this.
I do, but a lot of people won’t particularly like it because it would mean dropping Salah and Gakpo - although with both of their forms being pretty poor this season, it may not be a bad thing.
I would go with Isak and Ekitike up front together with Wirtz in the hole pulling the strings for them.
The biggest problem with that idea is depth. If we lose Wirtz - who can come in to cover him? Same with losing 1 of Isak or Ekitike, the back up isn’t there to play 2 up front with acceptable cover
That’s what I wanted to say, someone has to drop. And the diamond is not going to happen, I don’t think. I actually feel it could make us look even worse.
Put a gun to my head how do I put them 3 in, I’d probably say Wirtz in the right half-space, more tucked in as the 4th midfielder, Ekitike on the left in a “Salah” role and Isak up top.
We have to recuperate the team, this isn’t about how do we field our most expensive signings in, no matter what.
The shit thing about Isak is that we’re all battling to get him fit and firing.
Michael Cox has been writing some articles for the Athletic on formations and talks about how the diamond formation has largely underperformed as a system and is rarely used - in part because of how football has moved on.
If we had been able to bring in Guehi I wonder if we would have tried a 343/352 set up during our run of poor form (even though Arne I think has usually opted for 433/4231 type set ups throughout his career, I think I read somewhere years ago about the 343 belonging to the family of the 433 system Ajax/ Cruyff/Michels developed?
It’s one of the things I wrote about the diamond a few weeks ago. Might go and read his article. I wonder how people imagine we would press and especially defend, if we employed a diamond with the mentioned players?
On the 3 at the back theory, I’d probably say no. If Guehi came, I guess on form he would’ve got the chance very quickly to come in instead of Konate. Then who knows how it would’ve evolved, it also depends how the player does.
And if you want a slightly weird opinion/prediction, Guehi could have possibly even threaten some of our full backs.
A little bit, yeah. That crossed my mind here and there. Though from what I see so far, I’d say Moreno was technically better overall. Kerkez looks to be a better tackler though.
I wonder how much of Kerkez’s performances here are a result of the other issues the team seems to have? He was excellent at Bournemouth.
I also wonder if we were to get Semenyo, who could probably offer something similar to Diaz, whether that would also help us get the best of Kerkez too?
I know it isn’t fashionable these days, but I’m starting to wonder if we shouldn’t go back to the type of formations Rafa used to employ, especially first half to try and stop conceding fucking goals every 15-20 minutes. Keep it tight and maybe nick a goal, go more attacking as the game opens up.
Basically a 4-5-1 type set up. Remembering back to Torres with Gerrard in behind him, I wonder if it could work for us?
In front of the back 4 maybe have Grav and Endo sitting (and staying put) in the Alonso/Masch role with Dom and Mac either side doing the Kuyt/Benny type roles and Wirtz in behind Hugo (or maybe Hugo in behind Isak) - Not 100% sure on the personnel (Frimpong in the Kuyt role if he was fit - but he isn’t) but in principle it would make us much harder to beat and if we could get to half time without conceding then we stand a better chance of gaining confidence and going on to win the game, if Hugo or Florian can nick a goal then we are in a great position. This is only to get us going again as something has to change NOW! I’m not suggesting this is our strongest formation long term or anything.
Any thoughts?
FWIW, I dont get the reservation at all about how you’d press from this formation. Almost no pressing approaches have players defending in what approximates their defensive position in paper anyway.
That is pretty consistent with Cox’s point…the issue is less that you cannot press out of a diamond, but more the compactness makes it easier for teams who press you to give you problems.
The diamond also doesn’t work particularly well in an era based on pressing. There’s nothing particularly wrong with the diamond as a pressing shape of its own — the attacking midfielder can push forward to become an extra striker, and you’re pressing with a 4-3-3. Besides, the lateral compactness of the shape can actually be very effective at boxing opponents towards one flank and suffocating their attempts to play through the lines.
But that same compactness can, equally, make it easy for pressing sides to overwhelm the diamond. The distances are short and easy for the opposition to cover. The passing lanes are simple to shut down. There’s no out-ball. The diamond means teams play their way into trouble.
I obviously haven’t watched a lot of Bournemouth full games, but I would hope people paid to make these decisions saw some of Kerkez’s aspects we see at Liverpool even at Bournemouth.
I’m not sure whether they (Kerkez and Semenyo) played a lot down the same side? If you bring a player, there has to be more reasons.
If we bring Semenyo, I guess he comes in the hierarchy as a competitor on both wings (and an outside option up top if needed), especially the left and probably pushes Chiesa out the door (either in January or next summer).
The idea of having Grav as a CB is to have him bring the ball out of defence, however as you said this is also mostly done by Arne to get an extra forward on and therefore losing shape and options in midfield.
If Arne thinks it suits us having Grav as a ball playing CB, then try it with a midfield in front and a coherent shape.
It’s not about positions, but the type of players you have, what it morphs into. Then how do you defend when the press doesn’t work.
Even when you have amazing runners like Gattuso and Seedorf as two #8’s in Milan’s diamond. Fast forward a season or two from Istanbul, they were in a compact 4-4-2 (at times a 4-3-2-1, also rare), basically everything built around bringing the best out of Kaka as a central #10 or second striker better to say.
It’s not the same thing having Zidane, Kaka, Firmino, Wirtz or Szoboszlai as the single #10.
