You can always be too close to the problem. Human nature.
I think one thing that’s disappointing me is we’ve always had a meritocracy under Klopp but it doesn’t feel like it this year. Players who have been doing rubbish on the pitch still keep getting played. Other players have come in and done OK then never get on the pitch again.
I think with the limiting of training time Klopp has doubled down on picking players he feels he can most trust based on qualities he knows they have over how they’ve performed in recent games. Hence Origi regularly being used as an impact sub and Firmino playing week in week out despite both being awful recently whilst on the pitch. Guys like Minamino played, did well and then didn’t get seen again till he went on loan.
In the league I’d seriously consider an attacking mid behind two forwards giving an extra player deeper. The front 3 with pace/threat wide and a false 9 is running flat and listless against the defensive set ups in the league. Jones feeding Salah and Jota. With Shaqiri and Firmino alternatives to Jones and Mane and Origi the back ups to Salah and Jota.
Thought we were going to see that against Fulham but Shaqiri got pushed wide when he doesn’t have the pace for it, Salah was isolated without support and Jota too far away so they could concentrate on Mo whilst Jota was too far away from goal.
We scored two against Villa, that would be fine enough if we were scoring two on average for the last 3 months.
Adrian was abysmal and we also missed Hendo plus half of their goals had a deflection, yes it was awful result but it was a anomaly, bar City we haven’t had another result like that in this period.
Yes we haven’t been our best since Watford but there is a massive chasm between the form between restart and December and the form now, plenty of games to choose in which we dominated and created and scored goals. Since Palace our creation has been steadily dropping to the point where one of the halves last week we were at 0.07 expected goals.
Using Villa as a point to why we’ve been shit for more than 12 months ignores the fact we were top by 4 points on Christmas Day.
This is not patchy form which I kind of expected this season, this is drop off the cliff type form.
It is a cliff drop, can’t be argued. The reasons why seem to elude our best manager in recent memory. Says a lot that. The guy who turned us from doubters to believers, won number 6 and put us firmly back at the pinnacle of English football (a monumental achievement) seems to be at a loss. Deep shit.
Lick the asses of PGMOL, PL, FA etc. so that they take mercy on us and stop screwing. Alternatively, we can break few kneecaps to address the issue.
Give the players a proper rest. The key players have been defying physical and mental boundaries for three seasons and they are just knackered at the moment.
Get some proper backups. Most of the workload in last three seasons has been shouldered by a group of 14-15 players. The rest (for whatever reasons) have been little more than fringe players.
Add a bit of tactical diversity. Buy someone who can bring something different to the table.
My two (or four) pennies…but not this Penny though
An unspoken truth about Klopp’s title-winning Liverpool is that they don’t contain many obviously great individuals
Horseshit. Absolute horseshit. Of our first team at the time we won the league about 7 or 8 of them were genuinely in a conversation about being the best in the world in their position.
It makes a leap from the cavalier run to our first final to winning the league, suggesting that this mad football couldn’t last. In truth Liverpool haven’t done the ‘heavy metal football’ thing for at least two years.
I too found problems with the comment about not having many great individuals. But it does underscore the extent to which some of our players are underrated.
For instance Mane. And I’m reminded by no less a person than Messi’s comments about him wrt WPOY…
Then there’s Gini Wjinaldum, who in last 2yrs has consistently been one of the top 3 CMs in the world; next to Kimmich and Thiago…
Then Firminho in that specialist central attacking playmaking role, in which IMO, only Benzema is probably better.
Its a disappointing side of what was probably the first insightful article I’ve seen on the LFC situation…
It’s never been a simple thing. But the whole side running on fumes has been a huge issue for the attack. A lot don’t seem to want to admit that Premier League opposition have learnt how to nullify the way we set up our 433 too.
If we try and walk the ball into the box as Gini attempted at least four times only to pass it to a bloke in so little space then yea you can defend that time after time.
A league one side could defend against that, it’s like a training match, so I’m sorry no ones learnt how to play against us, we’ve learnt how to play a piss poor version of how we’ve been playing for the last 2 years
If you look at everything we created tonight it was quick one or two touch.
Seemingly, getting Fabinho back into midfield contributed a lot to fix things.
He’s absolutely immense in there, does a lot to get our midfield ticking, breaks up opposing moves and protects the defenders so well. World-class.
In the last two games, we created more chances than in the ten games before that. So he seems to be the glue we needed to get the parts together again.
The forwards, especially Mané and Bobby, have been shite at converting their rare chances, but if more chances come along, then they’ll get back to a better shot/conversion ratio. Having Jota back is also a big factor obviously. He knows where the goal is and how to hit it.
Sorry completely disagree. It is learning. It’s learning that you can leave Wijnaldum on the ball, he’s almost never going to score against you and even less likely to get an assist with a through ball or cross. Just let him knock himself out dribbling up field, don’t panic and act like the pigeons when the cat is in amongst you (the reaction it used to have) and instead concentrate on who he’s going to be passing it sideways to, make sure they’re not going to have any avenues to create assists or open up chances, they’re who you press not Gini. Extending that Firmino used to drag defenders all over the place creating openings for Salah and Mane to exploit, making little flicks into those areas it was great. Now they just ignore him, wait till eventually he tries something that gives the ball away, concentrate on holding their shape, blocking his long range shooting options a bit and watch for Salah and Mane moving instead. Also when they are on the ball Firmino and Gini had instrumental roles in pressing them creating turn overs that caused panic and confusion in their team we were masters of exploiting. They don’t play ball any more and move ball fast, some teams play it down field, others go for quick passing play, some play it out to the wings. But they move it away from our pressing areas, along with how tired, slow and burnt out we’ve been that’s completely killed any effective pressing which was two thirds of Gini and Bobby’s jobs whenever the opposition had the ball. Those two in particular were essential in how our 433 worked and between tactically negating them, tiredness in our squad and bad form they just aren’t anywhere near as effective as they were. That’s my opinion at least.
Some of the finishing from our forwards recently has been nothing short of embarrassing. Absolute sitters being squandered. Some chances you’d expect a 12 year old to finish. Hopefully Klopp will unearth a Lewandowski mkII this off season. Don’t care where he’s plucked from we could do with someone clinical who only needs a half chance to score, not 10 chances. 75 attempts for 3 goals is not good enough for any team.
You don’t go from that last season to this though, chance creation of 0.07 in the first half against a team as open as Chelsea.
That’s not one team figuring out a system, that’s one team not having to bother to stop a front three as blunt as some spoons.
Hasn’t surprised me since Jota came back that we are starting to miss stuff, not just not create stuff.
The energy and quickness was there in the two RBL games, other teams since Palace haven’t done half as good as some at defending and yet the form went off a cliff. We were still doing those aimless crosses today but a few set pieces looked better, that one from TAA that Kabak nearly gets on for one.
I do think Jota staying fit gives us a guy who doesn’t over complicate it in front of goal, maybe teams have figured it out, I’m more of the assumption that we’ve completely gone off the boil.
Let’s face it that 3 goals with 78 shots on target, I haven’t seen a bad a stat as that from any team, the fact of the matter is until recently those shots just haven’t been very good.
I still think we’ve been a totally different team in Europe than we showed in the league however it’s only our second run of two wins since Palace.
Wolves are pretty blunt but I think if the injury doesn’t happen that we probably score a late second today.
