that match was set up to be disruptive, all over the pitch. each team was pressing and setting traps on the second pass. I found it interesting that City’s press started in the middle third of the pitch whilst Liverpool’s press starts with the keeper. I’ve just not been a fan of starting the press that high, it’s a lot of expended energy for what is little reward against a match like City. Much rather the strikers try to cut the passing lanes and force City to play balls over the top instead of playing so high and giving space to their midfielders to be able to turn with the ball. Especially DeBruyne.
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I’d disagree with this part. Considering it’s worked well so far, and even on a day when so many would rather believe we were comprehensively outplayed, we didn’t give up that many goals. It even took a lucky deflection off a free kick that was not taken in the correct position to give up one of the two.
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it works well when we’re playing a team that’s not got the composure or talent on the ball. But when you’re playing against one of the best teams in the world, what worked against Newcastle may not be as effective at the Etihad away.
When I see tired legs making rash challenges in the final 15min, I wonder how much all that energy expenditure trying to press/trap in the opposition’s 18yd box is actually being used effectively. Especially when you see them stand off our CB and shut down our passing lanes to the midfield, effectively forcing us to hoof it up the pitch. Or a high-risk pass into the center (how many times!!) that was intercepted to launch a counter.
Possession stats in first half pretty indicative how how effective that strategy really is.
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Which happens to be the best way to play against us, as suggested by many pundits anyway. Doesn’t change the fact that City are a good team who happen to be better than most other sides that we play, and so have the ability to match it better. On the other hand, shifting our tactics for this one game may cost us more, given how we (theoretically at least) play better when everyone knows where each other is, almost instinctively. Look how long it took us to settle into the tactics at the back last season, and how much it affected our attacking game. City managed to work out how to stifle us, but we obviously tweaked enough to more than match them in the second half.
Yet for all that possession, they scored one lucky goal and had a well-worked one, and yet conceded one against us.
you and I both know that it was pure luck and a LOT of reprieve from Anthony Taylor that we didn’t lose at least one midfielder and the match. the fact that many consider this draw at Etihad a success should give you an indication that it wasn’t our best match. My reasoning for the dislike of the extremely high press that Klopp dictates, is how doggedly tired the lads were in the final 15min. Had they backed off a bit and congested the center of the pitch more, I think City would have had a tougher time advancing the ball.
Either you play their game, or they play yours. But sometimes you need a plan B when Plan A is running you into the ground.
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Pure luck? I’m puzzled as to why it’s luck when we do things well, but it’s just our poor play when opponents do things well.
Yes, because it’s well-known that us football fans are the best judge of tactics, right? Despite how many were losing their shit over the first half, we actually had the higher expected goals.
I’d agree about congestion of the centre, but not about backing off. I think our overall movement was just a touch off, in part because of the way they were playing, which meant that we were less effective than we normally are. In the second half, our positioning tightened up, so it was easier.
I think it’s ridiculous to assume that this wasn’t planned and accounted for, especially considering how much we monitor the fitness of the players on the pitch.
What does that even mean? Some kind of weird metric that tries to justify the huge number of turnovers in neutral area?
Which feeds to my point. When our strikers are trying to pressure the ball in the opponents pen area, it opens up space behind them that City could receive a pass and turn. We saw it multiple times. Our CB’s cannot advance must farther than the halfway line (offside rule) or a quick ball from Ederson sees Sterling with acres of space for a ball over the top. So our positioning is stretched 40 yards and leaves gaps.
really hard to play a trap or gegenpress when you allow that much space between the lines. Which is why I dislike the high press so much.
Henderson is a great athlete but he was knackered at 75min and he’s not that old yet. But he had to do so much running to try and cover those gaps that he was gassed. around the same time, you saw Thiago and Fab both struggling to keep up to play as their legs were done as well. Lucky to have them both on the pitch at the end.
To take a Michael Owen approach, it means that statistically speaking, they were less likely to score than we were.
Which happens all the time no matter who we play. Our press is engineered to find induce turnovers higher up the pitch, and it requires getting the positions right. More often than not, it tends to happen exactly as it did in yesterday’s match, where it results in occasional giveaways up front, but the bulk of the work is done in the midfield/defence. We speed up the opponents’ play so we can effectively force them to play quicker balls, which can either catch their forwards offside, or result in wayward passing that allows us to regain possession.
My faulting of our play yesterday was more laterally, where we let them have too much space horizontally across the pitch, rather than closing in the gaps so they don’t really have much of an option. We normally do that, such that they have to play it longer, which our other players can then intercept, but when the positioning is off, or the opponents have the ability to do evade it better, then it’s harder for us, especially with the threat of runners through midfield.
With a team like City, we’re always going to give up some chances, and it’s about limiting them to worse chances, hence the use of the expected goals metric to see how well we did on that front. They would then have a lower probability of scoring a goal from those chances that they do get. Look at this for instance: http://www.soccer-blogger.com/2022/04/10/xg-man-city-vs-liverpool-2022-april-expected-goals-chances-shots-map-mcfc-2-2-lfc-53197-attendance/
again, when you’re stretched 40 yards vertically up the pitch from the half to the opponent’s pen area, you cannot cover that much ground in a midfield three horizontally. Can you see what I’m saying yet? Stretched too thin. Exhaustion, ball chasing, etc. If we shorten up the area which we genenpress, there’s less space for City to play in.
I do get what you’re saying, but it’s something we normally do, and keep up our fitness levels for. It’s only really tested here because City are a better opponent than most that we face, but it doesn’t mean it was the wrong strategy here. It might have looked worse off visually, but I trust that the analytics team knew what they were doing.
You might not disagree, but I guess that’s just to be expected given our different perspectives on how our football is approached.
I’m good with that. most importantly, we’re still in the hunt. we’ll see if City can run the table with 7 games left.
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Also next season we will have 5 subs and will be able to bring on more fresh legs in midfield. For me I would like to seee him transition in to the 6 role more next season.
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Great point Semmy especially in regards to Hendo as he was jumping from midfield a lot to press high on the right whilst Thiago did it, to a lesser extent, on the left, which would be very tiring.
about the only player whom we don’t have a solid cover for yet, is Fab. Hendo can in a pinch but he doesn’t read the game as well as Fab nor does he have that tackling ability.
I know Morton is on his way up but needs more experience
Against City I feel Hendo is a better 6 as he is more of a jockeying 6 and doesn’t over commit, which Fab did against City and I feel that his positioning is just as good in that respect.
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So it should be. He’ll be in his 33rd year next season.
He could really do with retiring from international football at this point.
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Yep it showed on Sunday we really aren’t the most athletic of midfields, certainly an area needing some reinforcements come the summer to inject some energy back into it.
I think he would be after the Q22.
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There really isn’t, because you’re really only considering the space between the lines so largely ignoring the space behind the back line. That is why is it is so important to push that up as high as we do so the space to play in in between is smaller.