I’d say pretty standard and especially from a player of his qualities. Yes, he had a bit of time on the ball, but our back line was the worst part of it. Credit to Vinicius, showed some good receiving of the ball at full pace, control and finish. That was also nicely done.
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I’d say getting the microscope out to dissect a split second of the game to try and pin the blame on a specific player is a massive waste of time.
That split second did not cost the game, it was the entire game plan that failed, and a bit of credit required to World Cup winners Benzema and Kroos, Balon D’or winner Modric, and vinicuis junior, who everyone thinks is just another youth striker when he is much much more, and one we will likely talk about for years to come. Feels as if we just assume RM are shit because of their ageing squad and missing CBs.
No shame in being beaten last night when the defenders are Nat and Ozan. The shame is all down to the game plan - in my humble opinion of course.
My views on Nat have not changed after last night.
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I can’t believe so many people are focusing on Kroos being under no pressure. It might not be what we expect to see from our team, but opposition midfielders getting time on the ball deep inside their own half is perfectly normal. It’s only an explanation for how you got beaten by one long straight ball from so deep IF we had been pressing, but they were clever enough to play their way through it and then exploited our high line. But we’d spent 30 minutes barely competing in that area of the pitch, so why are we expecting our defenders to be playing as if we are? In the context of a game in which either through design or lack of competency we’re not getting any pressure on them in their own half, the defenders have to play accordingly and it is thoroughly unacceptable to get beaten by 1 ball from that position. You can’t just hold your hands up and ask why no pressure was put on Kroos when for the entire game no pressure had been put on him in those deep positions.
It was utterly pathetic defending from 2 players (Trent and Phillips) who seemed to have a combination of not being aware of the threat or expecting each other to deal with it. Their third goal came from the same sort of mental issue, with Vinicius finding the position between Trent and Phillips and neither of them taking responsibility for it.
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Yes, Vinicius did that beautifully and the ball was great as well. I read your previous post and went through it frame by frame bearing in mind your points. There is a little half step forward from Phillips in a frame between 07 and 08 while Vinicius has just started in on his run and Phillips then compounds his lack of pace by trying to get the ball instead of dropping straight back. His reading of that was really poor, he should have been closer to Trent and dropping off two yards further once it becomes clear that the ball over the top is on. Having limitations is fair enough but not reading the game is going to expose it harshly. Its pointless comparing him with top class defenders as that is really unfair on him and it is what it is I suppose.
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Ultimately this is why I cant get all hand wringey about it. We’re trying to win a CL with a player at CB who is at best a mid level championship player. By itself that is a handicap that is unrealistic to expect us to overcome. But it is compounded by who he is playing in place of, a player who seemingly tied a lot of things together at the back whose absence would be showing in the performance of other defenders even if his replacements was a Cl caliber player.
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At least they made an effort!
Phillips did his best which clearly wasn’t good enough but then that would be expected knowing how he struggles when the ball is on the ground. It’s clear he hasn’t the technical ability at this level but at least he tries.
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This is/was the problem I see why is Salah having to do that job, where are the midfield, they aren’t on Kross and they aren’t helping Trent and that for the whole 1st half; It was Salah chasing back a 100 yards all the time the poor sod must have been knackered after 10 minutes of chasing back then chasing back up field to be in position to attack.
No, they did not oké, they were exposed to their lack of speed and height. I have no problem with that, they are what they are but they were not okè they are just the best what we have at the moment.
We are we arguing about who’s fault it was? It was everyone’s fault.
Madrid’s plan was clearly to drop balls into the channel between Trent and Phillips, betting that Phillips would not be quick enough on the turn to get back and Trent’s starting position is pretty high anyway.
Kroos and Modric had a lovely evening, and were given all the time in the world to pick those passes. They should have been under more pressure, but it was a collectively piss poor midfield performance.
Yes, Phillips should have done better with that ball, whether that’s starting position, pace or speed on the turn. But I don’t see the point in slagging him off. We know his level. We know what he is. He is doing a good job for us, but him limitations are always going to be there for a team like Madrid to exploit.
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I give more credit to Real. When you kill the press, it often can look like the team didn’t even want to press, which was wrong. We did in the first few minutes, but it quickly broke. They’re technically outstanding and we don’t play very often against that type of side. Sure, our performance could’ve/should’ve been better, but I was really not surprised how they killed our pressing attempts in possession.
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I dont think it’s the midfield’s problem here. Kroos is so deep it had to be one of Mane / Jota to press him and the midfield would naturally shuffle a little to that side.
if it isn’t Salah then it has to be TAA and Phillips needs to shift one over and cover Vinicius.
But my main issue here was that it was a collective balls up. There was no major error by any one player. It was a combination of smaller errors and some really good play to open the gap.
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Their technical expertise is undisputed but it was never really challenged. That pathetic attempt to press was never going to bother them. They can be got to with pressing and have suffered from it plenty of times in the past.
In any case, the failure to provide even basic cover does not excuse Phillips and TAA for being atrocious at the right side of the defence, although it is also unquestionable that it made matters even worse.
Yeah but with the holes we have at the back, even with a better press I was not confident they would not cause us more problems than we would them. And I’m aware that we can’t flip to a Benitezesque pragmatic system. We have little space for maneuvering tactics. I’m not susprised. We have a chance, but I expected us to go out. A good Real is a little bit too good for this Liverpool I’m afraid. Leipzig and Arsenal can’t go in the same sentence with them.
The midfield was woeful and certainly did not help at all, but the defenders were always going to get put under pressure against Madrid. We can’t play every game against Emile Forsberg or Willian Jose.
Phillips didn’t spot danger quickly enough and every tackle he tried to make he ended up on the floor.
Kabak was left on his own against Benzema a few times and managed to tackle/put him off just enough to make it difficult to score. Phillips loves to dive in and leave us exposed or is simply too far away from his man on too many occasions. Every defensive action from Phillips is a booming header or lunging tackle, he doesn’t do the subtle stuff well (or at all).
To his credit he’s not (or hasn’t been) error prone, it’s just his general level of defending certain situations is quite poor.
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Which is absolutely fine when you understand that. That’s purely a result of the utter shite we’ve had to deal with this season. But last night we didn’t deal with it. You set your midfield up to offer some protection along with a forward line again pushed to provide protection. That simply didn’t happen, not in any shape or form and that back 4 were exposed time after time as real cut through the first two lines of defense as if they weren’t even there. Add in our charitable level of passing it honestly looked like we had 11 Championship level players out there.
I honestly thought Phillips and Kabak did what they could but there’s only so much you can do under that level of barrage. To be honest if we’d have had Matip, Gomez and / or VvD in there last night I still reckon we would have lost given the utter garbage that we witnessed in front of them.
In some ways it was a miracle that it wasn’t Villa all over again (cold shivers). In my mind, blaming the defense for last nights shit shower is just easy scape goating. Collectively we were a disaster. We could have played Accrington Stanley last night and still lost.
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Any of those 3 and Real don’t score two of their three goals. All three cut the balls to Vinicius out that Phillips failed to. I hate that I’m making so many posts over how bad he did. It’s Real Madrid. Its taken a long time for him to be exposed and its taken one of the top teams in the world to do it. There’s zero shame. But people trying to argue why things aren’t the way they are to try and give him a pass isn’t helpful Its just extending the debate and dragging out the negative appraisals. Any decent CB cuts out two of the Real Madrid goals that Phillips wasn’t able to due to his limitations. Its that simple. If everyone could just accept that instead of looking for some other reason so they ignore the simple fact (that Phillips isn’t good enough for this level and we shouldn’t have ended up in a situation were we had to rely on him) then the discussion would have ended hours ago. Nice bloke, desperately trying to do all he can to not let us down but he’s in over his head and last night was the first time it bit us on the arse.
They find another way because that’s what good teams do. We had 7-8 players on the pitch last night that were non existent. You carry on blaming Phillips, I’ll blame the totally insipid performance from everyone else.
Villa tore us a new one playing poorly. Do you honestly believe that Real wouldn’t have done just that because Phillips wasn’t playing? I think that’s incredibly harsh on Phillips and rather ignoring how badly everyone else was.
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I’m not ignoring how badly we played. HOWEVER Real weren’t getting joy the way they got joy with decent CBs there. Maybe the game gets away from us in different ways, maybe we get some confidence and start holding onto the ball better it’s bullshit trying to accurately predict. What we know is for all Reals quality and our vulnerability they won by scoring 3 goals. Our situation at CB directly allowed them to score 2 and didn’t help with the 3rd. Its like sticking a bicycle wheel on a motorbike and then when it collapses blaming the riders skill, going too fast or slow, the surface of the road. No it was that, for whatever reason, we had to use an ill fitting part that wasn’t up to the job. It’s not the parts fault and we pretty much had no other choice but that’s what caused it. Debates about whether or not that changes the end result is pointless as none of us can ever know. Real don’t try those balls and certainly don’t score those goals if we still had a fit VvD, Matip or Gomez there though.
And the Villa game is a ridiculous example. Yes we played poor and they surprised us but they literally scored like 2000 perfectly deflected goals.
And yet TAA escapes your wrath because you’ve already made your mind up on Phillips. It was the channel between TAA and Phillips that Real went after. I’ve already explained above why TAA has a case to answer for on the first goal.
But you seem to be happy to ignore these issues along with the fact that we are apparently a pressing team that allowed the opposition playmaker to have all the time in the world in his own half, knowing full well he has the ability to ping a 40 yard pass to any willing runner.
if Phillips was so bad why didn’t Klopp pull him after 40 minutes? Subtle hint. He wasn’t the only culprit.
To use your analogy. You’re blaming the wheel when in actual fact you also forgot to change the brakes and the crash you had was a consequence of failing to stop.