I don’t understand this idea that unless Gomez has been primarily culpable for a goal he can’t be criticized. Goals conceded are rarely the “fault” of just one player.
The point, as I see it, is that in a team committing a slew of collective failures, Joe Gomez isn’t making a positive difference. I sure as shit hope that he doesn’t look back on his performances, shrug his shoulders and go “that wasn’t on me”. Being just as bad as everyone else on the pitch isn’t a get out of jail free card.
I don’t think any of our players are getting unqualified praise at the moment. It is absolutely fair to look at Gomez being part of a defensive unit yet again getting embarrassed and identifying him as part of the problem. He’s not a victim here, he’s demonstrably not showing himself to be part of the solution.
Who said that he can’t be criticized unless he’s primarily responsible for a goal? It’s the exaggerations and scapegoating that are annoying. He’s getting blamed for Alisson screwing up a simple clearance with ample time at his disposal, it’s only natural that’s it’s going to provoke a backlash.
This is ultimately the problem for me. While much of good defending is about being proactive to stop dangerous situations before they even occur, you will still be faced with lose-lose situations where all you can do is make it as hard for the forward as possible by picking the least worst option. Joe seems to have accumulate so many cuts that he doesnt respond well to those situations. Rather than doing what he can to try to salvage it he just looks beaten. See his uncommitted cover run for the 5th goal. The goal isnt “his fault”, but he didnt contribute to trying to salvage the situation, and then what is the point of having a CB so quick if he’s not going to use it?
It is often under appreciated is how good Bobby is in the air. When he has played he has often been in the more important zones when defending set pieces. I wonder how much his lack of game time has contributed to this weakness?
Yes, I think this is the right middle ground. In a sober environment, it is absolute correct to identify the little things that helped contribute to a goal. The challenge with this conversation is the tenor of it. There is so much focus on “blame” as if all that was needed was to just replace Joe with [insert shiny new expensive CB] then those goals arent conceded. That is fantasy land though, but is typically what happens when you’re team is failing. It’s easier to blame 1 player than acknwledge the depth of the issue. Which is why we see Joe criticised both for overhitting the back pass on the 2nd goal and under hitting it. We know it’s Joe’s fault we’re just not entirely convinced why.
My experience with Liverpool online forums goes back to the early 2000s where there was a ton of frustration with Houllier’s approach, where apparently all we needed was a bit of width. No Murphy or Barmby out wide, we needed a proper chalks on your boots winger (because our team didnt have it, the solution was obviously to just add it) and the most vocal opinion was that the answer was Richie Paertridge (a youth team player who was clearly no where near the level required, but was a winger). It’s just what fans do. It’s understandable, but thankfully (hopefully?) the people in charge of sorting out this mess are a bit more clear eyed.
Joe Gomez has been crap. He should be 5th choice CD at best because he can cover RB. But no way on God’s clean earth can he be blamed for the 2nd goal.
Anyone pinning the blame for the 2nd has an agenda or doesn’t know footy.
If he could take any portion of the blame re Alisson f*** up, and it is being picky… he could have run across the RM player as soon as he made the back-pass to stop the forward continuing his run towards Alisson… or he could have made a better angle for Alisson to pass it back to him… as it was Gomez attempting to take the return ball left the passing lane too tight hence it hitting the RM player
It’s not that he us primarily culpable, but why the hate on him or the blaming of many for the 2nd goal and the 3rd, it is just beyond me.
I was initially was critical of the 1st, thinking he should have over defended Vini’s right foot shot as that is his go to finish but it was also down to a great finish as he bent it around the block and perfectly into the corner
Hendo’s move was stupid at the first goal, he tried to be too clever and intercept a pass somewhere else. So many players around Vini, but nobody close to him not to have a shot. Regardless that it went in the far corner. Klopp said it, with so many bodies around, he cannot be allowed to shoot. Or if he does, he needs to be blocked better.
Gomez can do a tiny bit better, like with the pass, but there’s no doubt that Alisson takes 95% of the blame for that one. And it’s not the first time it happened to him. Happens practically a few times per season, sometimes it doesn’t end up in a goal, but those are still terrible mistakes.
It’s worrying lately how much room we leave to opponents when they come at us deep close to or inside our box. You don’t want players lunging into tackles stupidly, you mainly leave the attacker with the ball to show his cards first, but bit by bit, you need to make the distance shorter and time it well to steal the ball or make him go elsewhere.
It’s linked of course with our slowly improving, but still problematic phase when we’re without the ball. And that set-piece was absolutely horrible, I don’t know where to start with it.
Remember the crap he got for committing to block the shot from Mitoma, noe he is getting criticised for not lunging to block the shot from Vini for the 1st goal.
I agree partly on their goal and argued vehemently that he did the right thing on Mitoma’s and in the end the attackers came up with quality that we would love to see in our attakers.
As much as the individual errors that we see are costing us, what directions are they getting from the coaching team? Because I see the same things happening over and over again.
The move against Mitoma was shit, the move against Vini was more or less alright. Can be better ideally, but during the action I think Hendo was in the best position to block Vini, had he not move away like he did.
On Mitoma he blocked the 1st shot making him pull off a sublime piece of skill with quick feet to score on Vini he didn’t and all he did was bend it perfectly with his preferred foot and scored!!!
Even Jurgen was critical and said someone should have got a block in, but I haven’t heard of any criticism from him over Mitioma’s goal although I could be wrong
Yeah that’s right he was… but he stopped two strides early…!
If he had carried on towards the corner flag, the angle for Alisson would have been easier to hit a pass to… and probably missed the RM forward…
Like I said it was me being picky but he has 5yrs of PL action behind him so there is an awful lot of wrinkles in his game that should have been ironed out in that time… Anyway, easy for me to say looking at the TV, hard to grasp sometimes the pace of the game is 100mph eh
